The letter arrived in silence.
No knock. No messenger. Just a folded parchment slid under Kael's door, its black wax seal cracked slightly, as if even it resented being touched.
He didn't need to read it to understand.
He stood there a long time, fingers clenched around the letter, before he started to pack.
Sylva found him at the edge of the courtyard, boots laced, bag strapped tight. Dawn hadn't yet reached the outer tower walls.
"You're leaving?" she asked.
Kael nodded. "Family rite. Flamebrand ceremony."
Her expression didn't change. "You didn't have to go alone."
"I do." He adjusted his pack. "It's legacy. Can't exactly bring an audience."
"You tell anyone?"
"Just Lira. She's stepping in."
Sylva nodded slowly. "She won't be you."
Kael looked away. "That might be for the better."
And then he left.
Lira stepped into his absence like she'd been preparing for it.
She didn't talk much. Didn't try to rally. She simply gave orders, offered corrections, and held the line. People followed her not because she asked—but because she already was.
Sylva watched from the sidelines, arms crossed.
"She's good," Tiv said beside her.
"She's steady," Sylva replied. "We need that."
"Do you miss him?"
Sylva didn't answer.
The Velrin estate was a fortress of fire and shadow.
Kael passed through the ancestral gates alone, eyes down, breath held. No guards. No greetings. Just a corridor of statues, flame-touched and scarless, as if none of them had ever bled.
He reached the heart chamber just past dusk.
His grandfather sat in a throne of blackstone, facing a fire that burned too still. Not flickering. Just watching.
"You're early," the old man said without turning.
Kael bowed lightly. "Didn't want to be."
His grandfather turned. "That fire inside you… it's unruly."
"So am I."
For the first time in years, the old man smiled.
"Good."
The rite required no ritual. No blessing. Just a bond.
"You understand what this legacy carries?" his grandfather asked, rising slowly.
"I do."
"You've seen the Spiral. You've lost a comrade. You've chosen to stand."
Kael flinched. "I didn't choose anything. He made the call."
"And now you make yours."
The old man raised his hand.
Flame coiled between his fingers—not natural, not raw. Sentient.
It curled like a creature and leapt toward Kael.
It entered through his chest.
The world cracked.
Kael fell to one knee, gasping.
He saw—
A battlefield flooded in light
A sword breaking mid-swing
A woman burning with a smile on her lips
A tower falling from the inside
A name being whispered to a god
All of it—fire.
And then—
Silence.
His heartbeat returned.
So did the room.
His grandfather said, "You are now Flamebound. That fire remembers more than you do. Listen to it."
Kael didn't speak.
He just stood.
He returned to Vel'Thara two days later.
Taller. Not in body, but in presence.
His eyes glowed faintly when anger stirred. His footfalls burned dust into stone. He didn't smile. He didn't joke.
He didn't need to.
Lira met him at the training circle, handing over the rotation schedule. She didn't comment. Just nodded once.
"Yours again."
Kael looked at her a beat too long.
"Thanks," he said at last.
Sylva watched from above.
"He's different," Tiv whispered beside her.
"He's fire now," she replied. "But fire isn't always warm."
Coren still hadn't returned to full group drills. Rumor had it he was mapping Spiral echoes alone in the west wings.
Jace had started tracking emotional pulsewaves near Scorchlight's glyph remains.
They were getting stronger. And synchronized.
"They're responding," Tiv muttered, watching the pattern bloom across his sketchpad.
"To what?" Jace asked.
Tiv looked toward the floor.
"Not what. Who."
That night, Kael stood in the old ruins of the upper dorm tower.
He should've been tired.
But the flame inside him buzzed—restless, alive, hungry.
He reached out, placed a hand on a broken support beam, and the wood healed.
Not burned. Healed.
He smiled.
Then frowned.
Something in the fire shifted—like a whisper beneath the crackle.
He closed his hand and walked away.
In the catacombs beneath the academy, Spiral glyphs continued to bloom.
Each one shimmered faintly gold.
Not red.
Not black.
Gold.
As if answering a different kind of flame.
And somewhere far away, in a ruined alley where a man had just begun to breathe again.
A faint warmth stirred.