Kye woke up before dawn.
He didn't mean to. His body just refused to rest. Like something deep inside him knew sleep was a luxury he wouldn't have for much longer.
Renna was still out cold, curled in the corner of the safehouse greenhouse beneath a shredded curtain she'd turned into a blanket. She was snoring softly, one hand still wrapped around the hilt of her dagger even in her sleep.
Kye quietly pulled on his cloak, strapped Vireon's Breath across his back, and stepped outside.
The air was cold. Damp.
The sky above the Citadel's under-levels was always a dull amber glow—sunlight filtered through layers of flameglass domes and fog, never quite touching the streets below. Kye liked that. It made everything feel hidden. As if the world was still deciding whether or not to see him.
He headed toward the one place he swore he'd never go alone again.
**Kael's old chamber.**
---
The Ember Citadel had a lot of forbidden places.
Kael's chamber was one of the rare ones left untouched. No one dared enter it after his death—not even the Ash Circle. It was more than fear. It was *respect*. Or maybe… superstition.
Kye slipped past two empty patrol halls, found the old stone staircase under the cracked mural of the first Flamekeeper, and descended. His boots echoed against the stone, but nothing stirred.
The hallway ended in a steel door.
No lock.
Just a symbol.
A **broken crown**, etched by hand.
Kye pressed his palm to it.
The door groaned. Opened.
The air inside was stale. Burned. It smelled like old ink, ash, and something else—something like dried blood and memory.
Kael's study was exactly how Kye remembered.
* A half-burned desk, covered in unread scrolls.
* A blade mounted on the wall—broken down the middle, hilt still stained with something too dark to be soot.
* And on the far shelf, tucked behind an old map of the southern coast…
**Kael's final memory stone.**
---
Kye had never touched it before.
The memory stone was cracked, as if someone had tried to destroy it, but hadn't been able to finish the job. It still glowed faintly. A soft pulse. A heartbeat.
He picked it up.
It felt warm.
Not alive. But… *ready.*
He didn't sit. Didn't brace himself.
He just said: "Show me what he wanted me to see."
The stone flared.
And the room vanished.
---
He stood in a vision.
Kael sat at his desk. Tired. Shoulders slumped. Hair unkempt. His eyes were focused, but not sharp. Not anymore.
"I don't have much time," Kael muttered, writing something on a scroll Kye couldn't read. "If they find this, they'll erase it. So I'm hiding it here."
He looked up.
"By the time you see this, you'll already be neck-deep in the truth. Or worse—**you'll be questioning yourself.**"
Kael reached for a knife on the desk.
He carved a small mark on the scroll.
Kye leaned closer.
It was the **same symbol etched into the handle of Vireon's Breath**.
Kael kept talking.
"I didn't make that sword for killing," he said. "I made it because the Empire stopped listening. They forgot that memory isn't just a tool. It's a weapon. A promise. A warning."
His hand trembled.
"Vireon's Breath doesn't kill people. It kills **versions** of them. The ones twisted by lies. By oaths they didn't make with their own hands."
He looked up again.
His voice was quieter now.
"They're rewriting the world, Kye. Not the buildings. Not the maps. The **people.** Their choices. Their regrets. Their anger. Everything."
The stone trembled in Kye's hand.
Kael's final words echoed:
> "Don't just survive them."
> "**Unmake them.**"
---
Kye snapped back into the present with a sharp breath.
The stone cracked in his palm and turned to dust.
He let it fall.
Then turned.
Renna stood in the doorway.
"You really couldn't wait for me to wake up, huh?" she said.
"You snore," he muttered, brushing ash from his gloves.
She stepped into the room. Looked around.
"This place feels like a tomb."
"It is," Kye said. "But not for Kael."
He looked at the shelf where the memory stone used to be.
"It's a grave for the version of the world they're trying to sell us."
---
They walked back in silence.
Neither of them had to say it.
This wasn't about staying hidden anymore. Or staying safe.
This was about **taking back truth** before it got rewritten again.
---
Later that day, in a tower no one dared climb except the Ash Circle's inner circle, **Councilor Triselle Nyne** sat in a high-backed chair, sipping blackroot tea. Her eyes were fixed on a flame orb in front of her—flickering, then sharpening into an image of Kye's face.
He was standing outside Kael's old quarters.
"I warned you," a voice beside her whispered.
An older man with scorched robes leaned forward, hands clasped tightly.
"You should've ordered his capture when we had the chance."
Triselle didn't blink.
"He's holding Vireon's Breath," she said. "You don't capture someone with that blade."
"Then what?" the man snapped. "We wait for him to unravel everything?"
Triselle stood. Set the teacup down.
"No," she said. "We don't wait."
She looked into the flame.
"He's going to find the boy."
"What if he does?"
She smiled—cold, sharp.
"Then we'll **let** him."