The pool inside the stone circle looked calm, but Kael felt it wasn't water. It shimmered like molten glass, without steam, yet it radiated pressure—like a storm waiting to scream.
"What is it?" he asked.
Eira circled the edge of the pool, one hand trailing above its surface. "This is an Echo Pool. It shows you what the Ash remembers."
"The Ash… remembers?"
She nodded. "It's not just power. It's history, war, pain. Every fragment carries the echo of the god it came from. Yours is Sovereign-class. That means—"
"It belonged to a god that ruled other gods," Kael finished, his voice lower than he expected.
"Yes," Eira said, and her eyes narrowed. "And the fact that you bonded to it without dying means one of two things: either you are a once-in-an-era anomaly… or you're already something else entirely."
Kael stared at the pool, his reflection distorted.
"I don't feel like a god."
"No. You feel like a furnace," she said, her voice nearly a whisper. "And if you don't open the release valve, you'll explode."
The first lesson was control.
Not fighting. Not burning. Restraint.
Eira drew a crude circle in the dirt and ordered Kael to step inside it.
"You're not leaving until you stop the fire," she said. "Fully. Consciously. At will."
Kael scowled. "I don't even know how to start it. It just… happens."
"Exactly. That's the problem. You're a torch without a handle. Learn to switch it off."
Kael stood in the circle for hours.
He clenched his fists. He breathed. He tried to will the heat away.
It didn't listen.
The Sovereign Ash pulsed under his skin, like a second heartbeat. It liked being free. It wanted to burn.
Eira meditated silently beside the circle, offering no help, no advice.
He nearly punched a tree by the fourth hour.
It wasn't until the sun dipped past the trees that Kael sat down, exhausted, and stopped trying to force it.
He exhaled slowly. Let his muscles go slack. Let the anger slide away.
And the heat… dimmed.
The glow in his veins faded.
The fire slept.
Eira opened one eye. "There. That's lesson one."
Kael chuckled, dry and bitter. "That felt more like punishment."
"Power always punishes those who think it owes them."
Later that night, Kael sat by the Echo Pool alone, watching its surface ripple.
The reflection staring back wasn't quite his.
It had his face, yes—but the eyes were deeper, more ancient. And when he moved, the reflection didn't follow.
Instead, it spoke.
"This is the beginning. But you are already far too late."
Kael stood and stumbled back, heart pounding. The surface rippled once, then stilled. His own face returned.
He turned toward the trees, scanning for Eira.
She wasn't there.
But something else was watching.
Something older than the forest. Something that had known the gods before they died.