The dream came like a whisper.
Aric stood in the same clearing, but the trees were gone—burned to ash. The sky above was dark, swirling with red clouds and falling embers. The stone ruins were whole again, gleaming with strange symbols that pulsed faintly like veins beneath skin.
He turned slowly, and there was someone waiting at the edge of the fountain. A woman, draped in black fire, her face hidden by a shifting veil of smoke.
"You were not meant to wake it," she said, her voice like cracking wood. "It was not your burden."
"I didn't choose it," Aric replied.
She stepped closer. The heat around her shimmered, not from flame—but from pressure, like the air itself recoiled from her presence.
"And yet, it chose you."
He wanted to speak, to ask her who she was, what this place was, but the words burned away before they left his mouth. The woman raised her hand and pointed toward the sword, which now floated above the fountain, spinning slowly.
"The Emberblade remembers," she said. "It knows what came before. What was lost."
Flashes. Images struck his mind all at once—a temple crumbling into fire, a city in the clouds split by war, and a face—his face—twisted with rage, holding the sword aloft as flames devoured everything.
Aric gasped and woke.
The forest was still. Maelis still slept nearby, undisturbed. The Emberblade lay exactly where he had left it. But the stone beneath it… it was warm.
Aric stood and looked around. The clearing was silent, but not empty. The forest pressed close. Watching.
He stepped toward the fountain and touched the symbols etched into the stone. They felt older than language. His fingers pulsed with heat.
Maelis stirred. "Can't sleep?"
"Did you feel anything?" Aric asked.
"Like what?"
"Anything strange. The ground… the air?"
Maelis rubbed his eyes and sat up. "Aside from the creeping dread and the quiet voices in my head? No, just a regular forest night."
Aric didn't smile.
"We should move," he said. "There's something under us. Something that remembers me."
Maelis didn't argue. They packed quickly and left the clearing behind, stepping back into the forest, where the morning fog was thicker than before. The further they walked, the more the forest changed. The trees were wider, their bark pale like bone. Strange vines hung from the branches like veins.
At midday, the trail dipped into a narrow gorge. Roots climbed the rocky walls like claws. The path narrowed until they had to move single file.
Then, a sound—a low groan, like stone grinding against stone.
Aric held up a hand.
They crouched low, listening. The sound came again, from up ahead.
Aric crept forward, Maelis close behind. The gorge opened into a wider cavern where sunlight broke through in slants. And there, hunched in the middle, was a figure.
Twisted. Large. Its body made of stone and moss, its face buried in its hands. As they watched, it groaned again, shifting slightly like it was trying to wake from a long sleep.
"What is that?" Maelis whispered.
"I don't know," Aric said. "But I think it's guarding something."
The creature stirred. A chunk of rock fell from its shoulder and shattered.
Maelis reached for his sword. "If it moves—"
"Wait."
Aric stepped forward.
The creature froze.
Then slowly, it turned its head. Its eyes were hollow, glowing faintly from within like coals deep in a fire pit.
It looked at Aric. And spoke.
"Fire-born…"
Aric felt the Emberblade surge at his side, as if it recognized the thing.
"You are late," it rumbled.
Aric swallowed hard. "Late for what?"
The creature rose to its full height, towering over them both.
"The trial."