The Ironwild Ridge rose before them like the spine of a slumbering giant—jagged, blackened, and impossibly vast. Wind screamed through broken crags, and ash fell in quiet drifts even though no fire burned. At its heart, nestled in a valley of stone and ruin, stood the Iron Gate—a colossal slab of basalt streaked with ember veins, pulsing faintly in response to Duncan's presence.
But the path forward was not open.
It was guarded.
The Warden waited.
They saw him first from a distance. Towering, horned, and unmoving. Atop a ridge of shattered obsidian, the creature stood twice the height of a man, cloaked in fur, leather, and scale. His weapon—a massive stone-tipped spear—was planted in the ground like a banner of defiance.
He did not move when they approached.
He did not need to.
The Last of the Flamebound
The First Beast exhaled slowly, its great mane rippling in the wind.
"That is Kaurn. Last of the Flamebound Wardens."
"Beast or man?" Duncan asked, though the answer already stirred in his blood.
"Both. Once a guardian of pact and fire. Now a relic bound by grief."
Mora Vale squinted up at the figure. "If he doesn't want us through that gate, we'll never make it. I've seen what Flamebound can do."
"Then I don't plan to fight him," Duncan said quietly.
He left his blade with Mora and walked forward alone.
A Test of Memory, Not Strength
Duncan climbed the slope slowly, the black rock crumbling beneath his boots. The wind grew heavier the closer he came, as if pressing him back with each step. The Warden didn't stir until Duncan stood less than thirty feet away.
Then Kaurn's eyes opened—burning gold set into a beast's face scarred by centuries.
"You bear the Mark of Ember," he rumbled. "But you are not of the old flame."
"I don't come to conquer," Duncan replied. "I come to uncover."
The Warden's nostrils flared. "They all say that. Kings. Scholars. But when they find the truth, they bury it again."
Duncan stepped forward. "Then test me."
Kaurn's eyes narrowed.
"You will not fight me with blade," he said. "You will fight me with what you carry."
He struck his spear into the ground—and the mountain itself responded.
The world turned dark.
The Trial of Ash and Blood
Duncan stood alone in a dreamscape of fire and ruin.
Before him stretched a burning city—half-beast, half-human—its walls collapsing, its people screaming. Above it hovered a sigil Duncan recognized as the old Dominion crest, but warped, cracked, dripping with chains.
A voice whispered in his ear:
"What do you see?"
He stepped through the vision. He saw children with beast-eyes dragged into labs. He saw Dominion generals lighting entire villages aflame to erase histories they could not control. He saw the same beastlords now called savages once kneeling beside humans at councils long forgotten.
"What do you remember?"
Duncan clenched his fists.
"Not enough."
The flame burned brighter.
And then he saw it—his grandfather, Aldric Voss, standing atop a pyre with a younger Kaurn beside him. They had sworn an oath of protection, not conquest. They had forged the Dominion not to dominate… but to defend a world that was already breaking.
Something had twisted it.
Someone.
The vision shattered.
Worthy to Remember
Duncan gasped, collapsing onto the slope once more.
Kaurn stood unmoving.
But after a moment, the Warden turned his spear aside.
"The flame has judged," Kaurn said. "You remember not for power… but for truth."
Duncan rose slowly.
"Will you let us pass?"
The great beast-man looked to the horizon.
"No one may pass through Iron Gate unguarded. But perhaps it is time… it was guarded by one who still remembers."
Kaurn knelt.
A Warden no longer.
A soldier reborn.
The Gate Opens
As Kaurn touched the stone gate with his hand, the basalt cracked in silence. Lines of flame bloomed outward like veins awakening, and with a low groan, the gate split down the center.
The path to the Heart of the Flame was open.
Behind Duncan, the Beastborne waited—not in formation, but in readiness. Mora Vale stepped beside him, sword drawn.
"Whatever's inside that mountain," she said, "you think it's worth everything we've lost?"
Duncan looked beyond the gate, where firelight pulsed like the heartbeat of an old god.
"I think it's the only thing that can stop what's coming."
And then they marched forward.