Arathen’s spires cut into the dawn mist as the gates closed behind Ethan and Maya. The return from Veyra was subdued—no grand procession, no feasts awaiting. Only whispers followed them through the palace corridors, half awe, half suspicion.
For the first time since their arrival in this world, Ethan found himself watching the courtiers watch her. Maya. Their eyes lingered not only on her figure, but on the quiet confidence that had begun to take root in her movements. She bore the weight of Veyra in her gaze, and it made her seem… older, sharper, dangerous in a way he could not explain.
And though Ethan had seen her wield the very time itself against cultists, though he had watched her cut through shadows without hesitation, a strange instinct tugged at him now. Protectiveness. Fierce, irrational.
He caught himself once, walking half a step closer to her as they crossed the thronehall, as if his presence alone could shield her from the silent judgments of the court. When Maya arched an eyebrow at him later, he only muttered, “Habit.” But the truth was heavier.
Selora resumed their training, but Ethan’s attention often strayed—tracking the glance of a passing guard, the whispered exchange of a servant. It was as though the walls themselves were pressing in, waiting for a chance to turn on them.
Maya noticed too. But rather than bristle, she turned inward. One evening, when training left her bruised and weary, she asked Selora for something unusual. “Access to the archives,” she said. “I want to understand who we’re really fighting.”
Selora studied her for a long moment, staff tapping against the floor. “The chronicles of the Demon King are not light reading.”
“Then I’ll read them in the dark,” Maya replied.
Selora’s mouth quirked, almost approving. And so, two days later, Maya found herself deep in the royal library, candlelight spilling across shelves of cracked vellum and crumbling ink. Ethan accompanied her, of course, half-guardian, half-reluctant scholar.
The scrolls told a story—but not the one they had been fed in proclamations and sermons. Yes, there was conquest, fire, ruin. But between the lines, Maya began to see something else: kingdoms fractured long before the Demon King rose, famine that left villages hollowed, nobles clinging to their power while the common folk starved.
Some accounts even spoke of the Demon King not as a tyrant, but as a unifier. A warlord who bound scattered tribes into one banner. A ruler who promised bread to the hungry and land to the landless—before the bloodshed consumed everything.
“Good versus evil,” Maya whispered one night, her fingers trailing over a half-burned codex. “That’s not what this was. That’s not what this is. They’ve simplified it into a parable. But what if he wasn’t just a monster? What if he was… necessary?”
Ethan frowned, leaning over her shoulder. “Necessary? He slaughtered half the continent.”
“Or ended wars that had been burning for centuries,” Maya countered softly. She turned, meeting his eyes. “Maybe the real story isn’t that he was evil. Maybe it’s that he was dangerous. And to the people who wrote these histories… dangerous and evil were the same thing.”
Ethan felt the bond between them stir again, uncomfortably this time. A sense of crossroads, of paths diverging. His instinct was to pull her back, to shield her not just from blades and fire, but from ideas that could turn the world beneath their feet.
But Maya’s eyes were lit with a different kind of fire now. Curiosity. Doubt. A hunger for truth sharper than any dagger.
And Ethan—though his protective urge gnawed at him—couldn’t look away.
They emerged from the archives with renewed knowledge. Unfortunately, they would have no time to deliberate on what they had learned as an enemy who they hadn’t seen in awhile finally returned.
The smell of smoke reached Arathen before the messengers did. By the time Ethan and Maya rode out with Aldric’s detachment, the sky in the east glowed red as dawn though the sun had not yet risen. Villages lay scattered across those fields—quiet farming hamlets, homes of people who could never raise a sword against a demon.
Kaelith had chosen them as kindling.
When they arrived, there was no battle, only ruin. Houses sagged, cinders collapsing into themselves. The air was alive with ash and the muffled weeping of survivors crawling through what was left. Ethan dismounted slowly, his jaw tight, his fists clenched until the blood drained from his knuckles.
At the center of the blackened street stood Kaelith. Cloaked in a mantle of flame, his pale hair whipped wild in the heat. He was waiting.
“Ah,” Kaelith said, his voice carrying as easily as the crackle of fire. “The heroes finally emerge from their gilded cage. How many corpses did it take to coax you out? Fifty? A hundred?”
Maya's power over time hissed around her wrists, her body taut as a bowstring. “Monster.” How did Kaelith even get this close to the Capital? Is King Gravell not even paying attention to the situation anymore?
Kaelith tilted his head, lips curling into a smile. “Monster? No. A herald. A reminder that you cannot hide behind Arathen’s walls forever. Every day you delay, more burn. Every village. Every family.” He spread his arms, flames coiling in answer. “Until you come to me.”
The rage in Ethan snapped taut. The Oathfire he had come to know—bright, hot, but controllable—suddenly twisted deeper, darker. It dug into the marrow of his bones, stoked by his fury at the sight of children clawing through rubble, at the smell of charred flesh.
And then it ignited.
Soulfire. Not golden, but white-hot, tinged with violet, laced with black smoke that curled like a living thing. It roared from his body, scorching the ground where he stood. Even Kaelith faltered for half a heartbeat, eyes narrowing.
Maya moved with him, though differently. The moment Kaelith raised his staff to strike, time stuttered. For her, the world slowed—the flames sluggish, the falling ash suspended in the air like frozen snow. She slipped forward, past the sweep of fire that would have killed them both, pulling Ethan just out of its path.
To Ethan it felt like a blink, but to Maya it was a heartbeat stretched thin, her body shivering with the strain of wrenching the river of time aside.
Kaelith laughed, delighted. “Yes… yes! The Oath bares its fangs at last!”
Ethan roared wordlessly and hurled himself forward, soulfire wreathed around his fists. The ground cracked beneath his stride, and when his blow met Kaelith’s ward, the explosion shook the ruins like thunder.
Maya darted in his wake, as she slipped through stuttering seconds of slowed time, striking where Kaelith’s guard faltered. Together they pressed him, fire and steel and the strange rhythm of broken time.
But Kaelith was no mere cultist. His flames answered with the fury of the abyss, coiling like serpents, snapping at them with burning fangs. Even as Ethan’s soulfire ate at the wards, even as Maya’s chronomancy bought them slivers of advantage, Kaelith fought with the confidence of one who knew the field was his.
And still he smiled.
Because he had already won what he wanted.
Behind him, another farmhouse collapsed in flames. The screams of the villagers cut through the roar of fire. Ethan’s gut twisted, his rage spiking—but rage made the soulfire wild, harder to control. Each blast scorched wider, threatening friend and foe alike.
“Ethan!” Maya’s voice cut through, sharper than any blade. She grabbed his arm, forcing him to meet her gaze through the smoke. Her eyes were clear, steady, even as her chronomancy strained her body. “Don’t let him use you.”
Soulfire flickered, wavering between control and destruction. Kaelith’s laughter rang through the night like a challenge. “Show me, hero," he said mockingly. "Burn it all. Show me what you really are.”
The earth split beneath Ethan’s feet as another pulse of soulfire erupted, a shockwave that knocked Kaelith back a step—and nearly incinerated the fleeing villagers behind him. Ethan’s vision narrowed, everything painted in shades of violet flame and burning black smoke. It was intoxicating. Endless. The power didn’t just pour from him—it devoured him, demanded more, raged for more.
He could end Kaelith here. Tear him apart. Burn him until there was nothing left.
And in that moment Ethan wanted it. The thought was a fire hotter than the soulfire itself.
But Maya’s hand seized his wrist, cutting through the roar. Her voice reached him, hoarse with urgency: “Ethan. Look at me.”
He snarled, tried to wrench free, but she held fast. The world stuttered again—her chronomancy pulling, slowing, forcing the moment to stretch thin so she could meet his eyes before the power consumed him.
“Don’t give him what he wants,” she whispered.
The flames around Ethan surged higher, threatening to drown her in heat and smoke. But she didn’t flinch.
“You’re not just rage,” Maya said. “You’re you. Ethan. Not his weapon. Not his fire.”
The sound of her voice—firm, tethering—cut through the madness. For a heartbeat, Ethan saw himself reflected in her gaze. Not a monster. Not a demon. Himself.
The soulfire flickered. His breath came ragged, his body trembling. He pulled it back, inch by inch, until the ground beneath him stopped cracking and the air stopped screaming with heat. The flame still burned, but it obeyed now. It was his.
Kaelith’s grin widened, teeth bared like a wolf. “Beautiful. You are the fire.”
Maya stepped in front of Ethan, her voice cold. “And he won’t burn for you.”
Kaelith’s laugh echoed, full of delight. With a sweep of his arm, a torrent of flame burst outward—not at them, but at the ruins beyond. Another farmhouse collapsed into cinders, screams ripping through the air.
“Enough for today,” Kaelith said, voice lilting as if mocking a lesson half-finished. “You’ll chase me, of course. You’ll chase me forever. And with each step, you’ll burn brighter.” He raised his hand high, and the flames roared skyward, cloaking him in a pillar of fire. When it collapsed, he was gone—vanished into the smoke.
Ethan staggered, the last threads of soulfire fading from his veins. His chest heaved, and sweat and ash clung to his skin.
Maya caught him by the arm, steadying him. “Easy,” she said, though her own face was pale, her body trembling from the toll of time-magic. “He’s gone.”
But Ethan could still feel it. The hunger. The temptation. The raw power that had wanted to consume everything. And Kaelith had seen it. Worse, Kaelith had provoked it on purpose.
He looked at the smoldering ruins of the village, at the hollow-eyed survivors crawling from the ash. His gut twisted.
“Next time,” he muttered, voice low, “I’ll end him.”
Maya tightened her grip on his arm. “Not like this. Not if it costs you yourself. Remember how you made me promise to never go that far ever again? You will be doing the same with this.”
The oath-bond between them pulsed faintly, heavy as chains, fragile as glass. Neither spoke of it aloud. The flames of Kaelith’s passing still licked the sky above.
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