Fires burned through the veins of Khaz'Thundar as the Molgaroth screamed beneath the mountain. Its molten limbs shattered stone, molten veins spilling across dwarven forges and homes. Kael and Thrain fled alongside panicked warriors and smiths, each step echoing like war drums against the collapsing halls of the dwarven stronghold.
But it wasn't just the mountain they feared.
It was what came after.
For deep in the shadows of the north, in a place long forsaken by the living, the deathless stirred.
Gravemire called.
And the dead answered.
The Black Flight
Kael and Thrain rode west with a company of dwarven warriors and elven scouts, pushing through storm-torn highlands and broken passes. Their destination: Gravemire, the cursed land of the once-great human kingdom now drowned in rot and silence.
There had been no ravens from the frontier outposts. No patrols returned. Villages once lined along the Blackriver had gone dark.
It was Elyria who had warned them.
She had come to Kael days after the Molgaroth's rise, her silver armor still singed from the undead wyrm's attack.
"We've seen movement," she had said. "Frozen things walking in the woods. Entire caravans vanished. The Pale Valley is awakening."
She had not called him Chosen One.
Not then.
Not yet.
Into the Mire
The land around Gravemire was unnatural.
The trees grew twisted, gnarled like fingers reaching toward an unseen moon. The air was damp, the ground soft and riddled with bones. Crows circled overhead, and the silence was thick — like the world itself was holding its breath.
As they crossed into the vale, Kael felt the temperature drop.
Each breath he took turned to frost.
Elyria rode beside him, her face pale but composed. "This land was once beautiful," she said quietly. "My people traded with humans here. They had great libraries, temples of flame and faith."
"What happened?"
She looked ahead. "He did."
Kael nodded.
Varethul the Hollow.
The Ruined Abbey
They found the remains of Sanctum Kyras, a once-holy abbey turned into a shrine of rot. The stained glass had been shattered, the walls clawed and painted with blood. Bones were piled in patterns—spirals, eyes, symbols no man remembered.
Thrain muttered a dwarven curse. "This is old magic. Forgotten. Forbidden."
Kael stepped inside the ruins.
In the center of the broken chapel, he found an altar. Upon it sat a book bound in black hide, its pages etched with runes that shimmered cold.
He opened it.
Words leapt from the page, not read but felt:
When kings forget their dead... the dead remember them.When fire falls to frost, the Hollow shall rise again.He walks between worlds, crowned in silence, burning with nothing.
Then—
A scream.
Kael looked up.
The dead had come.
The Deathless Host
They rose from the mud, from the river, from beneath collapsed chapels and graves. Men, women, children—faces half-rotted, eyes glowing with frostfire.
One wore a priest's robe, its jaw hanging loose.
Another carried a sword rusted with time.
They did not speak.
They only walked.
Kael drew his sword.
Elyria summoned her magic, a gleam of moonlight forming a shield in her hand.
"Hold the line!" Thrain bellowed, his axe already spinning.
The undead came without sound.
Kael fought like fire itself. His blade ignited as it struck, slicing through frozen flesh and shattering bone. Each kill sent sparks dancing into the air—but they kept coming.
For every one they felled, three more rose.
"They're not stopping!" Elyria shouted, back to back with Kael.
"Then we don't stop either," he growled, eyes burning.
And then, the air grew still.
The dead halted.
Kael froze.
The earth split.
And from the crack, a figure emerged.
The Hollow Crown
He stood ten feet tall, draped in torn robes that moved like smoke. His skin was bone, his face a skull crowned in black iron thorns. His eyes were blue fire, twin stars of unmaking.
Varethul the Hollow.
Kael stepped forward, chest rising and falling.
The Hollow King tilted his head.
"Fireborn," he said, voice like wind in a tomb. "At last."
Kael gripped his sword. "You know who I am?"
"I knew you before you were born."
He extended a skeletal hand.
"You are not my enemy, Kael Valari. You are my reflection."
Kael didn't move.
"You walk among liars and cowards," Varethul continued. "Men who bury truth. Who fear what you might become. But I will give you purpose. Power. Legacy."
"By killing everything I love?" Kael snarled.
"Love is the lie that blinds kings."
Kael raised his blade.
Varethul raised a single finger—
—and Kael was thrown backward, slammed against the abbey wall. Blood filled his mouth. Elyria screamed his name, magic bursting from her palms.
The Hollow King turned to her.
"Your kind sang songs when my empire burned. You will sing no more."
He raised his hand.
Kael forced himself to his knees, coughing blood.
"Don't—touch her—"
Varethul turned back to him.
"You will choose, fireborn. Ice or flame. Truth or myth."
Then—
He vanished.
So did the dead.
Aftermath
Kael lay beneath the abbey's broken arches, breathing ragged.
Elyria knelt beside him, her hand trembling over his chest. "Stay with me."
He opened his eyes.
"I saw him," he whispered. "I saw... everything."
She stared at him. "What do you mean?"
Kael looked toward the horizon.
"He's not just raising the dead. He's calling them back."
Elyria frowned. "Back from where?"
Kael's hand tightened around the ember relic in his pouch.
"From what's beneath the world."
A Silent Warning
That night, the survivors camped beneath dead trees.
Thrain sat sharpening his axe, eyes haunted.
"We've fought dragons, Kael. Orcs. Beasts that walked on thunder. But that thing..." He shook his head. "That wasn't war. That was a warning."
Elyria sat with Kael by the fire, her hand wrapped in his.
"You don't have to do this alone," she said.
Kael looked at the flames. "I think I do."
"Why?"
"Because if I lose control..." he said slowly, "...you might be the one who has to kill me."
Far to the north, in the ice-wreathed ruins of the dead city Vaer-Khol, Varethul stood before a mirror made of obsidian.
In it, he saw fire.
Kael's fire.
And he whispered:
"One piece awakens. Four remain.Let the second begin.The crown will burn."