Ash.
It choked the wind, stained the sky, and clung to Kael's skin like a second layer of flesh. He coughed violently as he sat up, half-buried in bone dust, blinking through tears and grit.
Around him stretched a vast graveyard — a valley of titanic dragon remains, their skeletons tangled and twisted like the aftermath of a celestial war. Wing bones pierced the clouds. Jaws big enough to swallow buildings lay frozen mid-roar. The air shimmered faintly with leftover heat… though no fire burned.
Kael had no memory of how he got here.
Only pain.
And a voice that still echoed in the back of his skull.
"Rise…"
He staggered to his feet, legs shaking. The ground crunched beneath his boots — not dirt, but scorched scale and brittle fang. His heart pounded. The silence was unnatural, pressing in like a storm waiting to break.
He didn't know who he was. Not fully.
His name… yes. That much returned when the voice whispered it earlier.
Kael.
But everything else felt distant. His past… his family… his purpose… all burned away.
He looked down.
There, on his chest, glowing faintly beneath torn fabric, was a strange ember-shaped sigil, pulsing with a soft red light. Not warm. Not cold. But… alive.
He reached out to touch it——and the moment his fingers brushed the surface, the world snapped.
Flashes. Screams. Wings of fire. A man with glowing eyes. A crown made of dragonbone. A great sword slicing through heaven.
Kael stumbled back, gasping.
What the hell was that?
"It remembers."
He spun.
There was no one there.
Yet the voice — low, ancient, neither male nor female — echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
"You are the hollow flame. The vessel. The last breath of what was."
"And what will be."
"Walk, Kael."
He swallowed hard.
"Walk where?" he rasped.
No answer.
Just the wind.
And a sudden gust that tore through the graveyard, sending dust and bone spiraling into the sky — forming, for a brief second, the image of a dragon's skull, massive and jagged, staring down at him like a challenge.
Then it scattered.
Kael didn't wait for another omen.
He walked.
He wandered through the bones for what felt like hours. The sky above remained dim — not from clouds, but from ashfall, perpetual and heavy. Time meant little in a place like this. Hunger gnawed at him. Thirst clawed his throat.
But he couldn't stop.
The ember in his chest guided him — pulling, throbbing gently when he went the right way, burning sharp when he didn't.
Eventually, he saw movement ahead.
Not wind. Figures.
Kael dropped low, crawling between ribcages and broken horns, peering through gaps in the bone.
Three shapes.
Hunters.
Humanoid, but wrong. Their bodies were lean, feral, draped in tattered cloaks stitched from dragonhide. Their eyes glowed violet. Claws dragged behind them in the ash. And when one sniffed the air, its head snapped toward Kael's direction.
He froze.
Don't breathe.Don't move.
But the ember burned brighter. Hotter.
A faint crack of flame rippled from his hand — not enough to ignite, but enough to catch attention.
One of the creatures hissed.
"Flame-bearer…"
They charged.
Kael turned and ran, panic flooding his limbs. He vaulted over ribcages, slid under collapsed vertebrae, clawed his way through tight gaps between fangs the size of trees.
But the hunters were faster.
He could hear them—laughing.
"You thought you were chosen?""You're just a matchstick!""Let us snuff you out!"
A claw grazed his shoulder. He yelped and stumbled.
That's when the spear hit.
Not his.
Theirs.
Thrown from the shadows — clean, precise, and wrapped in crimson energy.
It impaled the lead hunter mid-leap, pinning it to a spine pillar.
The second creature turned to flee.
A blade met it mid-stride — a curved, double-edged weapon crackling with red-hot runes. The hunter's head hit the ground before its body did.
Kael lay frozen, blood pounding in his ears.
From the mist stepped a figure.
A woman.
Tall. Muscular. Cloaked in dragonleather armor stitched with scarlet trim. Her silver hair was braided tight behind her head, and her eyes—slitted, glowing faint orange—were fixed on him.
Her weapon dripped with dark ichor.
She didn't offer a hand.
She pointed the tip of her blade at his chest.
"What are you?" she demanded.
Kael blinked.
"Kael," he managed to say.
"That wasn't the question."
Her gaze narrowed.
"Your flame — it reeks of something ancient. Dragon. God."
He opened his mouth to answer—
The ember pulsed.
And for the briefest moment, Kael's eyes burned bright gold.
The woman stepped back, startled.
"…Impossible."
Kael stood, wiping ash from his eyes.
"I don't know what I am," he said. "But I think… I'm supposed to find out."
She studied him for a long moment.
Then she lowered her blade.
"Name's Serenya."
"If you want answers, Flameborn… you'd better survive long enough to earn them."
And thus, in a valley of death and fire, a forgotten god's spark took its first breath in a mortal boy.
The journey had begun.