The masked figure stood motionless, barely ten paces away.
Snow hissed around his feet as it turned to steam. His robes clung to his frame like wet ashes, and the burning glyphs on his porcelain mask pulsed like a second heartbeat.
Kael's own heart thundered. Not with fear—but with heat.
Behind him, Elira drew her dagger and whispered,
"You have one chance. When I strike, you run."
Kael didn't move.
"I told you—I'm not running anymore."
The Seeker tilted his head, as if amused. Then, without warning, he lifted a single hand.
The ground beneath Kael split open with a crack of scorched ice, and from it, fire surged—not like Kael's wild, living flame, but cold, blue, and controlled. It rushed toward him in a coiling spiral.
Elira leapt between them, slashing the air with her dagger. A wall of red flame erupted from her blade, colliding with the Seeker's attack in an explosion of smoke and light.
Kael stumbled back, blinking through the haze.
"He uses fire too—how?"
Elira growled.
"Stolen flame. Siphoned from ancient bindings. It's not his. It never will be."
The Seeker advanced, lifting both hands now. Chains of molten magic spun around him like serpents, striking the ground and sending shards of stone into the air. The mountain shook beneath them.
Kael felt the Codex on his back pulse. Its pages whispered through his mind, lines of forgotten incantations rising like embers:
"The First Law of Flame: To burn without purpose is destruction.
To burn with will is creation."
He stepped forward, ignoring the fire swirling in the air.
"Then I choose to burn."
Kael raised his hand—and this time, he didn't force the fire. He welcomed it.
It surged from his palm, gold and red, wild but not chaotic. It roared into the open sky and struck one of the Seeker's molten chains, shattering it with a scream of ruptured magic.
Elira gasped. Even the Seeker froze for a moment.
"That's not possible," she whispered.
The Seeker spoke at last. His voice was hollow, mechanical, like wind blowing through a furnace:
"You carry the Flamebound Codex. The last of the Nine.
Your soul belongs to the Temple."
Kael raised his voice.
"No. My soul belongs to no one."
The Seeker roared, and his mask cracked slightly, revealing a flicker of a human eye beneath—mad, burning, and broken. He lunged at Kael, blade forming from his hand like crystallized fire.
Kael felt instinct rise. The Codex lit up. His body moved before he could think.
He ducked, spun, and drove his palm upward. A pillar of fire burst from the ground, catching the Seeker mid-leap and slamming him into the cliffside.
The snow exploded outward from the blast. Smoke billowed. Elira shielded her eyes.
When the smoke cleared… the Seeker was gone.
Only a blackened scorch mark remained on the stone, and a single shard of the porcelain mask, lying in the snow like a dead tooth.
Kael collapsed to one knee, breathing hard.
Elira knelt beside him.
"You faced a Seeker and lived."
Kael gave a bitter chuckle.
"I don't feel like I lived."
Elira pressed her hand against his back, where the Codex still shimmered.
"It chose you. Truly."
"Then why do I still feel afraid?" Kael asked.
She looked at him, and for the first time, there was no sarcasm or distance in her voice.
"Because you're still human. And humans fear what they must become."
They camped that night in a ruined watchtower, half-buried in snow. Elira lit no fire, for fear more Seekers might follow the scent of spell-burned air.
Kael sat near a crumbling window, watching the moon rise over the frozen hills.
Elira sat beside him, her voice low.
"There are others, you know. Survivors. Of the old flame."
Kael turned to her.
"Where?"
"Hidden. Scattered. Broken. But still alive. If we can reach them—"
"We can rebuild Ardarion," Kael finished.
Elira smiled faintly.
"Maybe not the kingdom. But the idea. A world where the flame is free. Not feared."
Kael was quiet for a moment, then asked,
"And the High Temple? Will they ever stop hunting me?"
Her eyes met his, steady as steel.
"Not until they've buried your flame in chains. Or ashes."
Kael looked down at the pendant around his neck, now warm against his skin.
He thought of Nordheim. Of Toren. Of the screams.
And he thought of the fire inside him—still growing.
"Then let them come."
"This time, I'll be ready."