The wind howled through the blackened ruins of Ovrion, where once towers kissed the stars and rivers shimmered with sapphire light. Now, smoke danced with the ashes of the fallen.
A boy stood alone on the highest ruin, his crimson cloak torn by battle, his eyes reflecting the shattered moon. His name was Kael Draven, the last Emberborn — a bloodline said to descend from the gods of flame.
In his grip was a sword not made by man or beast: Veylaith, the Whispering Fang. Its edge shimmered with ancient runes, and it spoke — not in words, but in memories. Each soul it drank became another whisper in Kael's mind.
"They are coming again, child," the blade murmured. "The First Wyrm stirs beneath the ice."
Kael looked to the north, where the sky bled red lightning. The stars were vanishing — not with dusk, but with doom. Across the continents, the Obsidian Convergence had begun.
And Kael, flameborn and hunted, was the only one left who could stop it.
Far across the frozen continent of Vael'tharuun, the ice moaned.
Not from wind. Not from cracking pressure. But from something ancient shifting beneath it.
Atop the Glacier Spires, cloaked in silver fur and breath misting in the air, General Seraya Vynn narrowed her emerald eyes. Her scouts had vanished days ago, swallowed by silence. Now, she alone heard the echoes — like a great beast breathing in its sleep.
Her gauntlet hummed, runes lighting blue. A whisper floated into her ear.
"The Emberborn stirs."
She cursed beneath her breath. "Kael," she muttered, as though the name burned her tongue. "You're alive."
With a gesture, her ice-forged spear unfolded like a metallic blossom. She turned to the chasm ahead — a pit with no bottom, where light itself seemed to die. The legends called it The Maw of Tharuun, where the First Wyrm, Azarhoth the World-Burrower, slumbered beneath the ages.
But tonight… the Maw pulsed.
And beneath it, the Wyrm blinked for the first time in a thousand years.
The forest was quiet — too quiet for Kael's liking.
He moved through the emberwood trees with silent precision, boots sinking slightly into ash-laden soil. The air smelled of smoke and wet earth, an unnatural mix that made his senses twitch. Each step felt like a heartbeat — slow, deliberate, heavy.
Veylaith pulsed at his back. Not loudly, not yet — but the sword's silence was a warning in itself.
He crouched by a stream that once sparkled with phoenix scales. Now it trickled dark and sluggish, tainted by something old and wrong. Kael dipped his fingers in. Cold. Too cold.
"Frostbite, this far south?" he murmured, frowning.
"The frost moves where the Wyrm dreams," Veylaith whispered, its voice like wind through dying leaves.
Kael stood, eyes narrowing.
Across the stream stood a woman draped in silver furs, her spear of glacial steel pointed toward the ground. Behind her, the trees had frozen mid-bloom. The breath from her lips coiled like dragon smoke.
"Seraya Vynn," Kael said. "Didn't expect you to walk this far from your throne of ice."
She didn't smile. "You shouldn't have awakened the blade, Kael."
"I didn't. The world did."
They stood like statues for a breathless second — old friends carved into enemies by time, war, and betrayal.
Then, without warning, Seraya's spear flicked upward.
And Kael was already moving.
The forest erupted.
Steel kissed flame as Kael's blade met Seraya's spear.
The impact shook the ground beneath their feet — not because of strength, but because of what each weapon carried. Veylaith, alive with ancient fire. And Seraya's glacial spear, Isenrael, forged in the breath of frost giants.
They clashed again, sparks and snowflakes exploding between them. The emberwood trees groaned, their bark splitting as the raw force of the duel unbalanced the very essence around them.
"You've grown slower," Seraya hissed, spinning low and aiming for his side.
Kael countered, barely — Veylaith catching the strike inches from his ribs. "Or maybe you've just grown colder."
A crack of laughter escaped her lips — brief, sharp, bitter.
"I had to. You left me no warmth to hold onto."
Their weapons locked. For a moment, their eyes met — not as warriors, but as people once bound by something more than war. Memories rushed in like a tide: campfires in the southern dunes, stolen glances in the Crystal Citadel, her fingers brushing his hand beneath a dying star.
Kael blinked.
And Seraya struck.
The blunt end of her spear caught him across the jaw. He stumbled, blood in his mouth, the taste grounding him.
"You've forgotten how this ends," she said, voice low. "You with your fire. Me with my ice."
But before she could strike again, the forest trembled.
Not from them.
From beneath.
A deep, sonorous hum rose from the earth, followed by a great crack that split the ground behind Kael. Black steam hissed upward, and from it, a low growl — something that had no throat, yet spoke into their bones.
Both warriors froze.
Then the voice came — ancient, ragged, drenched in ruin.
"Flame and frost... yet still you squabble like insects. The Wyrm has no favorites. It devours all."
And the forest began to die.
The earth cracked open like a wound.
Kael leapt back, boots skidding across blackened soil as roots split and twisted, the very trees screaming as if alive. Seraya stood her ground, spear leveled, eyes wide—not with fear, but recognition.
From the chasm, a claw rose.
It wasn't bone, nor flesh. It was stone shaped by hunger, talons longer than pikes, etched with runes that bled smoke. The hand groped upward like a blind god clawing for light. Around it, frost wilted and fire dimmed.
Kael exhaled. "That's no Wyrm," he said.
"No," Seraya whispered, her voice suddenly small. "That's its shadow."
The claw sank back into the pit.
Silence fell.
And then the forest... remembered.
Flashes of the past flickered in Kael's mind — visions not his own. Cities swallowed by night. Skies split by obsidian wings. A woman crowned in cinders. A boy holding a blade too heavy for his hands. He gasped and staggered, grabbing a tree for support. It wept sap the color of wine.
"The Obsidian Convergence," Veylaith whispered. "A thousand years ago, this forest was the front line. Blood still sleeps here."
Kael blinked. "That wasn't a memory. That was... a warning."
Seraya turned to him, her face pale as ash. "We have to go."
He stared at her. "You were just trying to kill me."
"And now I'm trying to survive." She stepped closer, her breath trembling. "Listen to me, Kael. If the Wyrm wakes—truly wakes—this world burns from the inside out."
Kael looked back to the pit. The claw was gone, but the whisper still echoed beneath the soil like a heartbeat in stone.
He nodded once.
"Then we go."
Together, they vanished into the trees — enemies, allies, maybe both — while behind them, the forest slowly sealed its wound.
But far below, in the endless dark...
The Wyrm opened its eye.