We descended from the altar in silence.
The Watcher's remains had vanished as if the flame had never existed. Yet something had changed in me. My breath came slower now, deeper. My skin no longer bled from stone. My wounds closed as they came. The mountain no longer pressed against me; I walked with the knowledge that I did not belong to it.
Behind me, David and Eve followed like shadows in a sunless land. They spoke no words, but their eyes lingered on me differently now. Before, I had been a sign, a symbol. Now, I was something real. Something becoming.
The path narrowed again. We climbed for what might have been days, curling deeper into the mountain's spine. The air smelled of ash and iron. The rock became darker, flecked with veins of red, pulsing faintly—as if the mountain itself had a heartbeat.
Then the path ended.
Not in a wall, but a door.
It stood three times my height and twice as wide, hewn into the stone with a precision that felt alien. Not crafted, but imposed upon the mountain. The surface was etched in deep relief—depictions of war, wings, stars breaking apart. At its center, a handprint, carved deep enough to cradle a palm.
Without waiting, I placed my hand into the hollow.
The stone grew hot. The lines glowed, spreading outward like veins of fire. Then the door did not open—it disintegrated, falling into ash that blew backward in a silent gust, revealing the world beyond.
We stepped through the Gate of Ash.
What lay beyond was not another valley, nor more bones. It was a scar.
A canyon vast enough to dwarf cities, stretching like a wound into the horizon. The land was blackened and shattered, split by glowing rivers of molten stone. Spires of twisted metal and bone pierced the ground like nails in a coffin. In the distance, fires burned—steady, not wild, as if tended by unseen hands.
Smoke curled across the canyon like low mist. The sky above was darker now, tinged crimson.
David inhaled deeply, awestruck. "We are in the Blasted Expanse… the lands of the First Fire."
I turned to him. "You've been here?"
"No. But the old texts spoke of it—this place where the heavens fell and the gods clashed at the end of the First War."
"The war between Yahweh and the others," I said.
"Yes," David whispered. "Where you were lost."
Eve clutched my hand tightly. "It's still burning."
"It never stopped," I said.
We began to descend.
The path downward was treacherous, cut into the stone with careless hands. Yet I moved as if I had walked it before. My body remembered more than my mind—each step, each turn. It felt… rehearsed.
We passed broken monuments, pillars of ancient obsidian, etched with names I could not read. Occasionally, bones lay scattered here as well—but they were not like those of the field. These were twisted. Burned. Wrong.
David knelt by one. Its skull was elongated, fanged. Not human.
"They were the Kha'tar," he said. "Servants of the Old Pantheon. Burned out in the Reckoning."
Eve stared at it with a child's quiet awe. "Why did they fight you?"
David hesitated, then looked to me.
"Because we broke the world," I answered. "And they wanted it back."
We walked until night fell—not that the sun had ever risen, but the dimness deepened. We found shelter in the hollow of a broken colossus—an enormous statue, once humanoid, now cracked and lying on its side. Its face had been sheared off, but remnants of a crown still clung to the brow.
That night, David built a small fire.
He lit it with prayer.
Not flint, not spark—prayer. The words were strange to me, and yet the flame obeyed him. It flickered green, steady, like a soul caught mid-departure.
"You wield power," I said.
"It is not mine," he replied. "It comes from belief."
"Belief in me?"
"No," he said, with a smile. "In the idea of you."
He fed the fire with bone dust.
Eve lay curled beside the warmth, sleeping.
David watched me for a long moment before speaking.
"You were something holy, once."
"That was long ago."
"It doesn't matter. The world is breaking again. You're back. That does matter."
"What happened to the others?" I asked.
David looked into the fire. "The last of the Asura died before my great-grandfather's birth. Some say they were hunted. Others say they turned to ash when Yahweh fell silent."
"And Yahweh?"
David paused. "He vanished. After the Sundering. No voice. No miracles. Only silence. His temples crumbled. His priests lost their tongues."
"And yet you worship still."
"Because we remembered the first fire. And because the prophecies told of your return."
I watched the fire. "You called yourself First Father. What does that mean?"
"I was the last ordained in the Old Rite," he said. "Before the flame in the Temple died. I carry what memory remains. My bloodline was chosen to await your awakening."
"So you've waited your whole life for a god to come back and fix the world."
"No," David said, gently. "I waited for you to choose whether to become one."
I said nothing. But his words stayed with me.
The next morning, the air changed.
A low vibration, barely perceptible at first, hummed through the ground. The stone itself seemed to tremble beneath our feet.
Something was coming.
We walked faster.
By mid-morning, we saw them—figures moving in the canyon below. Not beasts. Not men.
Soldiers.
They marched in tight formation, draped in armor forged from black glass and fire-metal. Their helmets bore no face, only slits. Their banners depicted a rising sun pierced by three swords.
David inhaled sharply. "The Aelaran."
"Who are they?" I asked.
"The Reclaimers," he said. "They serve the god that rose after Yahweh's silence. They believe in purification by flame."
Eve pressed closer to me. "Will they hurt us?"
"They'll do worse," David said. "If they see you."
But they had already seen.
A signal horn echoed—low and mournful.
Three of the soldiers broke from formation and turned toward our ridge, fast as wolves.
"We run," I said.
And we did.
The canyon twisted around us. Smoke and steam rose from fissures in the stone. We leapt gaps, skidded down embankments, ducked beneath broken arches. The world blurred into motion.
But they gained.
I turned once, saw the glint of steel, the shimmer of something unnatural in their pursuit. They moved like men born of war.
We could not outrun them forever.
So I stopped.
"Go!" I told David and Eve.
David hesitated. "No—"
"Protect her. I'll find you."
He saw something in my face, nodded, and took Eve's hand. They vanished around the bend.
I waited.
The three soldiers crested the rise.
Their leader raised a hand, signaling the others to halt.
He stepped forward, removing his helm.
His face was pale, scarred, tattooed with crimson sigils. His eyes were not human. They glowed with internal fire.
"You are the one who walked from the bone sea," he said. "The one the winds whispered of."
"I am," I said.
He bowed slightly. "Then your death is prophecy."
He lunged.
But before his blade touched me, I raised my hand—and flame answered.
Not red. Not gold.
Blue.
Cold, roaring blue.
It erupted from my palm like memory unleashed, engulfing him in a column of light. The heat seared the rock, shattered stone. The others fell back, screaming.
When the light vanished, he was gone.
Only ash remained.
The other two fled.
I stood there, breath steady, hands smoking.
I had not called the fire.
It had called me.