Wind howled through the high cliffs of the Drowned Wastes, swirling the gray dust of burned trees and shattered stone. Beneath the violet glow of the fractured sky, the last lights of the Drifting Ash Clan flickered inside the ruined temple halls of Emberhold.
Kael Ashborne crouched near the edge of the old firepit, his hands shaking as he coaxed a dying flame to life. The warmth licked his fingers weakly—his Talent Flame, a pathetic ember he could barely sustain. It glowed with the color of rust and smoke, flickering uncertainly in the cold.
The boy—fifteen winters old, tall for his age but gaunt from hunger—grimaced.
"Come on," he whispered, voice hoarse. "Just stay lit for a minute… please."
The ember sputtered, then died.
Kael slumped. That was his fourth attempt today. His Soothing Ember, his inherited talent, was classified F-tier. Barely a spark. It couldn't light a fire, mend a wound, or burn dry wood. It had once been noble—generations ago. A divine healing flame used in the palaces of the Eternal Sovereign. But now it was little more than an insult—a cruel joke from a bloodline long buried under ash.
Outside, thunder rolled.
He looked up, toward the open sky where the clouds split in jagged scars, leaking violet light from the higher strata of the atmosphere. These weren't normal clouds. The sky above Velathra was warped by the Fracture, and sometimes things drifted through those splits—creatures that didn't belong, lights that whispered madness, and air that burned your lungs if you breathed too long.
Kael rose from the firepit slowly. He could hear them—footsteps. Dozens. Heavy. Uncertain.
They were back.
---
The Bonecoil Scourge had arrived a day early.
Kael ducked through the hidden servant's tunnel behind the fire altar, his boots scuffing against ash-coated stone. The tunnel led to the outer ridge of Emberhold, a place where his uncle had once practiced with talent-struck herbs, back when there were still students, warriors, and purpose.
He crept to a viewing slit carved into the mountainside.
Outside, below the cliff, he saw them.
A battalion of scavengers: skin pale and marked with bone-ink tattoos, their armor stitched together from monster hides and talent-forged scrap. The Bonecoil Tribes were known for harvesting corpses—human or otherwise—and repurposing Talent Cores into unstable weapons. They wore masks carved from skulls. No two looked alike.
And leading them was a figure Kael knew well.
Vrax the Hollow-Blooded.
Once a defector from the Ash Clan, now commander of the Bonecoil raiders. His Talent Core, Spine Memory, allowed him to absorb muscle memories from those he killed. Kael had seen him use it once—moving with the grace of his father, who had died trying to protect the last Heirloom of Ash.
Kael's breath hitched in his throat.
They weren't here to raid.
They were here to finish it.
He sprinted back through the tunnel, heart pounding. Emberhold had no defenders left. No warriors. Just relics, old bones, and Kael. He reached the relic chamber—a hollow dome of cracked marble and iron roots. And there, behind a broken urn, he dug into the floorboards.
It took effort, but he found it: a sealed crystal box, faintly glowing.
Inside were four objects:
- A burned banner bearing the sigil of the Drifting Ash—a dying flame in a hollow circle.
- A half-shattered Talent Recipe Codex, bound in ashcloth.
- A chipped Soulbrand Amulet belonging to his great-grandmother, the last Flame-Singer.
- And a vial of black-ember fluid, sealed with seven runes.
His hands trembled. He took only two things: the Codex and the vial.
He could not save the past.
But maybe—just maybe—he could create a new future.
---
Kael fled into the storm.
Behind him, the mountains erupted in fire and screaming. The Bonecoil Scourge had breached the temple. He didn't look back. His legs burned. His lungs felt like they were being clawed from the inside. The world blurred.
A high-pitched shriek echoed across the cliffs. Something unnatural—one of the Skyborn Reapers summoned by Bonecoil alchemists.
Kael kept running.
He ran until his legs gave out, and he tumbled down a slope of black gravel and landed hard among the twisted roots of a Talent-Warped Tree.
The tree hissed at him.
Its bark peeled back like flesh, revealing eyes. It was alive—sentient—and infected by stray Talent. These were common in the wild zones. He didn't move. Didn't breathe.
The tree sniffed the air—then recoiled.
It smelled his Soothing Ember.
That tiny talent… repelled it?
Kael exhaled. For the first time, his useless ember had done something right.
He crawled away, slow and quiet, until the tree's eyes closed again.
---
Night fell over the wasteland.
Kael found shelter in a shattered ruin—a pre-Fracture observatory, now half-swallowed by vines and sand. He built a small fire, this time with real flint and steel, not his worthless talent. The flames reflected in his tired eyes as he opened the Codex.
The pages were old, brittle, but they pulsed with residual power.
There were diagrams, equations, chemical symbols, and strange fusion runes. But the key part—the front pages—were burned. He could only read fragments:
"When an Inherent Talent fails, forge anew. Fusion is not corruption—it is liberation."
"Combine Core Fragment with Wild Essence, refine in Catalyst Flame…"
"Beware: unstable fusions may distort or consume identity."
Kael stared at those words.
Fusion. Combining talents? Everyone knew it was impossible. Talent Cores were soul-bonded—trying to combine them led to madness. Death. Worse.
But what if that wasn't the full story?
What if his ancestors knew something the Talent Clans had buried?
He pulled out the vial—the black-ember fluid. His great-grandmother had called it Ash Genesis in her letters. An experimental fusion catalyst.
Kael didn't know what would happen if he used it.
But he had nothing else.
He lifted it toward the firelight.
"If I die, then I die," he whispered. "But if I live… you'll remember the Ashborne name."
He poured a single drop into his Talent Core—a small, glowing ember buried in his chest, just beneath the skin.
The pain was instant.
It was like swallowing molten iron. His body convulsed. The ember flared—first red, then violet, then pitch black. His vision blurred. The world bent sideways. He saw visions—flames that healed and burned, spirits howling from forgotten graves, faces he didn't recognize screaming his name.
And then… silence.
Kael lay on the floor, barely breathing.
A faint glow pulsed beneath his chest.
A new flame had formed.
Not red. Not orange.
But gray—like ash reborn.