The sun barely touched the sky when Joren finally left the clearing behind. Pale gold light filtered through the upper branches, scattering across the mist like fractured glass. He moved slowly, not because of the fatigue—though that clung to his limbs like wet cloth—but because every step seemed to bring with it new sensations. The world felt louder. Closer. Alive in ways it hadn’t been just the day before.

  He noticed the way frost melted more slowly in the shadow of certain trees. How the wind curled tighter around the ruined construct behind him. Even the silence hummed with tension, like a chord being drawn tight.

  Something had changed. He had changed.

  A soft warmth pulsed beneath his ribs—his Ember Core, he realized. Not a System-approved Class or Stat Sheet, but something older, rawer. It didn’t just sit inside him. It whispered.

  As he walked, memories not his own flickered at the edges of thought.

  Metal giants crashing through crimson skies. Screams in machine tongues. A name—Ashbound—echoing like a forgotten oath.

  And always, that void-black tower, crowned in flame.

  He shook his head to clear it. The Echo Core was fragmented, that much the interface had told him. The information it gave would be incomplete. Dangerous, even. But it was more than he’d had yesterday.

  He paused at a stream to refill his flask. The water was cold enough to numb his fingers, but clearer than any he’d tasted near the village. As he stood, he caught his reflection in the surface.

  His face looked the same—too thin, dark hair tousled, storm-gray eyes ringed by sleepless shadows—but there was something behind the gaze. A pressure, like a fire banked just beneath the surface.

  He turned away from it.

  The forest opened into an old trail he recognized: the western path that looped around the Ravenspine hills. It would eventually lead back toward home, but it passed near the old ruins.

  Ruins his father had once warned him to stay away from.

  “You’re not ready,” he’d said, voice hard. “There are things in those stones that even the Hunters avoid.”

  But Joren wasn’t going back yet. Not without answers.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  And something told him the ruins held them.

  The path narrowed as it wound deeper into the woods. Birds avoided this stretch. Even the air tasted older. The trees grew in strange spirals, trunks warped as if pulled by ancient gravity. Moss coated stone markers with glyphs long faded into myth.

  When he reached the first of the standing stones, he felt the Ember Core pulse again—softly, like recognition.

  A symbol on the stone flared briefly. A spiral within a flame. Then dimmed.

  No one from the village would’ve seen it.

  But Joren had changed.

  He pressed his hand to the stone. A single word surfaced in his thoughts.

  “Yitharn.”

  He didn’t know the meaning. But it carried weight. Power.

  The path split beyond the marker, and he turned left, toward the hill where the ruins lay.

  Climbing the slope was harder than he expected. The ground was slick from overnight frost, and his legs still remembered the pain of Awakening. But he pushed forward.

  Tenacity: 2

  The number didn’t appear on a screen. It simply… *was*. A pressure, a certainty.

  He gritted his teeth and reached the summit.

  The ruins spread below him like the skeleton of some ancient beast. Crumbling archways. Broken pillars. Sunken stone steps half-eaten by vines. But at the center stood a pedestal untouched by time.

  And on it, another stone.

  This one was jagged, charred black, its surface laced with veins of dim orange light.

  His Ember Core surged.

  He stepped forward—then froze.

  Something else was there.

  A figure. Cloaked in gray, face hidden by a mask of carved ashwood. They stood unmoving beside the pedestal, one hand resting on the black stone.

  Joren reached for his knife.

  “No need for that,” the figure said. Their voice was neither male nor female. Calm. Cold. “You’ve already been marked.”

  Joren didn’t relax. “Who are you?”

  “An Echo. Like the machine you found. But more recent. Less broken.”

  “You’re not human.”

  “Not anymore.”

  The figure turned to face him fully. The mask bore no eyes, no mouth. Just a single symbol burned into the center—a spiral of flame.

  “I came to see who would claim the last Ember.”

  Joren felt the warmth grow stronger in his chest.

  “I didn’t claim it,” he said. “It chose me.”

  The figure tilted their head. “Then the world still has a sense of humor.”

  They stepped back from the pedestal. “Take it. If it kills you, you were never meant to wield it.”

  Joren hesitated.

  “What is it?”

  “A memory. A key. A weapon. Depends on who you ask.”

  “And what happens if I touch it?”

  “Then we’ll see what you really are.”

  He moved forward, slowly.

  The stone was warm—warmer than it should’ve been. As he reached out, his Ember Core pulsed faster. The air thickened. Static danced along his skin.

  His fingers brushed the surface.

  A scream—not of pain, but fury—tore through his mind.

  **Flame-bound. Ash-cursed. Return what was stolen.**

  Images surged through him:

  A burning citadel. A dying oath. Chains of fire wrapped around a star.

  And then—blackness.

  When his eyes opened, the figure was gone.

  The pedestal stood empty.

  And inside his mind, a new voice whispered.

  **Skill Acquired: Emberbrand (Dormant)**

  Effect: Imprint flame upon your spirit. Unlocks path to the Ashbound Legacy.

  Joren staggered back.

  The stone had vanished—but its heat remained.

  And so did the voice.

  He wasn’t just surviving anymore.

  He was changing.

  Becoming.

  The journey had begun.