Chapter1: The Grave That Breathed
1752 Words
It began with silence.
Deep, pulsing silence that stretched through the cursed woods of Elaran like a shroud. Even the wind feared to pass through these trees. Their gnarled roots clawed the earth, thirsty for blood. The very soil was known to swallow the living and speak only to the dead.
And tonight, the dead answered back.
The air shimmered above a lonely mound of blackened earth, the size of a shallow grave. Then, with a sound like thunder trapped beneath the ground, the soil broke.
A pale, blistered hand tore through the surface, fingers curled, grasping for life.
Moments later, a man gasped into the air.
He clawed and coughed and dragged himself from the hole like a newborn birthed by the grave itself. Dirt poured from his mouth as he heaved—lungs filling with something more vital than air: memory.
Lightning cracked across the sky, momentarily revealing his face. Sharp features, skin stained with soot, eyes glowing faintly blue. His silver-streaked hair clung to his forehead as rain began to fall.
He collapsed on his side, shivering, barely clothed in tatters of what once might have been ceremonial robes.
He blinked.
“I... died.”
His voice was raw, strangled like it hadn't been used in decades. Because it hadn’t.
More fragments came.
Fire. Screaming. A temple collapsing. Betrayal. A sword through his back. The scent of blood on marble.
And then—nothing.
His fingers dug into the dirt as memories stabbed through him like daggers. He remembered standing at the center of the Azure Temple, its skyglass windows reflecting the stars. He remembered the boy who knelt before him in training robes.
Vaerith.
His most gifted student.
The one who murdered him.
“No... no.” The man sat up slowly, joints creaking. “This isn’t real. I died. I remember dying.”
The trees gave no answers.
He stood, wobbling on uncertain legs, the storm raging around him. The forest did not welcome him, but it watched him. Something ancient and wrong shifted between the branches. Shadows twisted, murmuring, sensing something long-forgotten stirring in the world again.
The man limped forward through the underbrush, each step a war.
He did not know how he was alive. He didn’t know why.
But he knew who he was.
His name was Kaelin.
And he had once been the Grandmaster of the Azure Order.
Kaelin didn’t reach shelter until the following day.
After hours of stumbling through the forest, bleeding from roots and branches that sliced his skin, he came across the ruins of what might have been a waystation—stone walls collapsed, roof caved in, but still offering some protection from the wind.
He built a fire with his bare hands, kindling it with a whisper of energy. The moment the flames caught, the heat kissed something inside him, and his hands trembled. The fire felt... right.
Azure Flame.
The sacred source.
It still lived in him.
Even after death.
He stared into the fire, haunted by the familiar glow. As a boy, he’d spent years meditating on flame—learning its patience, its fury, its dual nature. He had taught others that balance. Had taught Vaerith.
And Vaerith had burned the temple to the ground.
The Azure Order was no more.
How long had he been dead?
Kaelin glanced at his reflection in a puddle beside the fire. His face looked older than he remembered—more gaunt, with faint wrinkles, and white at his temples. But his body was strong. In fact, stronger than it had been before his death.
Rebirth.
The word echoed in his mind like an omen.
This wasn’t resurrection. This was something else. A cycle returning. A flame refusing to extinguish.
“Why me?” he asked the fire. “Why now?”
As if answering, the fire sputtered and hissed—sparks dancing into the air. Kaelin looked around quickly.
Then he felt it.
A presence. Watching.
He grabbed a sharp branch and spun around.
A figure emerged from the shadows.
A girl, barely twelve, wrapped in a patchwork cloak. Mud smeared her face, and her hands clutched a knife far too large for her fingers.
“Stay back,” she said, voice shaking.
Kaelin lowered his weapon.
“I mean no harm.”
“You’re in my shelter,” she growled.
Kaelin stared, impressed. She was small, malnourished, but unafraid.
“You can have it,” he said, stepping aside.
The girl blinked, surprised. “You’re... not going to fight me?”
“I’ve had enough fights for several lifetimes.”
She eyed him suspiciously and then crept toward the fire, blade still raised.
“You’re not from here,” she said.
“No.”
“You look like a ghost.”
Kaelin chuckled dryly. “I feel like one.”
They sat in silence. She didn’t put her knife away.
Finally, she spoke again. “My name’s Lysa.”
“Kaelin.”
She flinched. “That’s... an old name.”
He nodded.
“From the books,” she added.
“What books?”
“The ones they burned.”
Kaelin’s heart sank.
“What year is it?” he asked.
She squinted. “Eighty-seven after the Fall.”
The number hit him like a hammer.
He had been dead nearly nine decades.
That night, he dreamt of the temple.
Solara. The jewel of the east. Home of the Azure Order, where he had trained hundreds of disciples in the old ways—discipline, energy, balance, peace. Its spires had touched the heavens, its libraries had housed the wisdom of ten thousand years.
And it had all burned.
In the dream, he saw Vaerith standing in the throne chamber, blood dripping from his blade. Students lay dead around him, their eyes wide in disbelief. Kaelin stood at the center, clutching his side, fire consuming the curtains.
“Why?” Kaelin had asked in that final moment.
Vaerith’s answer had been cold:
“Because you taught us to kneel, old man. I’d rather rule.”
The sword plunged into Kaelin’s back.
And he remembered falling into the fire.
Kaelin woke with a scream.
Lysa jumped to her feet, clutching her knife.
“Nightmare?”
He nodded, breathing heavily. “Yes.”
She stared at him a moment longer. Then, slowly, she lowered the blade.
“I have them too,” she said quietly.
“From what?”
“My village. Dominion soldiers raided it last spring. Said we were hiding old books. We weren’t. But they burned us anyway.”
Kaelin clenched his fists.
The Crimson Dominion.
The name was new, but the methods were old. He knew them too well. They were the legacy of Vaerith.
“Did they wear red armor?” he asked.
Lysa nodded.
“They’re everywhere now,” she added. “They say the masters are extinct. They say the old ways are poison.”
Kaelin stared into the fire again.
Poison?
No. It was fear. The Dominion feared the past. Feared what the masters represented.
Which meant they hadn’t destroyed all the knowledge.
Not yet.
And as long as Kaelin breathed—they never would.
The next day, Kaelin and Lysa traveled together.
He had nowhere to go. She had no one else. It was a reluctant alliance at first, born of mutual need. But she was clever—too clever for a child. She could pick locks with hairpins and walk without sound. She taught Kaelin how to avoid bandit patrols, which berries wouldn’t kill you, and which rivers had Dominion check points.
In return, he taught her how to breathe properly.
How to move in harmony with the wind.
How to feel her own center of gravity and draw strength from it.
He did not tell her what he was.
Not yet.
But something strange began to happen.
His energy, the azure flame within him, pulsed stronger with each passing day.
His reflexes sharpened. His vision improved. When he meditated, he could hear things others couldn’t—trees speaking in creaks, the rhythm of animals in the dark, the hum of ancient energy beneath the ground.
It was as though the world was reawakening with him.
And it terrified him.
Because it meant something was coming.
They reached a village called Brin’s Hollow—a mining town at the edge of the western cliffs. Poor, dusty, desperate. But it had food and water. Kaelin used a few old coins he still had tucked in a leather pouch to pay for a room.
That night, Lysa wandered to the local square, where a crowd was gathering. Kaelin followed at a distance.
At the center of the square, nailed to a post, was a man.
Bloodied, bruised, gagged.
A Dominion officer stood before him, reading from a scroll.
“This traitor,” the officer declared, “was caught teaching children the forbidden ways. He claimed to have studied from the scrolls of the Azure Order.”
Gasps from the crowd.
Kaelin’s blood turned to ice.
The officer continued: “Let all who listen understand—no master returns. The old ways are dead. The flame is dead. The past is dead.”
And then he lit a torch.
Kaelin watched, frozen, as the flames touched the prisoner’s robes.
The man began to scream.
Kaelin couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
Not again.
Lysa turned to him, eyes wide. “Do something.”
“I... I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
Lysa grabbed his sleeve. “You’re the man from the grave. The one who commands fire. If you don’t stop this, who will?”
Kaelin stared at the blaze.
Then, finally, he stepped forward.
A scream cut through the air—not of pain, but of fear.
The Dominion officer stumbled backward as the flames reversed—sucked away from the burning man and extinguished in a burst of wind.
The crowd gasped.
At the center of the square stood Kaelin, hood lowered, eyes glowing azure.
“You say the past is dead,” he said, voice like thunder.
“You’re wrong.”
The officer drew his sword. “Witchcraft!”
Kaelin lifted his hand.
Blue fire surged.
The blade melted.
The officer screamed and ran.
Kaelin turned to the prisoner, cutting him loose.
“Who are you?” the man gasped.
Kaelin hesitated.
Then he spoke the words he had feared for days.
“I am the last master of the Azure Flame.”
- Writer
