The hum of the ship's engine pulsed like a heartbeat.
Leyla sat at the helm, eyes flicking between the glowing star map on the console and the void of space that stretched endlessly before her.
Down on the deck—beneath the shadows of the mast—Doran sat slumped.
The man who once burned like a flame now looked like he could barely lift a thought.
Not just exhausted.
Emptied.
Before him floated Avon, fury flickering across his ember-wrapped body, the fire around him flaring brighter with every syllable.
"Why do you always disregard everything I say? You act untouchable—but you rely on my flame!"
Doran didn't respond.
Not out of defiance.
Not out of pride.
He simply had nothing left to say.
Avon's voice dropped, low and heavy. The fire curled in on itself, crackling inward.
"You're too weak. It'll be a long time before you're even close to ready to face Daegryn."
That name—
Daegryn.
Doran's jaw flexed. Barely. A small clench, subtle enough to miss. No words. Just that quiet pressure of memory pressing against his teeth, too bitter to speak aloud.
Avon dimmed.
Not out of sympathy.
Out of fear.
"Your body's breaking down," he said, quieter now. "You think I can't feel it? The links that bind you—they're cracking. If you die again, they might shatter completely. And if that happens…"
He didn't finish.
Doran's gaze remained on the floorboards. The ship's golden sails cast pulsing shadows across his face.
Then, a breath.
And a whisper.
"I know."
Avon flared at the reply.
"Then act like it!"
Still, Doran didn't look up.
Avon floated closer.
"We're stuck together, whether we like it or not. I rely on you, you rely on me. You may not like me, but we have a Soul Bind to uphold. And I don't plan on dying before I make it back home."
Doran's fists clenched. Veins rose beneath the skin—like old runes, trying to speak.
"Just because I said death would never know your name doesn't mean you get to toss your life away like it's worthless." Avon's voice dropped. Fire bloomed behind his words, heat without light.
Doran raised his head.
Golden eyes met flickering flame.
Two fires—one forged in death, the other in spite. Both born of the same inferno.
They burned with the same heat.
"I'm not trying to throw it away," Doran said, voice low and guttural—like it had to claw its way through scar tissue just to be heard. "I'm trying to make it mean something. Before it ends."
Avon's flame pulsed once. Anger. Sympathy. Something harder to name.
"I've watched hundreds of Soul Binds fail," he murmured. "Do you know what happens when the chain breaks?"
Doran said nothing.
Avon's voice became a whisper.
"We both vanish. Nothing left. Not even ash. Just… gone."
Doran's breath hitched.
Not fear.
Acceptance.
His voice cracked—barely.
"I don't care if I fade. I just don't want it to be for nothing."
Silence.
Avon hovered still, flame dimming—not from anger this time.
From mourning.
"…You think that makes you brave," he said quietly. "But all I see is someone waiting to be punished."
Doran closed his eyes.
The ship's pulse continued.
That ever-steady hum.
A reminder that the world still moved—
even if he didn't want it to.
"I've already been judged and punished," Avon murmured. "You experienced your sentencing the moment you died. But I gave you a chance—to prove the judgment was wrong. To fight against Fate."
Doran's eyes opened again.
Still locked on the boards beneath his feet.
"The truth is… I don't know if what I'm doing is right," he said, voice low. "I don't know if I'm saving people… or just dragging them to earlier graves. But if I stop now… then all of them—Ray, Kellon, the villagers, Leyla… me—everything we lost will be forgotten. I want to fight to make sure it's remembered."
He swallowed.
"Maybe the next generation can figure it out."
His voice was hoarse.
Cracked like an old blade, dulled and overused.
Up at the helm, Leyla stood. She left the console, stepping slowly down toward the deck. As she walked away, the star map flickered behind her—
a large red blip lighting up the screen.
It was moving toward them.
A slow, deliberate arc along their path to Furro—the largest of the six moons orbiting planet Sekoiyah.
She stepped close and placed a hand on Doran's shoulder.
"Are you okay?" she asked gently. "You've been talking to yourself for a while. I didn't want to intrude, but… it was like you were talking to someone else."
Avon looked up at her, then back to Doran.
"If you're planning to keep her around," he said with a smirk, "you should at least tell her about me—so she doesn't think you're crazy. Or, you know… get better at hiding it."
Doran ignored him.
His eyes stayed on Leyla.
"It's…" he hesitated. "It's nothing. I just… need to be better."
He hated lying.
But dragging her into his mess?
Forcing her to bear his burdens?
He couldn't.
Leyla's hand lingered on his shoulder.
"You don't have to tell me everything," she said softly, offering the faintest smile. "Just don't bottle it up, okay? The longer you do, the harder the crash."
She gave a small laugh—wry, but kind.
"Believe me. I engrave runes for a living. Comes with the job."
Avon zipped up beside Leyla and perched on her shoulder, wings of flame folding inward like a smug cloak.
"Oh, come on!" he squawked. "Of all people, I thought you'd tell her!"
"Shut it, bird," Doran muttered.
Leyla blinked.
"Bird?" she repeated. "What did you say?"
Doran let out a long, slow breath.
"You know I don't have any flame runes, right?"
Her brow furrowed. "Wait—really? Then how the hell do you pull off all those insane fire moves?"
He dropped his gaze.
Eyes falling back to the floor, as if the truth were buried there.
"I died. Four years ago."
A pause.
"I was brought back to life by a god."
Leyla's eyes widened. Shock twisted across her face like she wasn't sure whether to breathe or speak.
"But because I died," he continued, voice thinner now, "he acts as my Soul. He sticks around… kind of like a hallucination."
His words trailed off into silence.
Leyla didn't respond right away.
Her hand slipped from his shoulder—not from fear, not revulsion.
But from weight.
The sheer gravity of what he'd just said.
She took a single step back.
Not away from him.
Just enough to see him.
"You… died?" she asked, softly. Gently.
Doran nodded once.
"My home got caught in something no one could've prepared for. A battle between gods."
He closed his eyes. The memory stung.
"Everything was turned to gold."
Leyla's breath hitched.
"Turned to… gold?" she echoed. "The divine?"
Her gaze drifted downward, voice going quiet, like it belonged to someone dreaming.
"I believe you," she said at last. "I don't understand it. But I believe you."
Doran's shoulders tensed.
He hadn't expected that.
Not so quickly.
"That was easy," he muttered, a faint bitterness lining his voice. "Thought you'd call me crazy."
"My family grew up Stellafilic," Leyla said quietly. "And hearing you talk about your fire… your death… I feel like I'm the crazy one for even saying this, but…"
She hesitated, eyes flicking toward the stars outside the ship.
"I'm starting to think it's true."
Doran turned to her.
"What do you mean?"
She sat beside him, folding her legs and absently fidgeting with the edge of her coat sleeve. Her eyes weren't focused on anything in front of her.
Somewhere between memory and myth.
"When I was little," she began, voice slow, "my mother used to read to me from the Book of Stellafil. She'd tell me how they were killed… but would resurrect someday. That they would return to bring peace to the universe. To be the light in the dark ages we're trapped in now."
Doran nodded slightly.
"I was never really religious," he admitted. "My village didn't even have a church. We just… worked. I've heard of Zojism, of course. Everyone's heard of it."
Leyla gave a soft nod of her own.
Still staring into nothing.
"Most Stellafilics don't really believe that they will come back. Not anymore. But my mom… she did. She used to say they never really died."
Leyla's voice lowered.
"She said Stellafil just fell so far… we stopped recognizing them."
Now her gaze turned to Doran.
A soft ember, drifting in the space between fire and faith.
"Looking at you," she murmured, "I wonder if she was right."
Doran's expression didn't change—but his voice tightened.
"I'm not them," he said. "If I was… I wouldn't have let so many people die."
Leyla slowly shifted, resting her elbows on her knees, eyes never leaving his.
"Maybe that's why it had to be you," she said. "Not someone perfect. Just someone broken enough to still care."
Doran turned away.
Not from shame.
But because he didn't know how to accept the hope in her voice.
He had carried too much death in his hands to believe himself worthy of something as gentle as belief.
"Maybe…" he whispered,
"…in another life."
Then—
A feeling slid into Doran's chest. Sudden. Ancient.
All he knew was to close his eyes.
His breath slowed.
The ship's hum faded—no longer steady.
No longer real.
A pressure pushed against the edges of his mind.
Cold and wet.
Like the moment before drowning.
Then—
Silence.
The stars vanished.
The void around him thickened. Shadowed.
Nothing left to see.
Nothing real.
Leyla's voice reached him. But it was distant now—muffled and warped like a dream slipping under water.
No longer real.
Then—
Five pillars erupted from space around the ship.
Burnt red bricks.
Concrete.
Steel.
Glass.
They towered—monuments of a broken world.
The air groaned.
Reality bent.
The pillars twisted inward like a colossal hand—reaching up toward the stars.
Doran sprang to his feet and launched forward, sprinting across the deck as the pillars curled around them—
And then a voice tore through the vacuum.
"Die!"
He didn't stop.
Avon shot into his back—wings of flame exploded from his shoulders.
And Doran dove.
Down into the void. Toward the source.
Toward Lily.
She was massive. An impossible construct.
A weaponized city in the shape of a girl.
He soared down her arm as she reached for the ship, dodging skyscrapers that erupted like blades from her skin. His target—
the crown.
Towers woven into her scalp.
They spun. Slow at first.
Then violently.
Then—
CRK—CRUNCH!!!
He looked back.
The ship—
Their ship—
Crushed in Lily's palm like paper.
The flames around Doran flickered—died.
And for a moment…
He just floated.
Drifting in a cosmic void, a silhouette against a sky without stars.
The molten trail of his wings was gone.
The divine engine of his soul sputtered to silence.
Above him, the wreckage dangled in Lily's hand—twisted metal, runed plating torn in two.
The last echo of Leyla's voice rang in his ears.
Sharp. Soft.
Unfinished.
Doran didn't scream.
Didn't cry.
His heart just kept pounding.
Thump-thump.
Like something trying to crawl out of him.
Thump-thump.
The space around his body rippled.
The heat of his grief reached critical mass—
And cracked.
Then—
FWOOM.
Black and violet fire erupted from his chest.
Not flames.
Wrath.
A soul igniting itself to keep from breaking.
The gold in his eyes drained—replaced by violent indigo.
Every inch of his skin lit with crawling obsidian runes.
They pulsed.
Whispered.
Cursed.
Red lightning forked across the void, flaring from his back like whips of divine vengeance.
Avon's voice didn't speak.
The flames grew brighter.
Hotter.
So hot they warped the fabric of space itself.
The void trembled.
The flames surged—
Engulfing Lily.
Her body turned to ash.
Then—
Nothing.
Doran opened his eyes.
Real.
Leyla sat beside him.
Avon hovered before him.
Real.
Doran's breath hitched.
His chest rose and fell, too fast, too tight—
Realization crashing in.
It wasn't a dream.
He pushed himself off the deck, boots scrambling for traction, and bolted toward the helm.
"Don't wait for me!" he shouted. "I'll meet you there—I promise!"
Leyla rose from the console, concern flashing across her face.
"What's wrong?" she asked. "Did something happen? Did I say something—?"
But Doran was already moving.
He slammed two buttons on the console. The ship's engine roared—
the steady hum becoming a thunderous growl beneath their feet.
"Avon, let's go!" he barked.
Then—
He leapt.
Off the side of the ship.
The void opened to meet him.
Avon collided with his back in a burst of heat—A ripple of flame exploded outward, carving the void of space in rings of red light.
Doran's golden eyes flared—then bled crimson.
Wings of flame tore from his shoulders, brilliant and vengeful.
He darted downward.
A comet of wrath.
Above him, the ship vanished into warp-speed—
Leaving him behind.
"No one else will carry my burdens," he growled.
Ahead—
Lily.
Her colossal arm stretched outward, just as it had before. Her fingers curled, reaching for the ship.
What the hell was that? Doran thought, eyes narrowing. The future?
He glanced back once more.
The ship was gone.
"Good."
His gaze snapped forward.
Locked on the crown of towers atop Lily's head.
I saw them spin.
Need to watch for that, too.
Behind him, the stars twisted—
Like threads being pulled through a needle.
Before him, the vacuum burned.
Lily swung with her other arm—stretching across space like gravity itself had bent to her will.
Her wrist arced like an overpass.
Her fingers curled like bridges woven from screaming steel.
The force of her motion fractured the light—bending starlines around her knuckles like even the cosmos was afraid to touch her.
Doran surged lower, skimming along the back of her hand.
The gravity was wrong.
Twisted.
Pulling him toward her—like her body wasn't just a machine, but a black hole.
Buildings erupted from her arm, spiraling toward him.
Doran dodged, flames carving a jagged trail between shattered glass and twisted steel. He barrel-rolled between the rising structures, eyes locked on his target.
The crown.
It began to rotate—slow at first, then faster.
The towers atop her head ground against each other like planetary gears, an entire city turning in sync.
Then—
A green light flickered above the crown.
Pulsing.
Once.
Then again.
Rhythmic. Measured.
Steady.
Doran didn't slow. His wings burned crimson, ribbons of fire unfurling behind him as he tore through the maze of spiraling architecture. The light ahead pulsed again, brighter this time.
"Don't let that touch you," Avon murmured, voice barely above a breath. "You'll die."
Doran's jaw locked. "Then I'll move faster."
The green orb hovered—perfectly still.
Silent.
Focused.
Its glow pulsed in time with the spinning towers below, syncing like a heartbeat carved from geometry.
Then the vortex widened.
Emerald light began to swirl—condensing into a beam so concentrated it began pulling starlight into its core.
Then—
It fired.
A streak of energy—faster than sound, faster than thought—ripped through the void toward Doran.
He crossed his swords just in time.
The beam collided.
BOOM.
Sparks exploded in every direction. His arms buckled under the pressure. The blades shrieked.
Runes engraved into the steel blazed with desperate light—flashing between deep void-black and violent crimson, like the very soul of the weapon was screaming.
Doran gritted his teeth.
The swords glowed red—melting, bending under the heat.
"How the hell did Gar make her this damn strong?!" Doran shouted, eyes wide with strain.
"You need to move—fast!" Avon snapped from within. "Those swords are about to break!"
"Yeah, I figured!" Doran growled. "I think I'll have to lose one!"
He dove beneath the beam.
One sword remained locked against the blast.
The other he yanked to his side, pulling it free just before—
CRACK—SHHHHHT!
The blocking sword shattered.
"Damn… too close," Doran muttered, heart still racing. A flicker of relief cut through the tension. "I have an idea you're not gonna like."
"Oh yeah?" Avon's voice curled with suspicion. "And what would that be?"
Doran extended his arm to the side.
Flames licked across the edges—unstable, erratic, hungry.
"I saw something," he said. "Something I want to replicate."
The heat trembled along his skin.
"I won't be on the same level… but it'll have to do."
Avon's voice sharpened.
"Wait—what do you mean 'won't be on the same level'?!"
The flames spiraling around Doran's outstretched arm grew hotter.
Denser.
More erratic.
Crimson bled into orange.
Orange shifted into blue.
Light blue.
Together, the three flames danced—twisting in a mesmerizing spiral, growing brighter, larger. Like a storm learning to breathe.
"…Is that…" Avon muttered, the disbelief raw in his voice.
"Damn it, kid."
Then—
Just as fast as the beam had shot into Doran's face—
Doran was in Lily's.
Both hands gripped the hilt of his sword.
The blade dragged behind him, carving light through space.
Lily's monstrous eyes widened—just enough to reflect him.
Three flames.
Crimson eyes.
A smile like frost-white fire.
Then—
FWVVWAAAHMMFFF—CRACK!
The blade cleaved through her.
The tri-flamed slash struck straight between the eyes.
The top of her head—gone.
Cut clean.
Towers cracked and collapsed.
The buildings woven into her form began to unravel, gravity unable to hold the pieces together.
Chunks of steel and concrete flew in every direction.
Glass rained like shattered starlight.
And in the center of it all—
Doran hovered.
Chestplate fractured.
Shoulders heaving.
Flames sputtering from his back like dying coals clinging to life.
"You know that took more than just flame, right?" Avon's voice came, quieter now. "You put your Life in that swing."
A pause.
"How?"
Doran didn't answer.
Couldn't.
His sword—still glowing faintly blue at the edge—slipped from his fingers.
It spun away.
Blood floated up from his mouth in slow globules.
From his nose.
The corners of his eyes.
And then—
A flare of flame burst from his chest.
Avon emerged, flickering with frustration and panic.
"Why do you do this to yourself?" he snapped.
And in the darkness of death—
A figure found Doran.
The void stretched endlessly around him, but it did not feel empty.
Dozens of marble pillars rose from below and descended from above.
No ground.
No ceiling.
No sky.
Only him—
And motion.
Doran walked forward, even without footing.
Even without direction.
The pillars shifted, appearing and vanishing with each step.
Then—
Footsteps.
Not behind.
Not ahead.
Around him.
A voice followed.
Low. Fluid.
Like ink blooming in water.
"Ah… the disgraced one."
Doran turned.
A figure now stood barefoot on a pillar that hadn't existed a moment ago.
Its face was skeletal—jaw slightly parted, like it had begun to speak centuries ago and never finished.
The figure's body was split down the middle by time itself.
One half wore ancient gold-plated armor, dulled and scorched, clinging to bone like a memory refusing to die.
The other shimmered silver—soft and fluid. The face of a serene man, blindfolded. Expressionless.
A single garment connected the halves—a robe that flickered like starlight through fog, weaving warrior and king, armor and cloth, fire and silence.
Two lives.
One body.
One saw Doran with hollow sockets that had seen too much.
The other could not see at all—
And yet somehow saw more.
The figure tilted its head.
"It's nice to see you again," he said.
His voice layered in overlapping echoes—
One broken and burned.
One soft and choral.
He stepped forward lightly.
No sound followed.
"Curious, isn't it?" he said, gesturing idly to the rising marble columns around them. "That you now walk where only the dead belong… and yet, you're not here to stay."
Doran clenched his fists.
"Who are you? Where am I?" he demanded.
The figure smiled—barely.
"I am known as Forgotten," he said. "I was once a warrior crowned in gold. I was once a king cloaked in silver. The rest… is left in Destiny."
Doran's eyes narrowed, emotion boiling to the surface.
"I don't understand! Just tell me why I'm here!"
Forgotten nodded.
"You will," he said gently.
"Soon."
He took a slow step forward.
"The fire you carry… is incomplete."
He raised a hand—palm open, fingers almost beckoning.
"Just like the body you now reside in."