There was ash everywhere. All over the walls, and all the way down to the broken statues, and even to the inside of his lungs. When Kael opened his eyes, the world around him was hot, hollow, and dead silent, and to make things worse, he was lying on cracked marble that was half-covered by dust and shards of glass from the shattered stained windows above his head.
Something made a creaking sound from far above him, something he suspected could maybe be a stone beam, or a loose tile. The world felt like it was on the edge of a terrible collapse, and Kael had no idea how he'd ended up in the center of it.
He groaned and sat up, wincing as a terrible pain flared across his side. His limbs were feeling like they had been trampled on repeatedly, even though he wasn't sure that there were any bones broken. A win, he guessed.
He was feeling a very dull ache in his head, and when he tried to stand up, the nausea nearly buckled his knees.
"What... the hell?" he hissed in pain, and in that moment, even his own voice sounded foreign to him. It was raspy, very clearly dehydrated, and very worn down.
The temple, if that's what this place had once been, looked nothing less than a graveyard, and the only source of light was the sunlight that was peeking softly into the place, thanks to everything else that had been destroyed, including the rooftop.
There were massive statues of long-forgotten gods standing over his head, but many of them were decapitated with their stone faces shattered on the floor. The murals had crumbled as well, and had simply left behind peeling edges of what must have once told stories of some divine gods, and their triumphant achievements.
But what really caught Kael's eye, and what made the breath seize in his throat, wasn't just the crumbled state of the place, it was the mark on his chest.
He pulled at the remnants of his shirt, revealing the strange symbol burned into his skin. It looked like a jagged ring of ancient script that was shining faintly, and it also pulsed under his flesh.
It was hot, but it wasn't burning him, and it also looked like it was somehow alive. Startled, Kael staggered back and nearly tripped over a fallen piece of a statue as his heart beat faster in his chest.
The mark wasn't a tattoo, and it also wasn't carved. Instead, it looked like it had always been there, waiting under his skin, just under the surface.
It was at that point that the whispering started then, and it was soft at first like a quiet wind that was passing by, until it started to get even louder, and it felt like dozens of voices were intertwined together, and letting out a bunch of incoherent chants.
The sound kept coming from the inside of Kael's skull, like something trying to get out of his head very desperately.
Kael's hands flew to his head and he stumbled toward the nearest exit, which was a collapsed archway that led outside. Every step that he took kept sending shocks of heat from the mark on his chest straight through his limbs, but he didn't stop until the temple was behind him, and when he finally got away from the destroyed temple, he found himself arriving in a field of ruin.
The landscape around him was completely barren, and even the sky itself was ashy, and dull like the place hadn't seen any life in ages. There were burned-out trees everywhere, a dead riverbed was nearby, and when he looked into the far distance, there were broken spires of what had once been a city, looking like the bones of a fallen beast.
Kael wiped the sweat from his brow and took a step forward. His clothes were completely messed up in ways that he couldn't possibly redeem, and around him, there was no water he could drink, much less food, and most importantly, he had absolutely no memory of who he was before waking up.
He started walking, and it didn't matter to him where he was headed. All he knew was that he needed to get out of the open, find shelter, and also figure out what the hell was going on.
He moved carefully, instinctively keeping to cover, and avoiding the ridges and the hills where anyone could possibly spot him. It wasn't a strategy in the slightest, it was a reflex because somewhere deep down, his body remembered how to survive, and the need for him to survive, even if his mind didn't.
After a mile or so, he spotted a trail of smoke, and as soon as he did, his first thought was people, while his second thought was danger.
Regardless of this, he followed the trail anyway.
---
The source turned out to be a fire pit that was outside a half-collapsed cabin that was near the ruins of an old watchtower, and there were three men seated around the flames, dressed in piecemeal armor, which was the kind of armor that was worn by drifters or scavengers.
One was repeatedly sharpening a curved blade that he had with him, while another picked his teeth with a broken arrow, and Kael watched them from behind a scorched tree trunk, trying to gauge the situation.
He was about to move around and keep going when he heard one of them laugh.
"Another bounty went up this morning," the one who was sharpening his blade said. "Apparently, there's some idiot with a live Ashbrand, who's wandering around the place like he doesn't know the price on his head."
Kael's stomach dropped, even though he wasn't sure why at first.
"They say the mark's still glowing," the second man added. "So it must be fresh. You touch something like that, and you either explode, lose your mind, or turn into a freak."
The third man's voice was deeper, and even more cruel than the first two. "Or worse, you get claimed, and if you're claimed by him, then it's better to kill you before you find out what you are."
Kael slowly backed away, but just as he was taking a step backward, he stepped on a branch that immediately made a sound that caused all three men to jerk up.
"You hear that?" one of them asked.
"Over there!" Another yelled, and immediately, Kael turned and ran.
The scavengers were fast, and they knew the terrain better than Kael. He had only made it a few dozen yards before they caught up, and as soon as they did, one lunged at him with a short spear.
Kael dodged and slammed his shoulder into the man, sending him sprawling, but the other two immediately rushed towards him.
The curved blade that one of them was holding cut across Kael's arm, immediately drawing blood, and then the other scavenger tried to grab him from behind, but Kael reacted without thinking.
He twisted, ducked low, and then he slammed his elbow into the man's ribs, and as he did, he felt pain again in his chest, but it wasn't his wound.
It was from the mark on it. It started to pulse even more, and everything stopped.
The sound of the world dulled into a very low humming, and Kael could feel something getting heavier, and heavier under his skin. There was heat, there was pressure, and there was power, and it rushed into his hands, his limbs, and even his spine, and then, it exploded outward.
A ring of fireless energy blasted from his chest, throwing all three scavengers backward, then the world tilted, and Kael dropped to his knees gasping for air.
Something started to shine brightly in front of him, a shape, and a hint of something solid.
It looked like a weapon, but at the same time, not quite.
It wasn't steel in any way, like an actual weapon, and instead, it looked like fire condensed into the outline of a sword, making the sword transparent, and flickering like a live wire.
Without thinking, Kael reached out to it, and the moment his fingers touched it, the blade solidified, and he didn't hesitate. The scavenger with the curved blade tried to come at him again, but then Kael struck, and the fire blade went right through the scavenger's weapon and his flesh like mist, slicing him in half.
At the sight of it, the other two quickly scrambled back with horror painted across their faces, and while one of them screamed, the other just ran.
Kael stood there with the sword still very firm in his grip, while his heart thundered in his chest, and blood dripped from his arm. The weapon vibrated once, and before he knew it, it dissolved into glowing ash like it had a mind of its own.
He fell to his knees, panting again, and the mark on his chest started to glow even brighter than ever.
"What the hell are you?" he questioned in his confusion, but no answer came.
---
It was already nighttime by the time Kael finally found shelter under a crooked cliff overhang. He managed to start a small fire, more for the light than for the warmth, even though he hated the way the flames from the fire made it seem like the shadows were moving.
He flexed his fingers, remembering the sword that he had held earlier, if it could even be called that because it hadn't just felt like a weapon.
It had felt like a command of some sort, like something he couldn't imagine had answered him, or worse, ordered him.
He didn't sleep, not because he didn't want to, but because every time he closed his eyes, he kept seeing flashes of things that he didn't understand.
The first one was a throne that was surprisingly made of fire and bone, then it was a shadow standing at the top of a mountain, and holding a blade that was made of stars. Then he also saw several cities burning, and the statues of the gods bleeding.
He woke with a start just before dawn with his heart racing, and his breathing heavy, and when he looked into the reflection of a broken blade that was beside him, he saw two faces.
One was his, and the other wasn't.