It had been more than a year.
The world beyond their exile had gone on, untouched. But here—within the boundaryless, ever-still lands of the Gray Wane—time refused to answer to gods or flame. It neither passed nor paused. It simply… lingered.
Cael opened his eyes to a sky that bore no sun. Light existed without a source, as if the land itself glowed with quiet mourning. He sat up slowly, muscles aching, bones humming with something too old to be pain.
But he did not see it. Not truly.
Shapes, shadows, the vague ghost of motion—those still swam in the periphery. But the color was gone. Detail had become an abstraction. And as he blinked toward the wavering space where a tree might stand, he realized his eyes did not obey him like they used to. But the strong wind whispers to him that he was outside a new place and alone.
Still, he did not speak- instead, silently understanding his situation.
He closed his eyes as a mint fragrance flavor the wind.
And as days and nights pass, he pretends to be asleep.
He learned the rhythm of the sanctuary by sound, Velastra's robes brushing against the floor, Orion's quiet grumbles as he sorted dried roots, the wind sighing against the ancient, ironwood shutters.
And when he thinks he can pretend to be cured, he lets Velastra know he is awake.
Velastra was nearby. He heard the way she walked—barefoot on cracked stone, soft, intentional.
Cael moved as though he could see—head turning in time, steps deliberate. But Velastra noticed. His gaze always arrived late, two heartbeats slower than her presence.
And yet, she said nothing.
Instead, she offered him medicine as she always did, her hand brushing his—light, unassuming. Letting him choose the moment.
It came late that day, when Orion sat beside him at the hearth with a cup of bitterroot steam.
"I can't see," Cael confessed, fingers curling tightly around the warmth. "Not shadows. Not light. Nothing. Will I… ever?"
Orion's silence stretched long, before he finally held his wrist. Then, taking a deep breath he answered, low and certain. "Your body is whole, but your essence is wrecked by Velastra's Seraciel whip for lashing you for 30 years. Thus, your body cannot fully recover from a spiritual harm. You will not see again unless Velastra unbinds you. Only then will your body can produce essence energies again for your eyesight to return."
Orion looked at Cael, looking for a trace of anger in his face. Maybe, a sign of blaming Velastra.
Cael's knuckles whitened against the cup. "Unbind?" he echoed. No anger, no emotion of blaming her.
Only focused in his word.
"In us, immortals of Oathflame-bearers, unbinding is as final as death," Orion said. "It is… a separation of eternity."
Cael's voice never rose—but his answer was clear. "No."
Outside the chamber, beyond the woven curtain of cassia leaves, Velastra stilled. A tear travels down her cheeks, as Velastra learned her Seraciel damage Cael's essence. She realized her rebirth can never mend her sin. However, she also smiled. A rare, quiet smile, as if the ache in her chest had exhaled for the first time in a year.
Later, Cael turned to Orion again. "I don't recognize this place."
"This is Navoris—the Cinderspire Exile. Where immortals are sentenced to endure without glory. No power, no divine spark. Here, you burn slowly, not blaze. Here we aged as immortals but with strength as mortals."
Cael frowned. "Why?"
"Velastra was exiled here after Arisven. The king called it punishment for unleashing Oathflame in an unnecessary situation and not trusting the Crown to intervene. Velastra almost unleashed her flame again in the royal court, but she agreed to it… so long as you and I were brought with her."
Cael bowed his head, lips curling faintly.
"So she gave up power and her pride… to bring me here."
"Yes," Orion replied. "And she's never once looked back."
---
The bells of Irithiel tolled—not in mourning, but with a measured grace that suggested both celebration and caution. Smoke from the jasmine censers wound upward like whispered prayers as nobles gathered in the Court of Flame. The obsidian dais gleamed, draped in scarlet banners that bore the sigil of Kingdom Vorelin: a twin-headed falcon wreathed in fire.
Standing beneath the High Sunlight Arch, King Vorelin surveyed the court with his usual inscrutability, but beside him stood a figure less familiar—yet no less compelling.
Lady Merial- but in Nirhaleth, she is Queen Lirae of the Yunari Clan.
Her new name was given by King Vorelin. Once a woman consigned to the burned records of queens and broken houses, she now stood robed in silk the color of phoenix ash, her hair pinned with ruby thorns, her face unlined by the years that weighed on her name. Whispers rippled through the great hall.
"Is that… Cael's mother?"
"The Nirhalethian's royal mother, now a royal concubine?"
But no one dared speak louder than a breath. Not beneath Vorelin's gaze.
With a nod from the king, Merial stepped forward, the light catching the small, swaddled bundle in her arms. Her voice carried not with pride, but precision:
"I bring forth the light born of ember and flame. A son born under the Watchnight. By name, he is Liraen, bearer of house flame and bloodline renewed."
Gasps, quickly masked by polite murmurs. A second heir, born not of queenship but concubinage—yet of Vorelin's blood all the same. And hers. The implications trembled beneath the marble floors.
Among the courtiers, some stole glances toward the elder councilors. The throne had never before allowed one tied to a past enemy this close to succession lines. Yet here she was, elevated.
And something else was uneasily clear.
Cael had not returned. His mother introduced her second son without a mention of the first.
Somewhere in the shadows cast by the stained glass of the eastern gallery, High Priest Zevrin, the second elder in the 12 thrones of the Court of Chain, leaned slightly, as if hearing the beat of a future undone. His eyes flicked toward the dais where Merial now cradled Liraen close to her chest, like a secret made manifest.
From her vantage point behind the tapestry wing, Lady Arliane—the steward of the Royal Ledger—scribbled something onto parchment: lineage, date, and flame-bound name. Her brow furrowed ever so slightly.
In Irithiel, nothing happened without consequence.
Merial, for her part, never once looked away from the court. Her chin lifted a fraction.
Let them whisper. Her eldest might have vanished into myth, but the fire had never left her blood.
And now, it burned anew.