The next morning brought smoke.

Kael smelled it before he saw it—a dry, chemical burn in the wind that didn’t belong to any natural fire. When he climbed the ridge overlooking the valley, he saw the source: a convoy of black hovercrafts moving steadily across the sands, their engines glowing blue-white. Federation banners fluttered on their sides.

But there was something new about their design. Sleeker, sharper, with Pyronite cores built directly into their hulls. They were powered by living flame.

Kael’s stomach tightened. “They learned,” he muttered.

He crouched behind the ridge as the convoy passed. At its center, inside a reinforced carrier, he saw a cage pulsing faintly with heat. Through the bars glowed a flicker of red light—alive, trembling. He realized what it was: a captured Resonant.

Without thinking, Kael moved.

He followed the convoy’s trail for hours until night fell. When they stopped to refuel, he crept closer, hiding among the rocks. Soldiers in new-style armor surrounded the area, their visors flickering with infrared light. In the center, the cage stood connected to power cables that drained the captive’s energy into fuel cells.

Kael saw the prisoner clearly now—a young boy, maybe fifteen, eyes wide with terror. Flames crawled across his skin like frightened animals.

Kael’s jaw tightened. Memories flashed—himself, younger, trapped, terrified.

He waited until the guards changed shifts. Then he moved.

The first soldier fell silently, his armor short-circuited by a burst of directed heat. Kael’s movements were fluid, controlled—fire used not to burn, but to disable. Within seconds, he reached the cage. The boy looked up, eyes reflecting orange light.

“Who—who are you?” the boy stammered.

“Someone like you,” Kael said. He tore open the energy locks with a single heated touch. The cage door melted away. “Can you walk?”

The boy nodded, shaky but alive.

An alarm blared. Too slow.

“Go,” Kael said. “Run toward the dunes. Don’t stop.”

The boy hesitated. “What about you?”

Kael smiled faintly. “I’ll buy you time.”

He turned as the soldiers stormed in, weapons raised. The desert lit up with bolts of plasma. Kael moved through them like wind through fire. Every step, every motion, was precise. His flames curved around his body, redirecting attacks, turning beams into harmless waves of heat.

Then a familiar voice broke through the chaos.

“Enough games, Firebearer.”

Kael froze. From the main carrier, a figure stepped out clad in new crimson armor—sleek, angular, bearing the same mark as Dareth’s old unit. The helmet opened, revealing a woman with sharp eyes and a burn scar across her jaw.

“General Sera Raith,” Kael said slowly. “So they promoted you.”

She smiled coldly. “My brother died chasing you. I intend to finish what he started.”

Her gauntlet flared blue as she activated her own resonance field. Fire surged from her boots, lifting her into the air. Kael barely had time to brace before a blast of condensed flame struck him square in the chest, throwing him backward through a dune.

He landed hard, sand turning to glass beneath him.

Sera descended like a meteor, flames crackling along her armor. “You’ve poisoned the balance,” she said. “The Core’s fire belongs to humanity, not to one man.”

Kael rose slowly, wiping blood from his lip. “You still think it’s yours to own. That’s why it keeps burning you.”

Their flames collided, painting the desert sky with light. Each strike thundered through the sand, waves of heat rippling across the horizon. Kael fought not to destroy her, but to prove a point—to show control. Yet she was relentless, her energy augmented by artificial Pyronite injectors.

Sera’s eyes blazed. “You’re no savior. You’re the spark that will start another war!”

Kael caught her arm mid-strike, their flames locking together in a spiraling vortex. “Then maybe the world needs one,” he said through clenched teeth.

The explosion illuminated the entire valley. When the light faded, Sera was gone—thrown back into the night, her armor sparking and smoking. The convoy lay in ruins.

Kael fell to one knee, gasping. The sand around him glowed faintly from the residual heat. In the distance, he saw the boy running under the red dawn.

He smiled faintly, whispering to the wind, “Run far. Be free.”

Then he turned toward the horizon, where black storm clouds gathered around the floating fortress from his visions. The voice within him stirred again, faint but urgent.

The Fire remembers. The storm follows.

Kael stood, the light inside him burning steady and calm. He began walking toward the storm.