Episode 12:Title:THE BURNING TIDE
1122 Words
Ashes of the Blackan
Episode 12: The Burning Tide
1. A Fragile Shore
They camped on the rocky beach beneath the cliffs, concealed by mist and the echoes of crashing waves. The wind carried the scent of salt and ash. A small fire flickered within a hollowed stone alcove. It offered little warmth.
Silas was dying.
Mira hadn’t moved from his side since they escaped the tunnel. She sat cross-legged, his head on her lap, whispering spells and prayers in equal measure. Blood no longer poured, but it soaked deep into the cloth. The cursed wound hadn’t closed.
Saphira tried everything she could — potions, elixirs, sigils — but nothing touched the Maevryn blade’s corruption.
Cassian paced, fists clenched, rage building in his chest like a furnace with no outlet.
Kalen stood guard near the shoreline, one foot in the sea spray, eyes locked on the horizon.
“We need more time,” Mira muttered.
“We don’t have it,” Saphira said softly. “We need a healer with rune experience.”
“They’ll kill him before we find one,” Cassian snapped. “We need to go back. We need to make someone pay.”
Kalen said nothing. His gaze remained fixed on the breaking dawn.
---
2. The Phoenix Stone
Saphira approached Mira after nightfall, pulling something from beneath her cloak — a rough crystal etched with jagged glyphs.
“What’s that?” Mira asked, wary.
“Old magic,” Saphira said. “Stolen from the Red Vault. It’s called the Phoenix Stone.”
Mira looked up sharply. “That’s forbidden.”
“I know.”
“It burns the user’s life force.”
“I know.”
“You could die.”
Saphira held Mira’s gaze. “And Silas will definitely die if we do nothing.”
The two girls looked down at Silas — now unconscious, breathing shallow.
Mira closed her eyes. “Then let’s break the rules.”
---
3. Fire and Blood
The ritual required three things: heat, soul, and sacrifice.
Cassian lit the fire.
Saphira cut her palm and bled onto the stone.
Mira channeled her magic through a sigil woven from her own hair and Silas’s blood.
When the Phoenix Stone lit up, the entire beach seemed to hold its breath.
It pulsed once — then exploded in light.
Silas arched upward, screaming — his back bowing, body convulsing. The wound on his side sizzled and smoked, the curse pulled from his veins like black threads being unraveled.
The light surrounded him — then faded.
He fell back, limp.
Mira caught him, sobbing.
“Saphira?”
Saphira was on her knees, breath ragged.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, though her hands shook violently.
“You shouldn’t have done this alone,” Mira said.
“We weren’t alone.”
Silas stirred.
And Mira laughed, half-delirious with relief.
He was alive.
---
4. The Maevryn’s Fury
Back at the manor, Lord Therion — head of the Maevryn — held Rowan by his throat, hoisted off the floor.
“You promised a clean kill,” Therion snarled.
Rowan coughed, bloodied. “They… turned on me. Kalen knew. He’s not normal. He’s—”
“A Blackan,” Therion finished. “Which makes him my responsibility.”
He dropped Rowan like a sack of cloth.
“Your use has expired.”
Rowan scrambled back. “No, wait! I know where they’re going. The southern coast. There’s a smuggler who—”
“Silence.”
Therion raised a hand. A rune flared in his palm.
Rowan screamed as his memories began to unravel.
And then he was gone.
Erased.
Therion turned to his soldiers.
“Find them.”
---
5. Rebellion Kindled
Kalen gathered the others after the ritual. The fire had died, but the heat still lingered in the sand.
“They know where we are,” he said. “Rowan won’t stay quiet.”
“He’s dead,” Mira whispered.
Kalen nodded. “Then we have little time.”
He crouched near the firepit and drew a rough map in the sand.
“There’s an old rebel camp north of here — disbanded years ago, but the tunnels still run deep. If we reach it, we vanish.”
Cassian frowned. “That close to the city?”
“They won’t expect it,” Kalen said.
“And what then?” Saphira asked, voice weak. “We hide forever?”
“No,” Kalen said.
“We build something. We fight back.”
---
6. Echoes of the Past
As they walked, Mira caught up to Kalen.
“You knew the Maevryn’s weapons. The curses. The traps.”
“I should,” Kalen said. “I helped make some of them.”
She studied him. “How did you escape them?”
“I didn’t.”
His voice was quiet.
“My aunt used to bring me to the black rooms. The ones with the screaming walls. She made me watch… so I would learn obedience.”
Mira flinched. “That’s… sick.”
“She thought she was preparing me.”
“For what?”
Kalen stopped walking.
He looked toward the rising moon.
“To become the perfect weapon.”
---
7. The City in the Mist
By the third night, they reached the outskirts of Vareth, the smuggler’s city.
Built into cliffs and caves, it was a lawless place of half-truths and broken kings. Gold bought silence, and secrets were the currency of survival.
Kalen knew it well.
He led them down hidden stairs, through winding alleys, past gamblers, witches, and knife-eyed children.
Eventually, they reached an iron door painted with the Blackan crest — barely visible beneath rust.
Kalen knocked twice, then three times.
A slit opened.
“Kalen?”
A gruff voice. A scarred eye.
“You’re dead.”
“Not yet,” Kalen said. “But I’m working on it.”
The door creaked open.
---
8. Rise of the Blackan
Inside was a forgotten war chamber — maps, weapons, ledgers. Candles burned low, casting shadows like ghosts.
A small band of exiles looked up as Kalen entered.
Men and women who had once served under the old Blackan banners — rebels, defectors, survivors.
They stood slowly, one by one.
“You came back,” one murmured.
“You brought children,” another said.
“I brought warriors,” Kalen corrected.
Silas stepped forward, pale but steady.
Mira raised her head.
Saphira clutched the Phoenix Stone, half-drained.
Cassian lit a torch and raised it high.
“We want to fight,” Mira said. “But we don’t know how.”
Kalen smiled — not cruelly, but like someone remembering something long buried.
“Then I’ll teach you.
END OF EPISODE 12
- Writer
