Under a sky that forgot stars, Kael approached fire.
The winds across the Withered Expanse wailed like laments of wolves, but he only heard the beat of his own heart—and the sword vibrating on his back like a bellows at the forge. Shadowfire was altering. The runes along its spine no longer glowed red. They glimmered gold, then white, then the hue of starlight reflected in metal.
Lysara followed behind him, quietly. She did not know to say anything. Kael was proceeding down a road no one could tread.
Not even herself.
The vision had revealed to him a location. Not on any map, but inscribed in the soul of the blade: the Cradle of Flame, buried deep under the ash-shrouded remains of Mount Vaerok. It was where the Aetherborn's first smiths had crafted their soulbound blades—before treachery, before bloodshed, before Shadowfire ever existed.
There, he would reforge it.
---
The doorway lay hidden under a shroud of obsidian cut into the heart of the mountain. When Kael drew near, the blade throbbed once—then rent the air with one slash of light.
The stone swung open.
They stepped through.
The tunnel was filled with molten veins, pulsing with sluggish light. Runes wrapped about walls in infinite spirals, as if tales penned in flame. Heat washed over Kael's skin—not stifling, but comforting, like that of a long-abandoned forge.
And at the farthest point, they discovered the anvil.
Massive. Suspended over a pit of white fire. Chains of starry silver restrained it, bound in ancient stasis. It did not rust. It did not burn. It waited.
Lysara moved back.
Kael moved forward.
He drew out Shadowfire.
The sword sang. A high, clear note, heavy with memory, sorrow, and hunger.
Kael laid it on the anvil.
And the flame exploded.
The room came alive. Walls moved. Shadows formed.
And out of the flame voices came.
They were not ghosts—but shades of will, pieces of the Flame Forged—those who had borne Shadowfire and died with it. Now, they stood before Kael in the firelight, neither alive nor dead. Dozens of them. Their shapes shimmering like heat mirages.
One took a step forward.
An elderly man with veins of molten metal, a forge hammer slung on his back.
"You would change the blade?" he inquired, voice as deep as cracking stone.
"I would set it free," Kael said. "From the cycle. From him."
The others whispered.
A child-bearer approached. Her eyes were big, sorrowful. "We died for the flame. And it always asked for more."
"I will not let it consume another age," Kael said. "But I cannot do it by myself."
"You are not alone," the smith said.
The bearers moved in a circle around the anvil. Individual by individual, they touched their hands to the blade. With every touch, runes lit—new ones, burning with purpose.
Kael moved to the anvil, laid both palms upon the hilt.
He took in breath.
And recited the forge-rite.
Phrases none would ever be supposed to know, and he spoke them with ease, as if forged into his very bones. The fire flared high, consuming him utterly.
Pain.
Memory.
Revelation.
He witnessed the instant the sorcerer divided his soul to make Shadowfire—how a part of him still existed within it, observing, waiting. He witnessed how each bearer had been a vessel, a pawn, a fuse.
He witnessed how the blade could be reworked to spurn that heritage.
How it could be more.
He let out a fierce roar.
The anvil was destroyed.
And when the flame dissipated, Kael was alone.
The sword in his grasp was not Shadowfire.
No longer.
The blade was longer, sleeker, the runes reformed into a new language of intent. It no longer pulsed with hunger, but with balance. Its edge shimmered with the color of dawn.
Lysara stepped forward, eyes wide.
"What is it called now?" she whispered.
Kael looked down at it.
"Dawnfire," he said. "Born from shadow. Forged to end it."
---
Far away, in the Black Tower, the sorcerer screamed.
Shadowfire was no longer his.
And throughout the realms, the seals that held the last Flame Forged apart broke.
They woke up one by one.
They recalled their purpose.
And they started marching towards the end.