Night fell heavy on the Ashen Path.
A cold wind swept through the black-leafed trees, carrying whispers of things unsaid. Smoke curled from Irisen's side, where Veylan's whip had struck him. Kareth bound the wound with cloth steeped in salve, but the ember scorch left a mark beneath the skin—one that pulsed faintly with unnatural light.
"You were lucky," Kareth muttered. "Another second and you'd have been burned from within."
Irisen winced. "He was like me… but not."
"No. He was worse. He chose to fall. That kind of power doesn't twist you on its own—it tempts you."
Elyra knelt nearby, watching the horizon where strange clouds churned. "The Ashen Lords have sent their agents ahead. The game has begun."
⸻
They camped near an ancient tree whose roots curled like claws around broken statues. Kareth stood watch while Irisen slept, though sleep did not come easily.
He dreamed of fire again.
But this time, it spoke.
"You are not the first. You will not be the last."
The voice was ancient. Female. Wounded. Burning.
"When the Everburn Heart stirs, the world remembers its sins. And so it tests the one who bears it."
In the dream, Irisen stood before a vast pyre. Upon it lay people he did not know—yet loved.
"Would you burn the world to save them? Would you watch them burn to save the world?"
The fire surged, swallowing everything.
He awoke gasping.
⸻
Morning came gray and cold.
They moved deeper into the hollow valley of Scorchtongue Gulch, where no birds sang and the wind rasped like bone across the rock.
At its center sat an old woman wrapped in tattered veils, eyes covered in white cloth. She rocked slowly, humming to herself.
"Another flame," she rasped. "But this one flickers. It doubts."
Kareth stepped between them. "Who are you?"
"I am Noira. I see through ash and flame. I see what others cannot bear to look upon."
Her sightless face turned toward Irisen. "And you—I see the fire that remembers."
She reached out, and Irisen, hesitating, took her hand.
Suddenly—
Visions.
• A city of glass, burning under a sky split with shadow.
• Irisen, older, eyes glowing, standing over a battlefield of gods and monsters.
• Elyra, her flame snuffed out, kneeling beside a ruin.
• Kareth, betrayed, broken, screaming Irisen's name.
Then—darkness.
Noira withdrew her hand. "There are two paths. Both end in fire. But only one leaves anything behind."
⸻
"Can you tell me which is right?" Irisen asked, voice shaking.
"No," she said. "But I can give you a choice."
From her robes, she pulled two objects.
A black coin etched with fire.
A single white feather, still warm.
"Take one. Leave the other. You will not understand the meaning now—but you will live it."
Irisen hesitated… then reached out.
He took the feather.
Noira smiled faintly. "You'll try to save them."
The wind shifted. The veiled seer faded like smoke.
⸻
As they left the gulch, Kareth eyed him carefully. "Why the feather?"
"I don't know," Irisen said quietly. "But it felt right."
Elyra stepped beside him. "Then hold to that feeling. Because the next time you face someone like Veylan… there won't be time to doubt."
⸻
Far to the east, in a tower carved from obsidian, the Ashen Lords gathered.
One knelt before the others, a mask of seared gold covering her face.
"The Brand awakens."
"And the boy?"
"His mercy will become his undoing."
A deep voice rumbled, cruel and slow.
"Then let us show him the price of hope."