Chapter 96
The scroll had no title.
Just ink faded by time and sealed with a strange symbol—two mirrored flames, one white, one black.
Eliendara unrolled it slowly, her pulse pounding louder with each line she read.
The words were etched in desperation.
As if the one who wrote them didn't want to remember…but couldn't bear to forget.
Two souls were born in the fire—twinned by fate, divided by flame.
One to lead, one to linger.
The gods chose only one.
Eliendara gripped the scroll tighter.
This wasn't prophecy.
It was confession.
We saw both children in the blaze.The stronger one cried.The quieter one knelt in silence.We mistook stillness for weakness.We were wrong.
Kael rode harder now. His horse bled at the hooves, breath coming ragged.
But the closer he got, the heavier the air became.
Flame without heat.
Fire without hunger.
The mark of someone who burned inward.
He finally stopped at the ridge above the frozen village.
And there, sitting motionless in the square—was him.
The boy. The forgotten.
The part of himself he'd never known.
Not a monster. Not a villain.
Just a child who had been left alone in the fire… and kept burning.
Kael dismounted slowly.
The world held its breath.
He stepped forward.
Each pace felt like a memory.
And the boy looked up.
No rage.No hatred.Just—
Recognition.
Kael's voice cracked.
"What's your name?"
The boy blinked.
Then smiled, faint and tired.
"You didn't give me one."
Time shuddered.
Reality bent.
And for the first time in years, Kael felt tears sting his eyes.
"Then let me start now."
🔮 Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 97: Naming the Fire
Kael sits before the soul he never knew he shared,ready to offer a name, a bond, a beginning.
But the world remembers choices.
And before forgiveness can bloom—the gods return to correct the mistake they buried long ago.