Theo was still snoring by the time Kaleon reached the door.
It was a terrible noise—something between a dying boar and a man drowning—and in any other moment, Kaleon might have laughed. But tonight the sound grated on his nerves, setting his teeth on edge. Every moment he lingered felt heavier, like the very stones of Skarnhold were pressing against him, urging him down, down into the deep.
He glanced back once.
Theo sprawled across his bed, one boot dangling halfway off, one arm thrown over his eyes, mouth wide open. He wouldn't wake easily, not unless someone set fire to his mattress—or unless he sensed something was truly wrong. Theo had that instinct; a gift or curse Kaleon had never been sure.
Quiet as a cat, Kaleon pulled the door open.
The iron hinges gave the faintest groan of protest.
Kaleon winced, slipping through the gap and easing the door shut behind him with the utmost care.
The hallway beyond was dark, the torches long since guttered low in their sconces, leaving the stones slick with shadow. Only the faintest pulse of light bled from the high, narrow windows where the moons—thin and sharp tonight—cast a pale, ghostly glow.
Kaleon pulled his hood low over his face.
One hand found the shard tucked beneath his tunic.
It felt alive.
A slow, rhythmic pulse against his skin, beating in time with his heart—or perhaps against it, setting a different, deeper rhythm that thrummed in his bones.
He moved quickly but carefully, following the familiar path he'd traced a hundred times in thought but only once before in truth.
Past the Great Hall, where banners of House Skarn hung in limp, velvet folds.
Past the silent kitchens, where embers still glowed in the hearths, painting the stones in deep orange hues.
Down the Weeping Stair.
He moved faster there.
Something about the stair always unsettled him: how the walls sweated even in the dead of winter, how the steps were worn smooth in places where no one had walked in centuries. The rainwater—or what he hoped was rainwater—dripped steadily from the cracks above, tapping against the stone like ghostly fingers.
Kaleon pressed on.
The air grew colder.
Older.
The very taste of it changed—turning metallic and bitter on his tongue.
He was nearly to the old catacombs—the place the oldest maps of Skarnhold didn't even mark—when he heard it.
The faint scuff of a boot on stone.
Instinct made him whirl, hand flashing to the dagger at his belt, blade whispering free.
But it was only Theo.
Of course it was Theo.
Stumbling from the shadows, hair wild, tunic half-tucked, grinning as though they'd merely snuck off for stolen ale, not into the very bones of their ancestors' keep.
"Seven hells, Kaleon," Theo muttered, catching his breath, "you could try moving slower if you didn't want to be followed."
Kaleon narrowed his eyes.
"Theo, you fool—"
"Save it," Theo cut him off with a flap of his hand, straightening with mock dignity. "You were making enough noise to wake the dead. And besides..." He shrugged. "If you're running off to chase ghosts and fire, you think I'd let you do it alone?"
For a moment, Kaleon hesitated.
He knew he should send Theo back. Knew the path ahead wasn't meant for two.
But it was no use. Once Theo had decided to follow, nothing short of a punch to the jaw would turn him back—and even that was questionable.
Kaleon sighed through gritted teeth.
"Fine," he muttered. "But stay close. And touch nothing."
Theo gave a mock salute, though his grin had tightened, the easy humor drained from it.
Even he could feel the weight in the air now.
The pull.
The promise.
Together, they pressed deeper.
The halls narrowed, the ceilings lowered, until they had to duck beneath ancient arches crusted with moss and soot.
Old carvings lined the walls—some so worn they were barely more than scars in the stone. Dragons, of course. Skarnhold was built on dragon-bone and dragon-fire. But other things, too—things Kaleon didn't recognize. Shapes with too many limbs. Eyes without faces. Flames that burned upside-down.
Finally, they reached it.
The door.
Older than Skarnhold itself, perhaps. A slab of blackened oak bound with iron bands, etched with runes no one alive could fully read. The air around it thrummed, as if it were alive. As if it watched.
The lock—once mighty, once said to have been sealed by the first Lords of Skarn with dragonfire itself—was nothing more than a melted ruin now.
Kaleon approached.
The shard burned against his chest, urgent.
He pressed his palm to the door.
The iron was freezing under his skin—then blazingly hot.
The runes along the edges pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
With a reluctant groan that seemed to echo deep into the earth, the door swung inward.
And they entered the Chamber of the Flameheart.
Kaleon had imagined it a thousand times.
It was grander, stranger, more terrible than all his imaginings combined.
The massive dragon-pillars soared into darkness overhead, their scaled bodies carved in lifelike coils. The air was thick with the scent of sulfur and ash, a heavy, clinging miasma that made every breath a labor.
At the chamber's heart, the brazier blazed.
Not with ordinary flame, but with a living fire—shifting through colors no forge could birth.
Crimson.
Gold.
Deep, searing blue that stabbed the eyes like needles.
Theo let out a low, awed whistle.
"For all the tales," he whispered, voice barely audible, "they fall short."
Kaleon said nothing.
He was already moving forward, the shard burning hot against his heart, leading him onward.
The brazier's flames leaped higher at his approach.
And then—the whispers began.
A soft, sorrowful voice, female, ancient beyond reckoning.
"Vey'naraak..."
"The fire remembers... the ash endures..."
Theo staggered back, clutching his head.
"Kaleon—! Do you hear—"
But the words twisted, the chamber spun.
The air itself seemed to ignite.
Visions consumed them.
Kaleon saw himself atop a jagged mountain, wrapped in storm.
A dragon—black as nightmare, vast beyond anything he'd ever seen—coiled around him, its body wounded, bleeding fire.
Its eyes—oh, gods, its eyes—stared into his soul.
"The ash holds my name," it whispered.
"Vey'naraak."
"The last ember calls."
Theo, beside him, fell to his knees.
But Theo's vision was not the same.
In Theo's mind, the ground was a battlefield, a sea of blood and smoke where Skarn banners clashed with those of Ardwyn and Drakmire. Flames devoured everything. A tower rose from the madness—an obsidian spire—and atop it, a woman clad in white flame.
She reached for him.
"You must choose, child of the embers," she whispered.
"Loyalty... or truth."
Theo cried out, clutching at his temples.
"Kaleon—!"
Kaleon fought against the pull of the vision, forcing himself to move, to think.
He staggered through the flame-born illusion, reaching Theo.
Seizing him by the shoulders, Kaleon tore them both free—
—and the world snapped back into cold, heavy reality.
They collapsed against the floor, gasping for air.
The brazier's fire guttered low, barely a flicker now.
Silence.
Heavy and absolute.
For long minutes, neither of them spoke.
Theo wiped blood from his nose, giving Kaleon a haunted, broken grin.
"Next time you go chasing cursed relics," he rasped, "leave me out of it, aye?"
Kaleon managed a weak chuckle.
But inside, he was trembling.
The shard still pulsed against his chest—different now. Not just alive, but aware.
Calling.
He glanced toward the brazier.
In its dying flames, he thought he saw something—no, someone—watching.
A figure cloaked in white fire.
Waiting.
He tore his gaze away.
"We can't stay here," Kaleon said hoarsely.
"No argument from me," Theo muttered, scrambling unsteadily to his feet.
They left the chamber behind, moving quickly through the tunnels.
The misted corridors of Skarnhold welcomed them back like a grave.
When they finally reached the upper halls, the first shreds of dawn were bleeding across the peaks, painting the stones in cold blue and silver.
But the world felt different.
Changed.
Something had stirred in the deep—and it would not sleep again.
The name tasted like flame and sorrow on Kaleon's tongue.
"Vaelaria."
It wasn't just a word.
It was a binding — a tether yanked tight between him and something older than Skarnhold itself.
The wind howled across the East Tower, biting and wild, but Kaleon barely felt it.
His fingers clenched the edge of the stone parapet, knuckles pale under the starlight.
Down below, the keep slept uneasily.
Guards shifted on their rounds, torches flickering nervously along the walls.
Somewhere beyond, in the hidden hollows of the mountains, wolves howled—long and broken.
He pressed his hand flat against his chest, over where the shard burned with quiet heat.
It pulsed still—faint, but alive, like a second heartbeat.
A storm churned over the eastern mountains.
No natural storm.
It didn't crawl like mist or roll like summer thunder—it coiled, like a serpent flexing its ancient muscles.
It had woken.
Because he had.
Because he had dared to tread where even his forefathers had sealed the truth in blood and fire.
Kaleon bowed his head, jaw tight.
Memories from the Flameheart chamber licked at his mind—visions of dragons bleeding flame, towers wreathed in ash, banners torn to shreds by black winds.
And at the center of it all, a woman of light and shadow.
Vaelaria.
Not a queen.
Not a sorceress.
Something more.
Something tied to the ash and flame of House Skarn itself.
"The ash holds my name."
"The last ember calls."
He shivered, though not from the cold.
Behind him, the heavy door to the tower creaked open.
Soft footsteps padded across the stone.
Kaleon didn't turn.
He knew it was Theo, by the ragged sound of his breath, the exhausted shuffle of boots worn from chasing visions all night.
Theo came to stand beside him, silent for a long moment.
Then:
"Couldn't sleep either?" Theo muttered.
Kaleon let out a rough breath that might have been a laugh, or something near it.
"No."
Theo folded his arms across the parapet, squinting out toward the mountains where the storm crackled in muted flashes.
"You think we started something we can't stop?" he asked, voice low.
Kaleon said nothing.
He didn't have to.
The shard at his chest answered for him.
The two boys stood side by side, no words between them for a while, only the raw vastness of the world stretching before them.
Finally, Theo glanced at him sideways.
"Whatever comes," he said, trying for a grin and failing, "I reckon I'd rather face it with you than without."
Kaleon looked at him then—really looked—and saw the lines of fear etched in Theo's face.
Not fear of Kaleon.
Fear for him.
It loosened something tangled deep in Kaleon's chest.
He reached out and clapped Theo on the shoulder, squeezing once.
"Together," he said, voice hoarse.
Theo grunted.
"Together," he echoed.
Behind them, a single bell tolled from the central tower.
Low.
Heavy.
A warning.
The winds shifted, carrying with them a scent that didn't belong to the mountains — the faint, acrid tang of burning stone.
Far to the east, the storm coiled tighter, dark wings unfurling behind its shrouded heart.
Something stirred in the deep places of Drakenshard.
Something that remembered.
And it was coming.