The city of Khorath gleamed with golden towers, but below its polished veneer ran alleys blackened by smoke and secrets. In the cellar of a shuttered apothecary, Lirae Valen dipped a slender finger into a basin of silver water. The surface rippled—not from touch, but from power.
The Arkanis Mirror showed fire.
And a man with eyes like storm clouds, standing over the corpse of a warlord.
She leaned closer.
"Kael Draven," she whispered, "You've started."
The cursed blade had awakened again. She could feel it—thrumming through the ley-lines beneath the city, humming across runes burned into her skin. She had warned the Circle, begged them to destroy it. Instead, they exiled her.
Now, the blade was moving again, and it was in his hands.
She stepped away from the mirror and wrapped her cloak around her. Her raven-black hair was tied tight, and the white tattoos along her neck glowed faintly with restrained magic. Outside, the people of Khorath drank, traded, and sharpened knives behind smiles. The city ran on coin and blood, but it would run red soon.
She had seen the prophecy in her dreams—five thrones burning, a blade screaming, and a man broken by vengeance. The man was Kael.
But Lirae knew something he didn't.
The sword didn't just crave blood.
It fed on it.
Beneath the cellar, her hidden sanctum stirred. Runes along the walls began to flicker as the connection with the sword deepened. Vareth's power was awakening, old and wild. If Kael kept killing, the sword would take him too—not just his soul, but his will.
Unless someone stopped it.
Or guided it.
With a final glance at the mirror, Lirae whispered a spell, and the water went still.
"Let's see if you're the monster they say," she murmured, stepping into the shadows. "Or if there's still a man beneath the steel."
Meanwhile…
In a forest clearing far from the city, Kael stared into a stream, the moonlight cold on his face. He had crossed the border into Khorath under darkness, but something was wrong. His sword had not stopped humming since Frosthollow burned. It was... louder now. Hungrier.
When he slept, he saw faces—some he knew, some he didn't. Fire. Chains. A voice that wasn't his, whispering words in a language older than Valmera.
Kael wiped the blood from his blade and looked at his reflection in the water. The scar across his jaw, the tired eyes, the fury beneath his skin.
He didn't know how much of him was left.
But he would finish this.
Even if the sword took everything.