The city of Velkora breathed smoke and secrets.

Caelan Virel crouched by the edge of a broken fountain, fingers slick with blood—not his own. The boy beneath him whimpered, chest rising and falling in jagged rhythms. Another street brawl. Another gang fight. Another forgotten life.

“Hold still,” Caelan muttered, tearing a strip of linen with his teeth. “You’re lucky your heart didn’t get pierced.”

The boy, no older than twelve, coughed, and blood speckled Caelan’s cheek.

He didn’t flinch.

He pressed his palms to the wound. The warmth came slowly, like sunlight behind thick clouds—gentle, reluctant. It crept into his hands, across his fingertips.

Then it flared.

The boy gasped as the wound hissed shut. Caelan winced and pulled his hand away. Smoke rose where skin had once split. A faint silver shimmer lingered a moment too long.

Someone saw it.

A man across the street—a watchman—froze, eyes narrowed. Caelan quickly dipped his head, wiping his hands on his dark coat, turning his face into shadow.

No one must know what he was.

No one must see the light.

...---------------...

By nightfall, the alleyways of Velkora were already closing in.

Caelan’s boots kicked through puddles of rotwater as he turned down Ashglass Row, the poorest district in the poorest corner of the city. He lived in a half-collapsed temple, surrounded by ivy-choked statues and broken faith. It was quiet. Forgotten.

Just like him.

He had once had a name people feared. Revered.

Now, even the rats didn’t remember it.

He stepped over the temple threshold, unbuckled his satchel, and set a jar of salve by the fireless hearth. A scrap of salted bread was his dinner. Tomorrow, he’d earn a copper or two patching up more cuts. That was enough.

Enough to stay invisible.

Until the knock.

Three sharp raps at the door.

His heart clenched. No one knocked in this part of town. Not unless they were desperate—or dangerous.

He rose slowly. “Who is it?”

Silence.

Another knock.

He reached for the rusted dagger under the floorboards and opened the door—

—and stared into the eyes of a stranger cloaked in black.

A woman. Hooded. Still. Unmoving. Her gloved hand dropped to a dagger at her side.

Caelan’s stomach dropped.

“Wrong house,” he said.

She stepped inside.

“Caelan Virel,” she said, voice smooth as wine and sharp as winter. “Your past says hello.”

...----------------...

Caelan lunged. She was faster.

Steel met rusted steel. Sparks flew. He dodged a sweep, slammed his shoulder into her, sent her sprawling. But she twisted mid-fall, flipped, and landed like a cat.

“Not bad,” she said. “For someone who’s been hiding like a ghost.”

“Who sent you?” Caelan growled.

She smiled—and that smile frightened him more than her dagger. “You’ll understand soon enough. They’ve been waiting. And so have I.”

She struck again. Blades clashed. Caelan stumbled back, barely parrying in time. He felt something buzz in his chest. A strange heat. The flame.

No. Not now.

The assassin pinned him against the altar.

“One cut,” she said. “And it all begins.”

She raised the blade—

And stopped.

She stared at him. Something in her expression cracked. A tremor. As if she'd seen something... familiar.

“Your eyes,” she whispered.

He didn’t wait. He grabbed her wrist, twisted, and flung her across the room. She hit the wall hard, grunted, and rolled. The dagger skidded across the stone.

But she didn’t rise.

She lay there, panting, watching him.

Not with hatred.

With confusion.

“You should be dead,” she said softly. “They said you were—” She stopped herself. “What are you?”

Caelan’s voice shook. “I don’t know.”

Outside, the wind howled like a wounded god.

Inside, the flame awoke.

She was gone.

The moment Caelan dared a step toward her, the assassin vanished—like a shadow slipping through the wall. No trail. No blood. Only a silver pin left where she had landed: the head shaped like a serpent coiled in a circle.

Caelan stared at it.

A symbol.

One he’d seen only once before.

Long ago, in a memory sharpened by pain: a man in golden armor screaming as flames devoured him, and on his neck—a serpent pin—just like this one.

----------------

The next morning, the streets of Velkora stank of blood and ash. Word had spread. A merchant’s home burned in the night. No bodies found. Just an empty bed, a charred wall, and a symbol scorched into stone:

> 𝘞𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶.

It was the calling card of the Syndicate—a whisper-name for a faceless order of spies, assassins, and shadows. No one spoke of them. Not unless you wanted to vanish too.

Caelan kept his head down. But his thoughts spiraled.

Who was she? Why did she know his name? And why didn’t she kill him when she had the chance?

He returned to the temple that evening, only to find a letter tucked into the statue’s hands.

----------------

> To the Forgotten Flame,

You’re not as hidden as you think. They know you live.

They will come again. But I won’t be among them.

I want answers too. Meet me at midnight. Ashglass docks.

Come alone.

—L

----------------

He read it three times.

Then burned it.

----------------

The moon over the docks was a pale, bruised thing. Caelan kept his blade at his side, coat drawn tight, hood over his brow. The ashglass glimmered beneath his boots—a black, oily stone from the volcanic mines nearby.

He waited.

And waited.

Midnight passed.

He nearly turned away when he heard the voice behind him.

“You came.”

He spun.

Liora stood beneath a broken arch, hair down, hood off. She looked… different in moonlight. Less like a weapon. More like a woman who had seen too much.

Caelan’s voice was steel. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

She stepped closer. “Because I saw something I wasn’t supposed to.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What?”

She said nothing. Just stared at him, as if measuring whether to say the truth.

Then: “You’re not marked. But you carry the flame. You shouldn’t have it.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You should,” she said quietly. “Because your ancestors lit the sky on fire to steal it.”

Caelan’s stomach turned. “You’re lying.”

She pulled a scroll from her coat. Unrolled it.

A wanted poster.

His face. Younger. Bloodstained. The eyes the same. But the name?

> CAELAN VIREL – CHILD OF THE GODSBURNED BLOODLINE

EXECUTE ON SIGHT – BY ORDER OF THE HIGH THRONE

Caelan stared.

He stepped back.

“No,” he whispered. “That’s not—That’s not me.”

But he knew it was.

The face. The fire. The dreams. The voice that called to him in sleep.

Liora’s voice softened. “Who do you think sealed the Veil?”

He shook his head.

She stepped forward, slowly, carefully.

“You are the heir to the blood that broke the world. And the world will break again if they find out you live.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then Caelan looked up. His voice was calm. But deadly.

“Why are you telling me this?”

She hesitated. Then said, “Because they lied to me, too.”

----------------

Suddenly, a whistle cut the night.

Liora’s eyes widened. “Run.”

From the shadows, steel flashed.

Crossbow bolts sliced the air.

Guards. Dozens.

Caelan grabbed her wrist. “This way!”

They ran. Through crates. Over barrels. Onto the pier.

A bolt grazed Caelan’s shoulder—he winced, but kept moving.

Then—

> BOOM!

A fiery explosion tore through the dock behind them.

Smoke. Screams. Footsteps.

And something else.

A voice. Not a man’s. Not human.

A whisper inside Caelan’s head.

> “Awaken…”

He gasped. Fell to one knee.

Liora turned. “What is it?!”

The air around him shimmered. Time slowed. The world bent inward.

And from his hands—

Light exploded.

Blinding. Pure. Celestial.

Liora shielded her eyes.

The soldiers stopped.

Some screamed.

Others fled.

Only one voice remained, echoing from the sky:

> “The Flame has returned.”

The flame faded as quickly as it came.

Caelan collapsed on the ashglass pier, breath ragged, blood hot in his veins. Sparks still danced behind his eyes, like stars refusing to die.

Liora knelt beside him, dagger in one hand, the other pressed against his chest to keep him grounded.

“Caelan,” she hissed, “look at me!”

He opened his eyes.

“Are you possessed?” she asked.

“No,” he gasped. “Not yet.”

The guards had scattered—those who hadn’t run were unconscious, blinded by the light or knocked down in the blast. The explosion hadn’t come from them.

It had come from him.

Or something inside him.

Caelan forced himself up. His shoulder throbbed where the bolt grazed him, but it was manageable.

“I can’t stay in the city,” he said.

“You can’t stay anywhere,” Liora replied, pulling him into the shadows. “Not after that.”

He looked at her. “You said they’d come again. Who?”

She didn’t answer—just handed him a cloak. Dark, hooded, stitched with a hidden sigil near the hem: a serpent biting its tail.

“I’m taking you to someone,” she said. “She knows what you are.”

“I don’t even know what I am.”

Liora paused. Her voice dropped. “That makes two of us.”

🌒 A few hours later...

They rode stolen horses through the forest roads, keeping off the main paths. Caelan’s head pounded—not just from the fight, but from whatever had been awakened inside him. Aetherveil. He hadn’t heard the name spoken aloud yet, but the way the air around him bent… it couldn’t be anything else.

He remembered something—his mother’s hands, once warm against his face. A nursery rhyme.

> “Stars fall to those marked by flame,

Gods sleep beneath forgotten name…”

He never understood it.

Until now.

Liora was silent most of the ride. But Caelan couldn’t stop watching her.

She moved like someone born of violence. But not just violence—precision. And something about the way she looked at him, after the flare of power… it wasn’t hatred.

It was fear.

She was afraid of what he might become.

🏚️ Before dawn, they arrived at a hidden glade.

Nestled in the roots of a crooked blackwood tree was a hut—almost invisible in the fog. Hanging from its roof were talismans, bones, feathers, shards of crystal. Protection charms.

“Witch?” Caelan asked.

“Watcher,” Liora corrected. “They keep the old ways. They remember what others forget.”

Caelan felt the name of the book echo in the back of his mind.

> Veil of the Forgotten...

The door creaked open before they could knock.

Inside stood a woman swathed in faded blue, blindfolded, her arms tattooed with runes that shimmered faintly in the dark. Her voice was ageless.

“You’ve brought him, Serpent.”

Liora bowed her head. “Watcher Myrren.”

The woman turned to Caelan.

“Child of the godsburned blood,” she murmured. “I felt you in my sleep. The flame cries out again.”

“I don’t understand,” Caelan said. “What’s happening to me?”

Myrren’s smile was sad.

“The Veil weakens. The stars remember you, even if the world does not. You are not cursed, Caelan Virel. You are the key.”

“Key to what?”

She reached for a scroll from her mantle. It unfurled in the air, suspended by invisible threads. A map. But not of the realms.

A map of the sky.

> Aetherveil constellations—fractured, burned out, but still pulsing faintly with magic.

“Your bloodline sealed the Veil. But the gods you buried aren’t dead.”

Myrren’s voice fell to a whisper:

> “They are locked inside the stars. And your body… is the door.”

Caelan’s knees nearly gave out.

Liora caught him, steady but quiet.

“Why me?” he breathed.

“Because you survived the burning,” Myrren said. “And because if you don’t find the other marked ones before the Veil shatters…”

She turned to the door.

“…the gods will walk again.”

Suddenly—

> Boom!

The door burst open. Myrren screamed.

Smoke and glass.

Arrows flew.

A figure entered in black armor—sigil of the Syndicate blazing red on his chest.

“Caelan Virel,” the man growled.

> “You weren’t supposed to live.”

Liora stepped in front of Caelan, blades drawn.

Caelan’s pulse surged.

Not again.

Not again.

The flame inside him roared—

And the night exploded.