The night after Kaelen collapsed at the gates of the Ashroad Tribe, he awoke to the sound of drums.
Deep, steady thuds rolled through the air like a heartbeat, matched by flickers of fire that painted the obsidian walls of the cavern village in bronze and gold. Shadows of warriors and dancers spun against the stone, their voices chanting in a tongue Kaelen could not yet understand.
He blinked, groggy, the coarse smell of ash filling his nose. He lay on a bed of animal hides, his silver-and-gold spear propped carefully against the wall beside him. Someone had cleaned it, polished the dragon coils until they gleamed.
"Awake at last," a voice said.
Kaelen turned. An old man sat cross-legged by the firepit, a cloak of molten-orange feathers draped across his shoulders. His face was deeply lined, eyes dark as cooled embers but bright with hidden warmth.
"I am Druin, elder of the Ashroad," he said. "And you, boy… you carry a weapon that does not belong to these lands."
Kaelen instinctively reached for the spear, but Druin raised a hand.
"Peace. We have not touched it beyond cleansing. A weapon carries its own memory—it will not harm us if you do not will it."
The boy hesitated. "…Why save me?"
The elder smiled faintly. "Because flame must be fed. Even a dying spark may grow to light the world, if tended."
By dawn, Kaelen was taken into the daily rhythm of the tribe. The Ashroad lived within a network of caverns carved by fire long ago. They farmed mushrooms that glowed faintly in the dark, hunted ember-beasts that prowled the volcanic plains, and forged weapons in firepits lined with black crystal.
Children ran with painted faces, chanting songs of paradox: "That which burns also shelters! That which ends also begins!"
Kaelen could not help but stare. This tribe was alive in ways his shattered homeland no longer was.
That afternoon, a scarred man with a broad frame and one clouded eye approached.
"You're the outsider," he grunted. His voice rumbled like stone. "Name's Jorah. I'll be breaking you."
"…Breaking me?" Kaelen asked warily.
Jorah smirked. "Into something useful. Elder Druin says you'll walk the Road. But before a boy can walk, he crawls."
Without another word, he tossed Kaelen a weighted spear-shaft, nothing more than a polished length of black ashwood.
"Hold it. If your arms don't snap like twigs, maybe I'll teach you how not to stab yourself."
The Flame of Remembrance
Training was merciless. Jorah pushed Kaelen to exhaustion with basic drills: stance, thrust, spin. Every mistake earned a barked correction or a strike with the flat of Jorah's own spear.
But when dusk came, Druin called Kaelen to the central fire.
"Today you begin the tribe's first teaching," the elder said. "A cultivation manual passed down since the First Walkers themselves. It is called Flame of Remembrance."
He placed his palm over the fire, letting the flames lick his skin. Strangely, they did not burn.
"The Golden Road is not walked with flesh alone, but with memory," Druin explained. "Our tribe teaches this: every sorrow you carry, every joy you've lost… breathe it in. Make it your fire. The world may seek to extinguish you, but only you decide whether the flame dies."
He gestured for Kaelen to kneel by the fire.
"Close your eyes. Recall what you've lost."
Kaelen's chest tightened. Images came unbidden—his home engulfed in smoke, his parents' voices cut short, the weight of silence where laughter once lived.
Tears slid down his cheeks as he inhaled sharply. The fire before him seemed to flare, threads of orange light streaming toward his lungs. His body ached, but inside, something loosened.
A whisper curled in his mind, the faint echo of the Road:
[Code of Ash — Grief as Fuel.]
The first Code carved itself into Kaelen's soul. His hands trembled as warmth spread through his veins, not just heat but purpose.
Elder Druin smiled softly. "Good. You carry pain heavy enough for ten lifetimes. That pain will carry you further than most."
Jorah, watching from the shadows, snorted. "Or break him sooner."
But Kaelen hardly heard them. For the first time since his homeland's fall, he felt something he thought forever lost.
The faintest spark of power.
The faintest promise of fire.