Kael awoke to the scent of burnt metal and the taste of blood in his mouth. The sky above was the same fractured canvas of violet and black, but something had changed. The air felt heavier, charged. His heart pounded with unfamiliar rhythm, like a second pulse beneath the first.
He sat up slowly. Pain lanced through his body—not the dull ache of bruises or hunger, but something deeper, like his bones were being reshaped from the inside. He opened his tunic and looked down.
There, in the center of his chest where his Talent Core resided, was a faint glow. Not the orange flicker of Soothing Ember. This was different. Gray, like smoldering ash, ringed with black veins that pulsed outward in slow waves.
Kael touched the spot. It was warm, alive.
Then he heard it.
A whisper.
Not a voice, not exactly—more like a presence in his mind, a resonance that echoed without words. It surged with emotion: sorrow, fury, yearning. It wasn't speaking, it was remembering. He gasped as a flood of fragmented visions poured into him.
He saw a battle on a burning bridge. A woman cloaked in ash and feathers singing a lullaby that caused wounds to close and enemies to scream in agony. He saw a temple crumbling in slow motion, buried beneath a thousand years of dust. He saw a baby wrapped in silk, left on a doorstep, glowing faintly with emberlight.
Then—darkness.
Kael clutched his head and screamed. The memories weren't his. They were fragments of whoever—whatever—was now fused with his Talent Core.
The pain faded slowly, like a wave receding from shore. He lay there, shivering, for what felt like hours.
---
By the time he stood, the sunless day had passed. The stars above flickered erratically, like dying lanterns.
He needed to move.
He scavenged what he could from the ruins—a cracked compass, dried fungusroot from the lab pantry, and a cloak half-eaten by mothmice. He wrapped the Talent Codex in cloth and stuffed it into his satchel.
Then he looked at the horizon.
To the east: the Gloomspire Wastes, haunted by sky-eaters and echo wolves. To the north: the Graveglass Dunes, home to scavenger kings and wandering bloodsmiths. And far, far west, past the crater-fields and thunder valleys, was the Verdant Scar—a place spoken of only in the oldest clan songs.
It was there, Kael had read, where the fusion experiments had begun centuries ago. Where Talent Scholars once tried to break the laws of inheritance. Where Ash Genesis was first dreamed into being.
He would go there.
But first, he had to survive.
---
The next two days tested every ounce of his will.
His new talent—if it could be called that—was unpredictable. At night, when the wind carried ghostlight spores and echo creatures howled in the dark, his chest would flicker gray, and the air would grow warmer. Once, when a bone-leech slithered near his camp, the flame pulsed, and the leech turned to salt.
Kael had no idea how he had done it.
During the day, he practiced.
He tried to summon a flame like before, but now it emerged differently. Not from his hands, but from within. It wasn't just heat—it was essence. A slow, heavy warmth that could both burn and bind.
When he touched a dead root with the gray flame, it didn't catch fire. It sprouted.
When he pressed it against his bruised leg, the pain dulled.
When he focused it into his palm and shouted, it surged like a wave and split a stone in two.
Kael fell to his knees after each use, exhausted.
But it was real.
He had a new Talent.
No—a fusion. A blend of Soothing Ember and something else. He didn't know what it was yet, but he could feel it growing. Evolving.
---
On the third night, he encountered others.
He had built a fire near the ruins of an old signal tower when he heard movement. Quick, light steps. Not Bonecoil—too graceful.
Kael grabbed a rusted spear he had salvaged and crouched.
From the dark emerged three figures in gray cloaks, faces half-covered with rebreather masks. Their eyes glowed faintly, marked by Talent.
One of them stepped forward. A woman, older than Kael but not by much, held up her hand.
"We saw your flame," she said. Her voice was metallic from the mask. "No one lights fires in the Wastes unless they're insane. Or strong."
Kael hesitated. "Who are you?"
"Drifters," she said. "Like you. Talentless. Forgotten. Broken."
He frowned. "I'm not broken."
She tilted her head. "That flame in your chest disagrees."
The other two moved closer. One was a tall man with a bandaged eye and a massive crystal-blade on his back. The other was a younger girl, eyes wide and alert, who held a living compass that twitched like a nervous bird.
"What do you want?" Kael asked.
The woman studied him. "To offer you a choice. We have a map. A path through the Graveglass. But we need fire. Real fire. Yours."
Kael clenched his fists. "Why should I trust you?"
She pulled back her hood.
A mark was burned into her throat—the brand of a Talent Clan. The Seal of the Hollow Sun.
"Because I escaped them," she said. "And you will need help if you're planning to do the same."
Kael's breath caught. The Hollow Sun were alchemic zealots who hunted fusion-bearers.
He looked at his flickering chest.
Then at the strangers.
Then at the long, dark road ahead.
"Alright," he said, slowly. "Let me see the map."
The girl with the living compass smiled faintly.
Kael didn't know it then, but this moment—this fire in the ruins, this uneasy alliance—was the beginning of the Emberbound Path.
And of everything that would follow.