The sanctuary was quiet.
Not with grief.
But with the silence that follows a legend taking flight.
Raelus was gone. His footsteps had vanished beyond the gates, carried on wind and destiny. The air still shimmered faintly with the echo of his aura. Every stone hummed softly, as if missing the weight of his presence.
Nyx'Zari lay coiled at the edge of the great basin, eyes half-lidded, her breath steady. The embers of her inner flame still burned, but dimmer than usual—calm, contemplative.
Vaerokh stood on the outer wall, wings unfurled, facing the horizon.
Neither spoke for a long time.
Then—
"He's really gone," Nyx'Zari murmured.
"He was never ours to keep," Vaerokh replied, his voice rough with emotion.
"No," she whispered, rising slowly. "But he was ours to shape and love."
Their eyes met.
In them: pride.
And something more.
Resolve.
⸻
Vaerokh turned toward, where the mountains once burned with dragonfire.
"We've done what we were meant to do here."
"Almost," Nyx'Zari said, slithering to his side.
From the black velvet of her scales, a small stone rose—etched with a crest once borne by the royal house of the demonfolk.
"We still have kin out there," she said.
"Scattered. Hiding. Or forgotten."
"Sleeping. Fading," Vaerokh agreed. "Waiting for something to call them back."
He reached into the armored scales at his chest, pulling free a fragment of scorched gold—a broken scale from the last royal dragon battalion, now long extinct.
They stood in silence once more.
The weight of thousands of years pressed on them.
"Shall we wake them?" Nyx'Zari asked, a sly smile on her lips.
Vaerokh smirked—sharp, weary, and warm.
"Let's knock on every gate that closed."
"Every kingdom that forgot."
"Every soul that dared to believe we were extinct."
They rose together.
Her scales shimmered with dark energy.
His talons glinted in the dawnlight.
Two remnants of godly blood.
Two titans.
"If the world will rise for our son," Vaerokh growled, "then let it rise on the shoulders of its last true heirs."
"Let it remember," Nyx'Zari said.
"Let it burn again," he finished.
And together, they vanished into the skies.
⸻
"Whispers Beneath the Black Star"
⸻
The gods weep above. But something else… watches from below.
The cavern was deeper than memory.
Hidden beneath the ruins of a forgotten temple, buried beneath a mountain range carved out of every old map, there existed a place untouched by sunlight. A place where screams echoed in reverse, and the air itself recoiled from purity.
Here, the shadows did not stretch.
They writhed.
And here, in the deepest circle, beneath a dome of bone and cursed stone, the cult of the Forsaken Flame gathered once more.
They wore robes the color of dried blood and void-black ash, each one stitched with runes written in languages long purged by the gods. Some had masks. Others bore disfigurements that no magic could mend. And all knelt in a half-circle before a single, pulsing altar—one that oozed mana so foul it burned to breathe near it.
The stone at its center—jet black and vein-ridden—throbbed with weak light. Within it, sealed behind countless divine barriers, slumbered a presence that had not stirred in sixteen years.
Azhor'el.
The Evil God.
The Forsaken Flame.
The Devourer of Fate.
⸻
One of the cult leaders—tall, wiry, with silver hair stained at the ends with ink—rose to speak.
"It has been sixteen years," he rasped, voice like rotted silk, "since the dragon king and the demon queen shattered the threshold of the Abyssal Plane… and wounded the God."
The other cultists hissed.
Not in protest.
In pain.
The memory still scorched.
"They paid for it," muttered another, this one masked with crimson bone. "Their souls were burnt. Their bodies shattered. Their line ended. The last child of the union was silenced."
A third cultist laughed quietly.
"And with it, the future they hoped to protect."
The first speaker nodded.
"Our networks confirm it. No dragonkin royal has been seen in over a decade. No demon royalty. Their sacred beasts vanished. Their bloodlines are ash. And the child of prophecy—the one the gods tried to protect—was lost in the fires that sealed Azhor'el."
He turned toward the altar.
"They think the Forsaken God was sealed forever."
He raised a hand.
"They do not understand what we have seen."
⸻
A crackling rumble spread through the chamber.
The black stone pulsed.
Once.
Then again.
Then once more.
The cultists all fell into silence.
Their heads bowed.
Their breaths still.
And then—
A voice.
Not spoken. Not heard. But pressed into every skull in the chamber like a spike of will.
"I. Still. See."
It echoed once.
Then faded.
Leaving behind cold sweat and whimpers.
The cult leader stood straight once more.
"Though bound in divine ruin, Azhor'el yet dreams. His power cannot act directly. His soul cannot move freely. But through us…"
He spread his arms wide.
"…his will will be done."
A flickering projection burst into view above the altar, formed from cursed fire.
It showed maps. Cities. Temples. Shrines. Kingdoms.
"We begin again," the leader said. "The slumbering races still rot in hiding. The elves grow complacent. The humans arrogant. The beastkin distracted by their infighting."
He gestured toward a dark silhouette behind him.
A masked figure, female in form, clad in voidsteel and arcane chains, stepped forward.
"The God's next vessel prepares in secret. Born not of fate, but of sacrifice. A child of monsters. She will open the gate again."
"And what of the Seals?" asked another cultist.
"One has already begun to weaken," the leader said. "The rest will fall. Slowly. Silently. Until the world is ready to crack."
The cultists knelt again as the stone pulsed once more.
"And when the stars turn black…" the leader whispered, "…the world will remember fear."
⸻
Far above them, in a world bathed in sunlight, a boy with horns and a black-golden wings flew unaware.
But below…
The god who hated fate stirred in his cage.
⸻
End of chapter 12 "Ash and Embers"