The ancient tunnels stretched for miles beneath the surface, winding like forgotten veins through the earth. Once part of an underground network that connected demon sanctuaries across the land, most were now collapsed or sanctified by angelic rites—cut off from the Ember's pulse. But here, in the dark untouched places, magic still breathed.
Kael and Riven moved swiftly but cautiously, the tension of their narrow escape from Dareth still clinging to them. Kael's thoughts spun with fire and memory. The vision. The mirror. Velkarion.
His ancestor.
Their path took them deeper, through crumbling stone and blackened roots twisted with veins of flickering emberlight. Strange whispers echoed in the halls—not voices, but… memories. Soul Echoes, left behind by those who once walked here. Kael could feel them brush his mind—flashes of battle chants, sorrowful songs, even laughter.
"We're close," Riven said, her voice hushed.
"Close to what?"
She paused before a massive set of doors, unlike anything Kael had seen before. They weren't carved or forged, but grown—twisted from living obsidian roots, pulsing faintly with inner flame.
"The tomb of Azariel," she said. "Last crowned Demon King. Velkarion's mentor. And maybe the one being who can help us stop the angels."
Kael swallowed. "He's still… alive?"
"Not exactly. He sealed himself away in stasis before the Veil of Light was completed. The angels couldn't kill him, so they buried him under lies." Her hand hovered near the door. "You'll need to open it."
Kael stepped forward. The moment his hand touched the stone-roots, they flared. The door trembled—and then pulled back, unraveling like a knot of darkness and heat.
Inside was a chamber unlike anything Kael had ever seen. Massive, cathedral-like, but lit only by floating embers. At the center lay a sarcophagus of onyx and bone, held in the air by chains of molten metal, spinning ever so slightly.
Kael approached, heart hammering. His mark—newly awakened by the mirror—glowed faintly on his palm.
Riven began to speak, voice reverent. "Azariel was no tyrant. He guided the Bound Flame not as a conqueror, but a guardian. He refused to wage war until the angels began corrupting minds, erasing memories. When the first city fell to their Radiance, he called for resistance."
Kael stopped at the sarcophagus. He felt drawn to it. Blood called to blood.
He placed his hand on the surface. The chains reacted immediately—snapping taut with a hiss of steam and fire. The lid slowly slid aside.
Inside was a figure wrapped in shadowed robes, skin ashen but untouched by time. Horns swept back from his brow like a crown, and his chest rose faintly with each breath.
Kael stumbled back. "He's breathing…"
Riven nodded. "The stasis holds him on the edge of life and memory. But with your blood, you may be able to wake him—partially."
Kael hesitated. "What if I fail?"
"You won't. You're his legacy. Velkarion's heir."
He knelt beside the sarcophagus and closed his eyes, focusing on the flame within. The Radiant Flame—his fusion of shadow and light—answered the call. He reached inward, then outward, and pressed both palms to Azariel's chest.
A surge of heat exploded from the sarcophagus, and Kael's mind was ripped from the present.
Kael stood in a memory not his own.
The skies burned.
Cities crumbled beneath angelic fire. Humans screamed—not from demons, but from angels descending like living suns, rewriting their minds with blinding Radiance.
Azariel stood tall on a battlefield, wings of ember stretched wide—not feathered, but jagged like flame itself. His voice echoed like thunder. "They will not take our truth. We will burn their lies away."
Behind him, Velkarion—young, passionate—raised his sword of fused flame and light.
Then came the betrayal.
Kael saw it clearly now. Elyra, in white armor, standing beside Seraphiel. Smiling.
Seraphiel's blade pierced Velkarion's back.
The vision shattered.
Kael screamed as he returned to the present, the echo of betrayal still searing his mind. The sarcophagus pulsed—and Azariel's eyes opened.
Pupils like molten gold. Voice deep, ancient, and hollow. "The Bound Flame… lives?"
Kael nodded, shaking.
Azariel's gaze settled on him. "Then the war… is not over."
Behind them, Riven's eyes widened. But before anyone could speak further, a blast shook the entire tomb.
Riven cursed. "They found us!"
Azariel closed his eyes. "I cannot fight yet… but take this."
From his chest, a shard of emberlight lifted, hovering toward Kael. As it touched his skin, it burned—not with pain, but with awakening.
More visions.
More power.
And one truth spoken by Azariel's dying breath before the tomb collapsed.
"Velkarion's fire never died. It burns in you. And when the Veil falls… the world will remember."
Riven grabbed Kael, and they ran as the chamber cracked and fell, Azariel's sarcophagus swallowed by fire.
They barely made it back to the surface tunnels, gasping for breath under a blood-red sky.
Kael's eyes now shimmered faintly with emberlight and gold.
And far above, on the tower of Sanctum, Seraphiel watched the sky darken.
"The hybrid has awakened," he whispered. "Let the culling begin."