The sky above the ruins was the color of rust. Ash floated through the air like dying snow, covering the cracked streets and the twisted steel bones of what had once been Kael’s home. The world had been quiet for three days since the Pyronite reactor exploded. No rescue teams came. No voices called for help anymore—only the wind whispering through burned windows.

Kael stumbled across the rubble, his clothes torn, his body covered in soot and shallow burns. His hands trembled as he pressed them against the ground still warm beneath his fingers. Beneath the layer of ash, he could hear something—soft, pulsing, alive. It was not a sound. It was a rhythm inside his chest answering the beat of the earth.

He had always felt strange around fire. As a child he never feared it; the heat never burned him completely. When the explosion came, he thought he had died, yet here he was, standing in the center of the crater where the energy core once glowed blue. Now, it glowed red—like a heart still beating.

A whisper rose from the ashes.
Do you feel it, Kael?

He turned, but no one was there. Only the flicker of scattered flames licking the debris. Then the ground shuddered. The red glow spread beneath his feet, crawling up through the cracks, weaving around him like veins of molten light. His heartbeat matched the rhythm until it was impossible to tell which one was real.

Pain flooded his body—hotter than any fire. He screamed, clutching his chest, but his skin didn’t burn; instead, light burst from within him. The glow traced every vein, every nerve, until his whole body was drawn in crimson patterns. His breath came out as steam. The air bent around him.

A surge of energy exploded outward, sending a shockwave through the ruins. Windows shattered, embers flared, and a storm of heat wrapped around him like armor. The once-silent ruins roared to life. For a brief moment, the fire took shape—a giant silhouette behind him, wings made of flame stretching toward the sky.

Kael dropped to his knees, gasping. The fire dissolved into sparks, scattering into the night wind. In the echo of silence that followed, his reflection shimmered in a shard of glass beside him—eyes glowing bright amber, the mark of a Flame Driver.

He realized then that the explosion hadn’t killed him. It had awakened him.

He looked at the horizon. Far away, the remnants of the Federation towers still burned like stars. Somewhere within those towers were the ones who built the reactors, who experimented with Pyronite, who destroyed everything he loved.

Kael clenched his fist, feeling the heat surge through his arm. For the first time, he wasn’t afraid of the fire inside him.

“I’m coming,” he whispered to the glowing ruins, his voice steady, his eyes alive with purpose. “And this time, the fire burns for me.”

The wind carried the ash away, and in the distance, a new flame rose from the ruins—a single spark that would soon ignite the world.