Kael had not slept since the Fire.
He sat on the edge of the barracks rooftop, high above the quiet stones of the House of Ember, staring into the stars like they were runes waiting to fall. His muscles ached, his hands were still bandaged, and his eyes carried the weight of visions he couldn't explain.
"You're not meditating," Arin said behind him.
Kael didn't turn. "Didn't want to see what I saw last time."
Arin stepped beside him, a flask in hand. "The gods aren't polite. Their gifts never come clean."
Kael said nothing. The rune inside his chest was quiet now. Too quiet. Like it was watching.
The fire had started during meditation. A sudden pulse from the rune, a heat that spread through his bones. Then his mind was not his own.
He was somewhere else.
A great throne stood atop a mountain of skulls. Chains looped down from burning skies. Black-winged beasts screamed across the heavens. Below, cities crumbled into dust.
Kael stood in the middle of it all, his skin marked by glowing sigils, his arms stretched outward.
He was not himself.
He was a vessel.
A voice spoke through him, not his own but ancient, cracked with age and power:
"All things burn. Flesh. Stone. Gods. Let them come."
Then the vision shattered.
He woke to smoke and screaming. The barracks wall had caught fire. No one could explain it. No one but Kael.
The rune had spoken. It wanted more.
Lira found him the next day, sitting alone, half-dressed and soaked in sweat.
"You look like shit," she said cheerfully.
"Thanks. You always this comforting?"
She tossed him a piece of bread. "Eat. You're no good to me dead."
He took it with a shaky hand.
"You know what that vision was?" he asked.
She sat beside him. "No. But Arin might. She's smart enough to remember when the gods still walked."
Kael frowned. "She doesn't talk about it."
"Because she's afraid," Lira said, not smiling for once. "Because she saw what happens when power gets too close to man."
Kael looked at his palm. The rune pulsed faintly beneath the skin, a shard of living fire.
"I don't want to become something else."
Lira shrugged. "You already are. The trick is choosing which thing."
Later, Arin called him into the inner chamber—a cold, dark room lit by a single candle and a rune-stone embedded in the floor.
Kael entered. The stone glowed brighter.
"You've been dreaming," Arin said.
Kael nodded. "More like burning."
Arin unrolled a scroll. Its ink shimmered with silver.
"There's a legend," he began. "Of the God-Rune. The original. Said to be born of the First Flame when the world cracked open. Whoever holds it commands destruction."
Kael stared. "You think I have it?"
"I know you do." Arin looked at him with a grim smile. "And I think you're not the first. There have been others. Hosts. Vessels. None lasted."
"Why?"
"Because they thought they could control it. The flame doesn't answer to men. It devours them."
Kael clenched his fists. "So what am I supposed to do?"
Arin walked up and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Survive. And learn when to let it burn."
That night, he dreamed again.
This time, the girl was waiting.
She stood barefoot in ash, cloaked in crimson. The ruins of a dead city surrounded them. Her golden eyes held his like chains.
"You saw it," she whispered. "The throne. The flame. You're closer now."
Kael tried to speak, but ash filled his throat.
She reached out and touched his chest. The rune flared.
"You belong to it," she said. "And to me."
Her lips brushed his ear.
"When you fall, I'll be there to catch what's left."
Then she was gone.
He woke, heart pounding, the sheets around him smoldering.
By dawn, the House was in motion.
Two more assassins had come in the night. One made it into the wine cellar before Arin took off his head. The other nearly slit Lira's throat.
Kael found her wiping blood off her daggers, still grinning.
"Don't worry," she said. "I kept the ears."
He looked at the corpses. Black robes, rune-burned faces. No insignia, no name.
"Who are they?" he asked.
"Ghostbound," Arin said, arriving behind him. "Assassins trained by the Prophetess of Chains. Her dogs."
Kael's stomach turned.
"We're out of time," Arin said.
They left that night.
Kael, Arin, and Lira—on horseback, cutting through the Shattered Reach beneath a red moon. Every mile felt heavier. The rune pulsed faster the farther they rode.
Arin said little. Lira told stories to fill the silence—about ruined cities, runebound monsters, and the Broken War that ended the Second Age.
Kael listened. And remembered.
He had grown up in a village called Hollowstream. Poor. Isolated. Forgotten. He'd never seen a rune until the day the slavers came.
He'd watched them kill his mother. Watched them brand his father with hot iron.
They never got to him.
Because something awakened.
Because fire came.
He had blacked out. When he woke, the slavers were ash. His house gone. His family burned.
The villagers called him demon. Monster. They tried to kill him.
That's when Arin found him, half-dead and curled in smoke.
"You want to live?" Arin had asked.
Kael had nodded.
"Then you learn to burn on your terms."
By the third night of travel, they reached the edge of the Glasswastes—a desert of mirrored sand and shattered spires. Reflections shimmered on every dune, bending light into illusions.
They made camp near a ruined statue of a forgotten king.
Kael couldn't sleep. He sat staring at the stars.
Lira joined him, wrapped in a blanket, silent for once.
"They're coming for me," Kael said.
She nodded. "You scared?"
"Yes."
She leaned against him. "Good. Fear keeps your hand steady."
He looked at her. "Why help me?"
She shrugged. "Because I've seen what the Prophetess does to people like you. And because I like you, flame-boy."
He smiled faintly.
"Don't die," she added. "I'm not done messing with you."
In the distance, across the sand, shapes stirred.
The Sealed had found their trail.
And behind them, walking calmly over dunes of broken glass, came the girl with ash-pale hair and golden eyes.
She whispered a name.
"Kael."
And the rune inside him heard her.
It woke.
And it burned.