The raven's message still burned in Kaelen's hand as dawn broke over Thornehold.
Kareth.
A single word, yet heavy with history. It was the city where his father had vanished, swallowed in fire and betrayal. The place where the war had begun—and where Kaelen might find the answers no one had ever dared to speak aloud.
But it wasn't time to leave. Not yet.
Lady Mira summoned him before the council of Avaron's elders, cloaked in gray and crimson, their faces weathered by war and watchfulness. They did not kneel. They questioned.
"Do you know what it means to carry the flame?" one asked.
"To be chosen by a sword forgotten by time?" asked another.
"I didn't ask for this," Kaelen replied, "but I won't run from it."
The council murmured. Mira silenced them with a glance.
"He's ready," she said. "But before you go to Kareth, Kaelen, you must see what lies beneath."
"Beneath?"
Mira turned toward the dark stone steps at the rear of the hall—the ones no one had walked since the fall of Myre.
"Your father came here once. Long ago. Before he wore a crown. Before he became what the world remembers him as."
Kaelen's breath hitched.
"You knew him?"
"I knew the man he was before the world twisted him. And I know what he left behind."
The staircase wound down like a serpent coiled in stone.
Torches hissed to life as Kaelen and Mira descended into the earth. The air grew damp, the silence ancient. The walls bore carvings—scenes of fire, of winged beasts, of a blade piercing the heart of a shadow.
"What is this place?" Kaelen whispered.
Mira's voice echoed like wind on broken glass.
"The true heart of Myrian fire. And the prison of its greatest secret."
They reached a heavy iron door sealed with three sigils, each pulsing with faint warmth. Mira pressed her palm to the center.
The door groaned open.
Beyond it lay a vault—its floor made of glass crystal, its walls covered in runes Kaelen couldn't read but felt stir in his blood. And in the center of the chamber… a mirror.
But it did not reflect the present.
Kaelen stepped closer, and the image inside shifted.
He saw himself as a child, standing in a garden with a woman whose face was a blur of golden hair and sorrowful eyes.
Then the image changed.
His father.
Younger, but unmistakable. Kneeling in this very room. Behind him—the Midnight Blade, still and dormant, resting in stone.
Kaelen looked to Mira, stunned.
"He came here?"
"He was tested, as you were. But unlike you, he did not walk out unscarred."
The mirror shimmered again, now showing a broken crown, shattered in flames, and a face Kaelen couldn't place—but something in him recognized it. A boy with his eyes. And a different name.
"Elion," Kaelen murmured.
The name felt like a ghost in his mouth.
Mira turned sharply. "Where did you hear that?"
Kaelen blinked. "The mirror. It—"
But the mirror was blank again.
Mira's lips thinned. "You must understand: there are truths buried in bloodlines. Names forgotten for a reason. Your father tried to bury them, but magic remembers what men forget."
Kaelen stepped away, breath shallow. "So who was I—before all this?"
Mira didn't answer.
Instead, she handed him a scroll bound in fire-touched ribbon.
"Take this with you to Kareth. There's someone there who can tell you more. Someone your father trusted… once."
That night, Kaelen stood on the balcony of the guest quarters, the Midnight Blade resting against the stone beside him.
Elira approached silently, a flask in hand. "You look like someone who just found out they're not who they thought they were."
Kaelen took the flask, drank. "I don't even know what to ask anymore."
"Start simple," she said. "Start with: Who do I want to be now?"
He nodded slowly, the flame still flickering beneath his skin.
Below, the gates of Thornehold opened. A convoy prepared for the journey west.
Kaelen tightened his cloak. He had secrets in his satchel, whispers in his blood, and a kingdom waiting for his next move.
Kareth awaited.
And within its broken walls, the truth would rise—whether he was ready or not.