When the world offers you a throne or a tomb, choose fire instead.
The day dawns cold and gray over Aurorium.
In the heart of the Academy, bells forged from godbone toll seven times — once for each of the Flameborne who fell in the Ashborne War. Each toll echoes like thunder through the frostbitten sky.
Kael stands at the edge of the Verdant Circle, the ceremonial arena where the Vote of Flame is to be cast. His robes have been replaced by plain black — neither student nor prisoner, but something between.
With him stand:
Lia, wrapped in the silver of the Godbinders, her lineage now publicly known.
Mistress Elien, who stands with him in defiance of the High Chancellor.
Arien Vaeldra, heir to House Vaeldra, and secret supporter of Kael's cause.
And in the shadows… a hidden Crownless spy, observing everything.
At noon, the Tribunal assembles — seven members, representing each major continent, faction, and bloodline within the Empire.
Each bears a Flamebrand, a relic representing their right to vote.
Before them, Kael must speak. Not to defend himself — but to justify his very existence.
High Chancellor Veyran intones:
"Kael Vaelorian. Echo of fire. Bearer of forbidden flame. Will you submit to the will of the Tribunal, and surrender your memory to the Silence?"
Kael steps forward.
"You ask me to submit. To silence. To forget what the world has buried under centuries of lies."
"But what if I told you the lies are cracking?"
"What if I told you the Crownless are not your enemy — but your consequence?"
He steps closer to the flames at the center of the Circle. The bonfire flickers and shifts — showing ghostly images of Vaelorian, the Ashborne King, sealing away the gods.
"You fear me because I carry memory. But I am not your undoing — I am your chance to survive what comes next."
"Let me hunt the flame echoes. Let me finish what the Ashborne began. Not for conquest. But for clarity."
"And if I fail… you can burn me yourselves."
Silence falls.
Then Lia speaks:
"The gods can hide behind their veils. The nobles can hide behind their blood. But we? We have only each other. And this boy who burns with every memory we wish we could forget."
As the vote looms, powerful nobles in the shadows make moves:
House Serenthos, ancient rulers of Nightspire, attempt to bribe two Tribunal members with soul-crystals — living knowledge extracted from dead seers.
House Morvan, holders of the Gate Sigil, dispatch an assassin to end the vote before it finishes.
The assassin is an elite memorykiller, trained to erase targets from the timeline entirely.
But Elien intercepts the strike with a forbidden spell — Chrono Burn, sacrificing a decade of her life to burn the future path of the assassin.
"Not today, shade. Not while this flame still flickers."
She falls, unconscious, as the assassin is consumed in paradox flame.
One by one, the Flamebrands are cast into the central flame. Each burns a different color:
Red: for exile.
Gold: for Wardenhood.
Black: for execution.
The fire surges.
Red. Red. Black.
Gold. Red.
The sixth brand burns gold.
All eyes turn to the seventh voter — a veiled woman bearing the insignia of the Forgotten House: one of the noble lines erased after the Ashborne War.
She hesitates… then casts her flame.
Gold.
Kael is granted the title: Warden of Remembrance.
With it comes:
A battalion of Flameguard, elite soldiers loyal to no crown but memory itself.
Access to the Inversorium, the most secretive magical vault beneath Aurorium.
A godbound relic known only as the Ash Lens — a seeing stone that reveals the forgotten past.
High Chancellor Veyran bows.
"Then let it be written: the Ashborne lives again, not as a king, but as a keeper."
"And may his fire be our salvation… or our ruin."
But as the ceremony ends, a scream echoes from the skies.
A massive rift tears across the horizon — not in space, but in history. Through it, Kael sees an army of Crownless warriors, led by Riven, holding the Shard of Seralyth aloft like a torch.
They chant:
"The Age of Forgetting is over. The Bone Crown returns."
Kael's fire pulses.
And the Flameborne War begins in earnest.