Rain fell in sheets like the ash of a dying star—soft, gray, and relentless. It was not the rain that washed away hurt. It was the rain that remembered it.
Kael's hammer clanged in rhythmic pace, hard and controlled. Sparks flew from the anvil like fireflies off a dying ember. The forge, sunk halfway into the hill at the crest of Black Hollow, exhaled heat and smoke into the chilly air. His arms throbbed, his lungs seared, but he savored the pain. Pain told him he was alive.
The sword in front of him was almost finished—plain, functional, a merchant's sword that had been forged for a merchant who had long since joined the others and fled. Refugees poured west, with stories of red skies and screaming forests. Of men-like beasts, and starfire that bled.
Kael didn't fault them. The world was changing. Groaning. Something old was stirring.
And last night… the thunder.
Not thunder. A breach. An invitation.
Its memory still vibrated in his bones. The heavens had opened, not by lightning, but with a booming crack of a thousand drums rolling once—the heartbeat of something elder than time itself.
"Kael!" A croaking voice cut through the buzz of the forge.
He saw old Marda, stooping and rain-drenched, supported on her deformed cane. Her eyes flashed wide, wild despite their age.
"East ridge," she told him, her fingers shaking as she pointed. "Black smoke. Something dropped. I could feel it in my bones. You're the only one stupid enough to go, and strong enough to come back. Go."
He should have refused. Every instinct raked at him to remain earthbound. To complete the sword. To tend the forge.
But something deeper—something older—stirred within him. A whisper below his heartbeat. A tug that had no name.
Kael laid down his hammer. Wiped soot and sweat onto his apron. Covered the half-forged sword with cloth. And wordlessly wrapped his heavy cloak over his shoulders.
The rain did not relent as he made his way into the hills.
---
The ridge was a cemetery.
Trees charred to bone. Earth cracked and smoldered. The air shimmered, heavy with the smell of burned magic.
And at the center of it—at the bottom of a crater dug by gods—was a sword.
Not made. Born.
Its edge was night embodied, throbbing with an inner radiance that rippled through indigo, violet, and ghostfire blue. Runes twirled up its darkened hilt, glowing as if sensing his presence. The weapon did not grow old. It waited.
Kael approached. The instant drew out, time bending like heat around a forge.
He extended his hand.
Fingers touched hilt.
And the world was gone.
---
Fire. Sky on fire. Wings—impossibly wide—throwing cities into darkness. A tower divided in half by a single blow. A woman in silver, eyes burning with the same flame as the sword. Her voice booming in his blood, even though her lips did not move.
"Bearer of Shadowfire… awaken."
Kael gasped and fell, the vision breaking.
He was on his knees, panting. His hand still rested on the sword. It was not a weapon anymore. It was a living thing—an echo of something ancient.
Pain coursed through his arm. He ripped up his sleeve.
A mark had branded itself into his skin—a spiral of runes, the same that adorned the hilt, beating softly like a secondary heartbeat.
Shadowfire lay next to him.
And Kael realized that something fundamental was different.
Not only inside of him—but in the world itself.
---
As the sun was setting, he made it back to Black Hollow.
Nobody observed him picking his way through alleys. Nobody saw how air seemed to throb thinly across his feet. The blade under his cloak could not be felt, but the thrum vibrated within him.
During this night, winds changed direction.
A rider in red passed through the valley, unseen but not unnoticed.
And deep in the black walls of the Black Tower, a sorcerer awakened from meditation. His eyes opened, burning like coals.
"The Marked One has discovered the Blade," he whispered.
"And the Age of Fire starts anew."