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Veil of Thorns
Chapter 10 – The Ash Whisperers
~1,410 words
The storm didn't come from the sky.
It came from within.
Kael woke in the early light—if the sickly amber glow of the Undervale could be called that—choking on smoke that wasn't there. His hands were trembling, sweat clinging to his brow despite the cold stone beneath him.
The Codex lay at his side.
Closed.
But alive.
Its surface pulsed with heat like embers in a hearth, and the mark over Kael's heart flared in rhythm. His dreams had been haunted—not by monsters or name-eaters this time, but by fire and wings, by the weight of knowing too much too quickly.
Vaelarith.
He whispered the name and felt the world shiver.
Elen stirred near the campfire. She sat up and glanced toward him, brows furrowed in concern.
"You spoke in your sleep again."
"What did I say?"
"Not words. Just… heat." She looked at her fingers. "My skin blistered when I touched you."
Kael looked down at his hands. They weren't burned, but something shimmered just beneath the surface—like golden veins threading through his skin.
He wasn't dreaming anymore.
Thorne gathered them not long after, grim-faced and silent. The air in the ruined southern corridor of the Vale was thin and tense. Bryn had already gone scouting, but even he seemed shaken.
"They'll come again," Thorne said. "Ashbinders never leave a trail cold."
"But we destroyed their lead," Elen said.
Kael stayed silent.
He knew better now.
"You erased them," she added. "How could they—?"
Thorne interrupted her with a look. "They don't need the men. The fire remembers."
Kael nodded. "I can feel it."
"They marked you."
Kael lifted his tunic. The Thornmark that had once been a pale circle of scars was now a sigil, fully formed—curved like a flame twisting into a dragon's eye. It glowed faintly.
"Others will see that," Bryn said, returning from the ridge. "And more than just Ashbinders are looking."
"Who else?" Elen asked.
He hesitated. "I saw carrion flags in the east."
Thorne stiffened. "Carrion flags?"
"Black. Silver stitching. The Bleak Sigil."
Elen inhaled sharply. "The Corpse Lords."
"They're sending scavengers," Thorne said, voice grim. "Which means the rumor has left the Vale."
"What rumor?" Kael asked.
"That you lived," Bryn said. "That a Thornbearer took the Codex and survived."
Kael stared at the others, realization dawning.
This wasn't just about memory anymore. Or names. Or the fire that whispered to him at night.
It was about the world.
The moment he touched the Codex, something had shifted. Threads that had frayed for centuries were being rewoven. Empires would feel that pull. Kings. Priests. Warlocks.
And some… would come to claim it.
They set off before the next turn of the vale-light, skirting the corpse-river and the shattered bridges that had once linked the old capitals of the Thorned Age.
Kael walked at the front now.
He didn't ask for the lead.
But no one else took it.
Elen stayed close, watchful. Bryn vanished and reappeared from the shadows like a ghost. Thorne spoke less with each passing hour, and Kael noticed how his eyes lingered on him longer, darker.
It wasn't just caution anymore.
It was fear.
They made camp that night in the hollowed husk of a petrified tree, where stone roots stretched like claws across the hillside. The wind howled above—but the sound bent around them, as if unwilling to touch the place where Kael rested.
"Something's different," Elen whispered, watching the fire.
"It always is," Bryn replied.
Kael sat apart, the Codex in his lap.
He opened it again.
This time, the pages didn't fly on their own. They turned slowly, as if uncertain.
One page remained blank—white and hot as a furnace door.
He reached toward it.
The fire rose—not outside, but within.
He felt it coil through his blood.
Then—
A roar.
Low. Distant. Like something ancient turning in its sleep.
The others heard it too.
Thorne stood. "That's no echo."
Kael didn't move.
The name pulsed against his ribs.
Vaelarith.
He saw a vision—not with eyes, but memory:
A mountain crowned in flame. Wings like stained glass of molten gold. A maw that breathed not fire, but truth. A dragon that remembered the world when it was young.
"Kael!" Elen grabbed his shoulder.
He flinched back.
His hands—were burning.
The Codex snapped shut.
Smoke hissed from his palms, but no pain followed.
Just heat.
And memory.
That night, as the fire dwindled and the others drifted into uneasy sleep, Thorne approached him.
"You're not what I thought."
Kael didn't respond.
"You're not a Thornbearer anymore. Not just that."
"What am I?"
Thorne crouched beside him. "A vessel. Maybe more. You don't just remember now. You change what's remembered."
Kael met his gaze. "Is that why you're afraid of me?"
Thorne said nothing.
But he didn't deny it.
The next morning, the sky cracked.
Not with thunder.
But with sound.
A distant, echoing voice like stone grinding against stone.
Words they couldn't understand.
But Kael did.
Not all of it.
But enough.
"Come."
Elen gripped his arm. "Was that…?"
Kael nodded. "It's him."
"Vaelarith?"
Kael didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
The others knew.
The path forward was no longer through ruins or rivers or forgotten roads.
It was toward fire.
Toward a name too large for one soul to carry.
Toward the mountain where memory burned.
And it was calling.