(Arkael Ashborne)
The flames woke him.
Not ordinary flames. Not heat. Not light. Something older—something he had not felt in nine hundred and sixty-eight years. The sensation slid through his marrow like a remembered song, one he had sworn never to hear again, one the world itself had tried to forget.
Arkael’s eyes snapped open as a violent ripple of magic tore through the Emberborn camp. Fire did not burn here unless they willed it. Their clan—once a legion of proud warriors, now a ragged shadow shielded rut—lived scattered on the volcanic ledges and obsidian ridges of their hidden refuge. Heat was as natural to them as breath. But this—this was different.
The air itself shuddered. Ash drifted down from the cavern roof in a slow, shimmering fall, each grain glowing faintly before dim
