Welcome to the new year. It's the first day os 2026 and I finally have a draft worthy of pasting on the platform. Sorry it took this long. I have been dealing with storms in my life. Still dealing though, hoping the sun comes through very soon. Enjoy!!
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The storm didn't end when they left the tower.
It followed them.
Lightning crawled through the forest canopy, turning the night into shards of silver and shadow. The air smelled of ash and iron. Kael rode ahead, his cloak soaked through, his movements too controlled, like a man afraid of what might happen if he stopped moving.
Rayne followed close behind, her fingers white around the reins, her dagger sheathed at the thigh but warm as if aware of what rode beside her.
Neither spoke. Not since the tower.
The silence stretched between them like a wound.
When the trees thinned, Kael slowed, dismounted, and stared toward the distant ridge. Beyond it, the faint glow of Varathis bled into the clouds, a crimson shimmer under the storm.
"We're close," he said. His voice was low, rougher than she remembered.
Rayne slid from her horse. "Close to what? Your father's reach? Or the blade he'll send next?"
Kael didn't look at her. "He already sent it."
"And you killed her."
He turned then, rain dripping from his jawline, eyes shadowed but still faintly glowing. "She would have killed you."
Rayne took a step closer, her voice sharp with the mix of fear and anger she'd been holding since the fight. "She knew your mother, Kael. She knew the truth you keep running from."
He flinched. Only slightly, but she saw it.
"I'm not running," he said finally. "I am holding it back."
"The blood?" she pressed. "Or the part of you that wants to stop holding it back?"
Kael's hand flexed at his side. The veins under his skin pulsed faintly red, like light beneath water. "You don't understand what's waking in me."
"Then make me," she said, stepping into his space. "Because the court already knows, and if you don't start telling me, I'll find out when they tear it out of you."
The storm rumbled in answer.
Kael stared at her, torn between fury and something deeper, fear. Then, in a voice barely above the wind, he said, "My mother tried to bury it. She said the bloodline couldn't be allowed to wake. That my father would use it."
Rayne frowned. "Use it for what?"
Kael's jaw tightened. "To finish what his father began. To build a throne that rules by blood, not loyalty."
"And what are you now?" she asked. "A king without a crown?"
He looked away. "A curse without a choice."
Before Rayne could answer, the trees around them shifted. The storm went still. Not silent but listening.
Kael's hand went to his sword. "They are close."
Rayne lifted her dagger, its runes glowing faintly red, but his red. "Then let's finish this before the forest decided we're prey again."
The first arrow struck the ground between them.
Kael looked up and the night exploded with the sound of horns.
Flames burned where arrows fell.
Not fire from Rayne, this was different. Black fire. Fire that devoured light instead of giving it.
Kael moved first, sword in hand, the crimson along its edge pulsing like a heartbeat. The storm above mirrored him, thunder rolling as though the heavens themselves recognized what ran in his veins.
Rayne threw up a wall of flame, bright gold pushing back the black. The two fires met, twisted, then collapsed in on each other. The resulting flash sent both of them stumbling back through the mud.
Out of the dark came riders, not hunters this time, but soldiers clad in Varzian crimson. The sigil on their armor, the bleeding crown.
"The Court's elite," Rayne said, eyes narrowing. "He sent his best for his son."
Kael's grip tightened. "He sent them for the Heir."
Rayne's flame flared hotter. "Then burn the title before it burns you."
Kael almost smiled. Then the first soldier lunged.
He met him mid-charge, sword cutting through metal and bone. The sound was not steel striking steel. It was the sound of something ancient waking. The veins along Kael's glowed bright crimson, his strength surging beyond reason. Each swing sent shockwaves through the clearing.
Together they were unstoppable, yet every strike drew something from Kael. Every pulse of the bond striped another layer of restraint from his blood.
When the last soldier fell, the forest burned in a ring of red and gold flame.
Kael stood in the center, breathing hard, his reflection mirrored in the blood-soaked puddles around him. HIs eyes, crimson now, fully, met Rayne's.
This isn't power," he said quietly. "It's inheritance."
Rayne stepped closer, fire flickering along her hand. "Inheritance or curse, Kael. It's still yours."
He turned from her, staring toward the faint horizon where the storm met Varathis' glow. "My father called it the Ashes of the Heir," he said at last. "What's left when the bloodline burns itself clean."
Rayne frowned. "And what happens when the heir refuses to burn?"
Kael's answer came like a vow. "Then the ashes rise."
A fresh wind tore through the clearing, scattering embers across the dark. The smell of rain and blood mingled, thick and heavy.
Far off, a single horn blew, low and mournful.
Rayne sheathed her dagger slowly. "They're not done hunting us."
"No," Kael said, eyes still fixed on the storm. "But neither am I."
Lightning struck the ridge ahead, outlining the path to Varathis.
He started walking.
The storm followed them.
Each step toward Varathis felt heavier, the road narrowing into a corridor of twisted pines. The air itself seemed to whisper Kael's name, not in the voice of the wind, but in the low, ancient tone that lived in his blood.
Rayne walked behind him, her flame dim but constant. She hadn't spoken in hours. Not since the firestorm. Not since she'd seen his eyes glow like the storm above them.
When she finally did speak, her voice was quiet, edged with fear and something else. "How long have you known?"
Kael slowed. "Known what?"
"That whatever you are isn't human."
He didn't look back. "I didn't. Not until the Vale."
"You fought like you'd done it before."
"Maybe I have," he said, bitterness in his tone. "Maybe that's what I was bred for."
Rayne caught his arm, forcing him to face her. "You are not your father."
His jaw tightened. "Tell that to the blood that burns when I hear his name."
For a long moment, they stood in silence. Her hand still on him, his pulse beating against her palm, too fast, too hot. The bond pulsed again, alive between them, drawing them closer than either of them meant to allow.
Rayne felt it: the steady pull, the way her power hummed when his shadow touched hers. It terrified her. Not because it was monstrous, but because it wasn't.
"Kael," she said softly, "you have to control it before it controls you."
He gave a small, hollow laugh. "And if I can't?"
"Then I'll burn it out of you"
Their eyes locked. For a heartbeat, neither moved. Then thunder shattered the stillness, echoing through the trees.
Kael's head snapped toward the sound. A crimson flare cut through the horizon, the Varzian war signal.
"They are coming," he said.
"Your father?"
He shook his head. "No. Something worse."
Before she could ask, the earth itself began to tremble. A shadow crept across the road, blotting out the lightning's flash.
From the treeline ahead, the first of the crimson banners appeared, hundreds of them, rippling in the storm wind. Behind them, the rhythmic thud of armored beasts filled the night.
Rayne's voice dropped to a whisper. "The Bloodguard."
Kael's eyes darkened. "The Court's reapers."
The sky split again, and in that flash of light, the truth of the name his father gave, burned across the storm. The Heir was no longer a prince on the run. He was the spark that could burn empires. The Ashes the Court had feared for centuries.
Kael raised Veindrinker, the crimson veins along the blade pulsing with his heartbeat. "Then let them come and collect what's left of their heir."
Rayne stepped beside him, flame flaring to life. "They will find nothing but ash."
The storm answered with lightning.
And as the Bloodguard advanced, their fire met the first wave, blood and thunder binding sky to earth.