The wind carried the stench of burnt stone and old blood.
Ash coated the shattered gates of Erythra Keep, once a gleaming sanctuary carved into the mountain's side. Now it stood ruined ribs of blackened stone jutting out like the bones of a beast too proud to fall cleanly.
Iria stepped over a corpse that had no name. One of the novices, probably. She didn't remember his face, only the melted sigil of the Ashbinders scorched across his armor. Another ghost to carry. Another question left rotting.
She found Kaelen in what remained of the sanctum's central hall half of it caved in, the other half scorched black by holy fire. He stood like a statue amid the ruin, staring at the altar that had once been their heart.
"You shouldn't be here," Iria said, voice hoarse. "There could still be Seraphim watching."
"They've done their work," Kaelen murmured. "Look around you, Iria. We are already dead."
"Don't start that again."
His gaze was dark, unreadable sunken with grief, sharpened with rage. "They called us traitors. Us. After all we bled to keep the Veil sealed."
She crossed her arms, wind tugging at her cloak. "Not all of us escaped. Not all had the chance."
"Don't say his name," Kaelen snapped.
"I didn't."
"Then don't think it."
The silence between them thickened like smoke.
Footsteps approached two sets. Selene, her veil torn and robes ash-streaked, entered first. Tomas followed, limping slightly, his left gauntlet fused with dried blood.
"I take it the reunion's going well," Tomas muttered.
Selene ignored him and knelt beside the broken altar. Her fingers traced the cracks like reading an old wound.
"The gods set the trial," Kaelen growled. "They rigged it. They turned the Nexus to fire, framed us, and now they want us hunted like vermin."
"Maybe they had reason," Tomas said quietly.
Kaelen turned. "What did you say?"
"I said maybe they had reason." Tomas met his gaze. "You touched the Veil, Kaelen. You stepped too far. You changed."
"I did what I had to do."
"Did you?" Tomas's voice cracked. "Because half of our kin are dust. And the rest of us… we don't even know what we're still fighting for."
"You think I wanted this?" Kaelen shouted. "You think I wanted to watch them burn?"
Selene's voice cut through the chaos. "Enough."
They turned to her. She was standing now, hands bloodied from the altar.
"There's something under here," she said. "A mark. A sigil. It wasn't here before."
Kaelen walked over, jaw tight, as Selene cleared the dust and ash. Beneath the stone, etched in divine flame, was a circular brand: two wings, broken at the stem, wrapped around a spiral flame.
Iria's breath caught. "The Flamebound Seal…"
Selene nodded. "It leads somewhere. And it's been waiting to be found."
Tomas cursed under his breath. "You want us to follow a relic etched in the bones of a cursed keep?"
Kaelen stared at the symbol. "We follow it. We follow it now."
"No," Iria said.
Everyone turned to her.
"There's something wrong with this," she said. "That symbol hasn't been seen since the Godfall. It was buried with the Unforgiven Flame the curse that nearly unraveled the planes."
"And yet," Kaelen said, stepping closer to her, "here we are."
The ash stirred again, this time whispering like voices lost in the mountain's hollow throat.
Selene stood. "Whatever's beneath this seal… it's not just a relic. It's calling."
Iria looked to Kaelen, her former captain, her closest friend, the man marked by gods and burned by truth.
"Then let's pray we're not digging our own graves," she whispered.
Kaelen didn't smile. "We already did. This is just finding the fire waiting underneath."
They opened the seal at dusk.
Selene chanted the Rite of Unbinding, her voice low and trembling with unease. Kaelen forced the slab aside with the strength of fury and faith. Tomas stood back, blade drawn not in defense, but fear. And Iria… she watched the altar breathe.
Yes, breathe. The stones pulsed faintly, as though a forgotten heart had woken beneath.
The passage spiraled downward, narrow and lined with iron bones. Torchlight flickered across etched prayers scorched into the walls some in the Old Tongue, some in the lost dialect of the first Ashbinders. All were warnings.
Iria moved first.
They followed her.
The descent took them below the mountain's skin, into a buried sanctum none of them remembered existing. It smelled of incense and old sorrow. A massive door awaited them at the bottom black obsidian carved in the shape of wings folding inward, wrapped in chains of molten gold.
Selene placed her palm to the surface. Her breath hitched.
"What is it?" Kaelen asked.
Her eyes were distant. "It remembers me."
Tomas frowned. "That's comforting."
Before anyone could speak again, the door cracked open not by touch, not by force, but by recognition.
The room beyond was a temple swallowed by shadow.
At its center stood a statue no, a figure. A husk. Shackled and kneeling, wearing a blindfold of crimson silk. Wings long torn from its back. Ash swirled around its feet like mist.
Iria stepped closer.
She knew this place. Not from memory… but prophecy.
"When the flame is betrayed, the blind prophet shall weep. And from his sorrow, the seal will bleed open."
The words echoed in her skull the ancient vision she'd buried, denied, and feared.
Kaelen approached the bound figure. "Who is he?"
Before Iria could stop him, Tomas reached out.
The prophet's head snapped upward.
The room went still.
His voice was a rasp of dying embers:
"The Gambit is not yours to wield."
Selene staggered back. "He spoke!"
The prophet turned his head toward Iria.
"You saw this," he said, blind eyes locked on her soul. "You carry the curse of the echo."
She wanted to deny it. Wanted to run.
But the room held her. So did his voice.
"You were warned. The flame does not forgive."
Kaelen stepped forward. "What flame? What are you ?"
The prophet raised a hand.
And Iria fell.
She was no longer in the chamber.
The world around her split like a mirror. Fire surged across skies, cities crumbled under wings of judgment. A figure her stood at the heart of the maelstrom, eyes burning with divine light, screaming not in power, but grief. The Veil had been torn. The gods wept. The world bled.
And above it all… a throne made of ash. Empty.
She snapped awake, gasping, on the chamber floor.
Kaelen knelt beside her. "Iria! What did he show you?"
The prophet was gone.
Only chains remained.
She shook her head. "He showed me what happens… if we choose wrong."
Selene was pale. "Was it the Gambit?"
"No," Iria whispered. "It was after. If we survive the Gambit… what comes next is worse."
Kaelen stood. "We don't have the Gambit. Not yet."
"Then maybe that's the mercy," Tomas said.
But Iria looked at the empty chains. The vision still clawed at her skull.
"No," she said. "That was a warning. The Gambit is coming to us."
Tomas hated silence. Especially this kind.
After what they'd seen below the altar what Iria saw they returned to the shattered war room, each one with ghosts behind their eyes. No one spoke. Not even Kaelen, whose rage had become a kind of language in itself these past weeks.
Tomas finally broke the stillness.
"So… are we going to talk about the prophet? Or keep pretending we didn't just disturb a bound, divine corpse that talked to us?"
Kaelen's voice was flat. "It wasn't a corpse."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Tomas snapped, standing. "It wasn't a corpse. That makes this so much better."
Selene didn't look up. She sat at the edge of the table, fingers wrapped around a cracked goblet. Her other hand trembled.
Iria stood at the window, watching the moon rise. Pale light filtered through the broken arches.
"She knew," Tomas said quietly.
Kaelen turned. "What?"
"Iria." He didn't flinch when her gaze met his. "You knew something. Before we descended. Before the prophet spoke. That wasn't a vision, that was a memory."
Iria's jaw tightened. "Not a memory. A prophecy. One I buried long ago."
Tomas took a step forward. "You buried it and didn't tell us? How many more secrets are you hiding?"
Kaelen stepped between them, eyes burning. "Enough. This isn't the time."
"When is it ever the time, Kaelen?" Tomas snapped. "We're running in circles. Half of us dead. The world thinks we're traitors. And the only one who seems to know anything about what's happening " he pointed at Iria " keeps playing the silent martyr."
Selene's voice, quiet but sharp, cut through the tension. "You think I wanted this?"
They all turned.
Her eyes gleamed in the firelight. "You think I wanted the vision to be true? That the vault existed? That the prophet would… speak again?" Her voice broke on the last word. "You weren't there when we took the oaths. I bled for the Ascended. We all did."
Kaelen softened. "Selene…"
"No," she said. "Tomas is right. We need to talk. Because if we don't… this thing will consume us before the gods ever get the chance."
Tomas sat down again, shoulders slumped.
"I want to trust you all," he said. "But I can't lie I don't know if I still do. We lost so much. And now we're chasing echoes and riddles while half the pantheon wants our heads on pikes."
Kaelen's hand clenched around his sword hilt. "I trust you."
That caught Tomas off-guard. "What?"
"I trust you," Kaelen said again. "All of you. Even when it hurts. Even when it feels like the world is breaking under our feet. We're Ashbinders. If we forget that, we've already lost."
Iria spoke last, voice quiet but firm. "Then we start again. From truth. From choice. No more prophecy. No more lies."
Selene raised her goblet. "Then let this be the first vow. No more masks."
They clinked steel and fire, not as warriors, but as exiles, bound not by duty but by survival.
But in Tomas' chest, doubt still stirred like embers.
And beyond the keep's ruined walls, shadows moved.
The night air was cold and unforgiving.
Flames licked the sky beyond the shattered battlements of Erythra Keep. Smoke curled upward like fingers grasping for forgotten prayers.
Kaelen stood watch, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword tighter than before. Every shadow felt like a serpent coiling, every whisper a promise of betrayal.
"Kaelen," came a voice behind him.
He turned to see Iria, eyes sharp, her stance tense.
"They're coming," she said. "The Seraphim. Faster than we thought."
Kaelen nodded, jaw clenched. "We'll be ready."
But even as he spoke, a soft glow pulsed in the distance a flicker of orange fire, smaller and purer than the burning ruins behind them.
Selene appeared beside him, holding the shard Enii had given her.
"This," she said, "is the Second Flame. A spark from the First. It's not just a relic it's a warning."
Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "Warning of what?"
Before she could answer, a distant roar shattered the silence.
Figures descended from the blackened sky winged and terrible, clad in armor that shimmered like stars burning out.
The Seraphim had come.
Steel met stone as battle erupted beneath a blood-red moon.
Kaelen's sword sang through the air, cutting down foes with fierce precision. Iria's blades flashed like lightning, a storm of vengeance.
But amid the chaos, Kaelen caught a glimpse of a figure watching from the shadows a silhouette cloaked in darkness, eyes burning cold with purpose.
The Gambit was closing in.
The dawn bled soft light over the shattered stones of Erythra Keep. The acrid scent of smoke clung to the air, mixing with the cold bite of loss.
Enii knelt among the fallen, his fingers brushing over a cracked Ashbinder sigil etched into a broken blade. Each scar in the metal was a story of valor, of sacrifice, of oaths made and broken.
Around him, survivors stirred some limping, others silent. Kaelen sat against a scorched pillar, face drawn but eyes burning with unyielding fire. Iria tended to Tomas's wounds, while Selene stood watch, clutching the Second Flame shard like a lifeline.
"We fought well," Enii said quietly.
Kaelen's voice was low, hoarse. "Not well enough."
"We're scattered," Iria added. "The gods will come hunting."
Selene's gaze hardened. "And we must be ready. The vault's sigil is no longer a secret."
Enii stood slowly, looking out toward the horizon where ash still drifted like snow.
"We're bound by more than blood and fire now," he said. "Our oaths are ashes, but from those ashes, something new can rise."
Kaelen's jaw clenched. "Revenge. Justice. Survival."
Iria met his gaze. "Or damnation."
The weight of their choices hung heavy.
But as the first light touched the broken altar, a quiet vow settled among them their fight was far from over.
The Ashbinders would rise again.