The pit roared like a living thing.
Kael stood at its edge, the wind clawing at his cloak, the golden fire below casting shifting halos across the dead stones. The ruins trembled around him, as if the entire world held its breath. Every heartbeat echoed in his skull — not his own alone, but thousands, ancient and discordant, all pulsing from the depths beneath his feet.
The air smelled of ozone and blood.Ash drifted down like snow.
He took one step forward.And fell.
The fall seemed endless.Flashes of memory tore past him — his first battle, his oath to the Crown, his death under a crimson sky. Then came things that weren't his memories: towers of black glass, screaming stars, a sea of molten eyes whispering his name.
He struck the ground hard.But instead of stone, it was liquid light — thick, luminous, pulsing like the inside of a living heart. The golden fire licked his armor but did not burn. It recognized him. It welcomed him.
"Welcome home, Kael of the Ashen Blood."
The voice was everywhere — in his ears, in the fire, in his bones.From the flames rose a figure, a woman woven of smoke and light.Eryndra.
She no longer appeared as the pale ghost from his dreams. She was resplendent — crowned in molten gold, her eyes two suns burning through the dark. Her face was beauty carved from despair, and every movement of her hands sent ripples through the golden fire.
Kael drew his sword, though his arm trembled.
"You're not real," he said. "You're a parasite."
"If I were not real," she replied softly, "then why does your soul bleed when I speak?"
The golden light flared. Around them, shapes began to rise from the fire — silhouettes of the dead, armored in ash and bone. They formed a circle, silent sentinels watching their creator face his shadow.
"What are they?" Kael asked, his voice breaking.
"Your echoes," Eryndra said. "Every life you've taken. Every promise you broke. Every tear you caused. They live inside you. They are you."
Kael clenched his jaw. The sword in his hand flared red, veins of light crawling along the blade. He stepped forward, and the air split open with a scream of metal and energy.
Their battle began.
Eryndra moved like a storm — elegant, merciless. Her strikes weren't physical; they were memories, visions sharpened into weapons.Each time Kael parried, he saw fragments of his own past: a woman he once loved, burned by his betrayal; a child's face, turned to ash in a village he destroyed during the war.
He fought harder. Sparks of gold and crimson filled the chamber like shattered stars.
"You can't win," she whispered, as her form dissolved into mist and reformed behind him."Every cut you make feeds me. Every drop of your hatred binds you deeper."
Kael spun and drove his blade into her chest.The sword pierced light — and blood poured out, black as ink.
Eryndra smiled, even as the wound seared.
"Yes," she said. "That's it. Feel it. You are not my enemy, Kael. You are my completion."
He faltered. His breath came ragged. His vision blurred.
"What do you mean?"
Eryndra stepped closer, her eyes soft now, almost human.
"Once, long ago, we were one being. The god of the Crown. The world feared us, so they tore us apart — light and shadow, soul and vessel. You are what remained of the mortal half. I am what they sealed away."
"No," he whispered. "That can't be—"
"Look," she said.
And she reached out, pressing her hand to his heart.
Kael screamed. Visions flooded him — his true self, crowned in fire, leading legions of angels and monsters, reshaping worlds. The gods feared him because he sought freedom from their design. They tore his essence in two and cast him down into mortality.
Now the pieces were reuniting.
The cracks in his skin glowed brighter. Golden fire spilled from his eyes, his mouth. The sword in his hand disintegrated into light.
"Stop!" he roared, trying to wrench away. "If I become you again—"
"You will become what you were meant to be," she said. "A god reborn. The Crown of Ash restored."
He fell to his knees. His voice was raw.
"And if I don't want to be a god?"
"Then you will die as something less."
She knelt before him, their faces inches apart. For the first time, he saw tears — molten, shimmering — sliding down her cheeks.
"I loved you," she whispered. "Before the end. Before they tore us apart."
For a heartbeat, Kael's rage faltered. Beneath it, he felt something else — grief, deep and ancient. A memory not his, yet it broke him all the same.
He reached out and touched her hand.
"Then love me enough," he said, "to let me choose what I am."
The chamber began to collapse.The Heart of Eredhal convulsed, golden fire erupting into pillars that reached the void above. Kael's body burned, light and darkness tearing him in two.
Eryndra screamed, half in pain, half in defiance.
"If you deny me, you deny yourself!"
"Maybe that's the only way I can be free."
He plunged his hand into his own chest — through flesh, through light — and tore out the pulsing ember that bound them. A blinding flash engulfed the ruins.Eryndra's form dissolved, reaching for him one last time.
"Kael…"
Then there was silence.
Only the soft fall of ash, and a single crimson rose floating atop the dying light.
When the glow finally faded, the ruins were still.Kael lay on the ground, breathing shallowly. The cracks in his skin had closed, the golden fire gone.But his eyes — once gold — were now pale gray, like storm clouds before the rain.
He was alive.But empty.
He reached for the rose beside him and crushed it gently in his fist. The petals bled dark.
"Freedom," he whispered, "always costs more than chains."
And as he rose, the horizon began to burn anew — not with fire, but with dawn.