The descent into the forgotten woods felt like stepping out of reality.
Kael followed Riven along a narrow, overgrown path where sunlight barely pierced the skeletal canopy. The trees here were unlike any he had seen—twisted things, with blackened bark and leaves like shards of obsidian. Their branches wept pale sap that shimmered faintly, and every so often, Kael thought he saw them shift when he wasn't looking. The air was thick with the scent of wet earth and something older… something like memory.
"Where are we?" he asked, voice hushed as if the forest itself might be listening.
"Outside the world they made for you," Riven said without turning. "This place isn't on any map. Not anymore. The angels erased it." She stepped over a fallen log, and the ground beneath her feet pulsed with dim red light. "They call it the Hollow Vale. But we used to call it Emberreach."
Kael frowned. "This was a demon stronghold?"
"No," she said, glancing back. "It was a sanctuary."
After another mile, the path ended in front of a rock face veined with glowing crimson lines. Riven knelt and pressed her palm against the stone. A soft hum rippled through the air, and the lines brightened, forming a symbol—half-sun, half-flame. The stone slid aside with a grinding sound, revealing a passage into darkness.
Kael hesitated.
Riven offered him a look—not coaxing, but waiting. A test.
He stepped forward.
The tunnel was warm and dry, lit by flickering ember-lamps that clung to the walls like bioluminescent fungi. As they moved deeper, the rough stone gave way to carved pillars and ancient murals—faded images of wingless figures standing against golden-armored hosts. Not monsters. Not beasts. People.
"They don't look like demons," Kael murmured.
Riven's voice was tight. "Because we weren't."
The tunnel opened into a wide chamber, circular and domed, with an altar at the center. Dozens of smaller paths branched from it, but they all converged here. Dust motes danced in the warm, reddish glow that filtered from above through cracks in the stone ceiling.
Kael turned slowly, taking it all in.
Books. Relics. Carvings. Hundreds of them. All scorched or half-buried beneath rubble. But the truth remained etched in every corner.
"This was a library," he whispered.
Riven nodded. "One of the last."
She led him to a stone table, where a single book lay protected under a crystalline seal. With a whisper of Infernal glyphs, she released it and opened the cover.
It was written in Old Celestine—the language of the divine, or so Kael had been taught. But here, the script danced with a different cadence, flowing not with rigid authority, but with rhythm. Truth.
She turned the pages carefully. Illustrations marked the history—great winged figures descending not as saviors, but conquerors. Villages burning. Temples shattered. Children torn from mothers' arms. And at the heart of it all: the Veil.
Kael's heart beat faster.
"The Veil of Light," he said aloud, tracing a depiction of it—an immense disk of gold and white flame, casting shadows that bent backward.
"It's not light," Riven said. "It's blindness. They used it to rewrite memory. To remake the world in their image. That's why you only see pieces of the truth. Your blood resists it."
He looked up, breath catching. "You mean… I'm immune?"
"Not fully. But your bloodline remembers. That's why your visions feel real. They are real—echoes, passed down. Not dreams. Ancestral memory."
Kael stepped back. "But that would mean… my ancestors were—"
"Part of the Bound Flame," Riven finished. "A bloodline born of both Ember and Radiance. Forbidden. Hunted. Destroyed." Her gaze softened. "You carry a spark of what was lost. That's why they fear you."
Kael's legs trembled. He leaned against a pillar, the weight of it all pressing in.
His life. His faith. His entire identity—it had been built on a lie so massive it felt like a second sun. The angels weren't saviors. They were tyrants in halos.
And he had served them.
He clenched his fists.
Riven touched his shoulder. "You can still choose who you become, Kael. You don't have to carry their guilt."
He looked at her, eyes burning. "Then help me. Show me everything."
She nodded once, then turned to the wall behind the altar. "Then it's time you saw what they buried even deeper."
With a sharp motion, she pressed her palm to the stone. A section of the wall trembled, cracked, and slid away.
Behind it was a staircase leading down.
And from below, Kael felt it—heat, ancient and alive. Like the heartbeat of something waiting to awaken.
He swallowed hard and stepped forward, into the dark.
Far above, in a cathedral bathed in false gold, Seraphiel stood before the Grand Council of Wings. Their faces were hidden by veils of light, but their voices echoed with cold judgment.
"He has entered Emberreach," one intoned.
"He seeks the Ember's heart," said another.
Seraphiel's wings stretched behind him, each feather gleaming like a blade.
"Let him. The deeper he goes, the more he burns. And when he reaches the truth…"
His smile was a whisper of cruelty.
"…he'll beg us to save him."