The wind had shifted.
Kaelen Virelth stood beneath the twisted banner of his house, staring into the distance long after Serenya Valir rode back into the dark. Her words still lingered in the air, like smoke that refused to clear.
"The Dominion has found the Vault."
He remembered the legend — the same one their mother had whispered in half-mocking tones over winter fires: The First Flame was not a gift. It was a curse too bright to hold.
Kaelen had believed it was a fable meant to scare children. Now it threatened to devour nations.
"She's lying," Maera said beside him, arms crossed, voice tight. "Or she's playing you. You can't trust a priestess of the Flame."
Kaelen said nothing.
"You hesitate every time she's near," Maera continued. "I see it in your eyes. The past is a noose, brother. You either cut it or hang from it."
"I don't think she's lying," Kaelen said, almost to himself. "I think she's afraid."
Maera scoffed. "Good. That makes two of us."
They stood in silence for a while. Behind them, the rebel camp stirred — scouts returning, wounded arriving, another day of survival etched onto the cracked shields and blood-rusted armor of the desperate.
Kaelen turned and began walking. Maera followed.
They entered the strategy tent where the map of Elaris lay pinned across a war table, its rivers drawn in faded ink and its cities marked with burnt sigils. A small black sun now sat freshly carved above Mount Erendis. The Vault.
Kaelen stared at it.
"Even if the Vault is real," Maera said behind him, "even if the Dominion reaches it first — what can they do that they haven't already done? They've burned towns, shattered kingdoms—"
"They're not trying to win the war anymore," Kaelen interrupted. "They're trying to end the world that resists them. And that mountain might let them."
A silence fell, heavy and ancient.
And then, softly, Maera spoke. "Do you remember what Father said the day the Empress burned us from our lands?"
Kaelen nodded. He remembered every word.
"Fire cannot be negotiated with. But fire also cannot hold a throne. It only burns."
Maera placed a hand on his shoulder — rough, callused, steady. "Then we don't let them light that fire. We burn first."
Kaelen turned. "You want to strike the mountain?"
"I want to strike before the gods wake up again."
That night, Kaelen sat alone beside a dying fire, the map rolled beneath his palms, his thoughts burning hotter than any flame.
The Vault was no longer a myth. Serenya's warning was no longer a whisper of doubt. And war was no longer a matter of soldiers and swords.
This war would be about who held the gods — or who destroyed them first.
He closed his eyes and whispered the words of the forbidden prayer, the one he hadn't spoken since the day he lost everything:
"If light must return, let it be through mercy. If fire must rise, let it be mine to carry."
And in the wind that followed, he could swear he heard a voice — soft, feminine, aching with memory:
You were never meant to carry it alone.