Chapter 29: Baptism in Flame
The Tower of Fire breathed.
There was no other word for it.
Every step Andrew took up the spiral path, the temperature rose. The stone walls pulsed with glowing veins of lava, and the air tasted of metal and smoke.
"Smells like a forge," Kaelira muttered, wiping sweat from her brow.
"It is a forge," Selennia replied grimly. "A forge for heroes."
They reached the central platform—and the fire roared to life around them.
Flames didn't burn here.
They hunted.
- Trial of Flame: Wrath Made Manifest -
The arena shifted.
Steel pillars rose from the floor. Chains swung from molten rafters. The entire tower transformed into a living battlefield, choked in heat and chaos.
From the far end, their opponents emerged.
Three champions.
Not ordinary competitors. These were flameborn gladiators—chosen for this trial, their skin marked by ember runes, their weapons blazing with internal fire.
"Trial of Flame begins," an ancient voice echoed.
"Temper your soul… or be consumed."
Kaelira darted first, blades slicing like mirrored flame, but was forced back as one of the gladiators' swords ignited the ground under her feet.
Selennia formed sigils mid-air, trying to deflect the searing wind, but the heat distorted even her magic.
And Andrew—he stood still.Ashren quivering.
The sword didn't glow. It didn't burn. It drank in the heat like a shadow swallowing a wildfire.
The gladiators turned to him, sensing it. Sensing him.
"You're the one," one growled. "The cursed sword."
"You shouldn't exist," said another.
"Neither should your past," said the third, lifting a hammer of magma.
Then they struck.
- Ashren's Flame -
The battle was a blur of steel, screams, and fire.
Andrew held nothing back—at first.
He deflected the hammer, rolled under a spear of flame, and countered with a clean slash that left black trails in the air. Ashren did not burn—it devoured the flame, turning it into echoes, into visions.
And then it happened.
The heat overwhelmed him.
Ashren pulsed, then howled.
The flame around him bent inward.
Ashren ignited.
But it wasn't fire. It was memory. Living, burning memory.
- Visions in the Flame -
Andrew saw himself—his past self—standing atop a burning mountain, arms outstretched, commanding the flame like a god. An army of fire-elementals bowed before him. Behind him, cities turned to cinders.
"You burned it all," the voice whispered. "Not out of hate… but necessity."
"To forge peace in fire."
Andrew staggered.
"That's not who I am."
"But it's who you could be."
Ashren flared—flame and shadow combining, not fighting.
When Andrew blinked, the vision was gone… and he was standing above the last gladiator, blade at their throat.
But he didn't strike.
He pulled the sword away.
"I'm not a destroyer."
"Not anymore."
The fire died down.
The trial ended.
- After the Fire -
As they exited the tower, Kaelira looked at Andrew for a long time.
"You held back."
"I chose to."
"Your sword… was glowing like fire and night."
"It's changing," Andrew murmured. "Or maybe I'm the one changing."
Selennia said nothing—but her glance at Ashren was not without fear.
- Interlude: A Secret Council -
Far from the tower, deep within the palace, a shadowed room buzzed with low voices.
Seven robed figures sat around a crescent table. On the wall behind them—a black map of the continent, with Andrew's name etched in red.
"He's awakening too fast," one said.
"The sword responds to him now," another added. "Faster than we anticipated."
"What of the Revenant, Ravan?" a third asked.
"He watches. But the boy has resisted corruption. That cannot last."
Then the eldest among them spoke:
"Increase the pressure."
"Send in the Hunters."