Ash drifted through the dead air like snow.

  Kael’ryn Vargan pulled his dark cloak tighter around his shoulders as he treaded carefully over the ruins of the old monastery. Beneath his boots, broken bones and shattered icons of the saints crunched like brittle leaves.

  The scent of burnt flesh and cold iron hung around his throat like an invisible noose.

  His demonic blood pulsed restlessly — a whisper at the ragged edges of his mind.

  Here was darkness.

  Here was guilt.

  And somewhere amid smoke and stone, the truth he sought lay buried.

  A sound — no more than a breath carried by the wind — made him freeze.

  Kael turned, slow and deliberate, his fingers brushing the hilt of his greatsword.

  His heart beat steady and heavy, like the hammer of a blacksmith on an anvil.

  There.

  A figure, half-shrouded by the ruins of a fallen arch.

  Hair white as frost, catching the dim light and turning it into a muted halo.

  Skin pale and smooth, like polished marble.

  And eyes — eyes like frozen lakes, so cold and clear they seemed to pierce straight through him.

  The stranger stood among the dead, his long robe stained with blood but still untouched by the ruin around him.

  A silver sash hung loosely at his side, as if it had slipped free during some unseen struggle.

  He did not look like a victim.

  He looked like a judge.

  Kael studied him — and without a single word exchanged, he knew: this man was no mere priest.

  There was something dark clinging to him, something broken and adrift.

  They stood facing each other, wordless, while the world around them seemed to hold its breath.

  Then, at last, the stranger spoke.

  His voice was soft, almost toneless, like snowfall settling on a grave.

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  "You carry the stench of corruption."

  No accusation.

  No fear.

  Simply a statement of fact.

  Kael’ryn allowed himself a grim smile — a twitch of the mouth, caught between pain and defiance.

  "And you look like you've survived it."

  A spark flickered between them.

  No warmth.

  No kindness.

  Just two broken souls crossing paths on the battlefield of fate.

  A deep rumble tore through the uneasy stillness.

  Kael’ryn spun toward the sound — just in time to see one of the cult's survivors dragging himself free from the rubble.

  His body jerked and spasmed, black tentacles ripping through split skin, writhing in corrupted magic.

  "Stay back," Kael growled, wrenching his greatsword free with a metallic rasp.

  Yet the priest — his gaze still locked unblinking on Kael — merely raised a hand, slow and steady.

  With a single motion, he traced a glowing sigil in the air.

  A breath later, the twisted cultist erupted in a silent burst of light, leaving nothing behind but scorched bones.

  Kael blinked against the sudden flare.

  The power was undeniable.

  But the coldness with which it was unleashed unsettled him far more than any enemy.

  More figures stirred among the rubble.

  "They are coming," the priest murmured, as casually as one might remark on the weather.

  Kael’ryn tensed.

  A part of him — the ancient, wild hunger of his demon blood — thrilled at the prospect.

  At last, battle. At last, fire.

  He swung his sword in a wide, singing arc, the runes etched along its blade flaring blood-red at the scent of flesh.

  The first cultist charged, a grotesque amalgam of human and monster.

  Kael did not falter.

  His greatsword swept through the air, carving flesh from bone with brutal grace.

  The cultists howled and fell upon him, but Kael moved like a storm of shadow and steel.

  His hellstrike tore through their ranks, leaving nothing but ash and ruin in its wake.

  Frenzy built within him, sweet and searing, but through it all remained a steady anchor:

  The priest’s unflinching gaze.

  Cold.

  Calculating.

  Immovable.

  Kael killed — and somewhere deep inside, he wished, against all reason, that those eyes might someday look on him without contempt.

  A cultist lashed out with a chain — Kael ducked, spun — and suddenly sensed another presence at his side.

  The priest.

  Standing there, hand raised, radiating a light not of warmth, but of devouring, merciless fire.

  And together, they were unstoppable.

  Two forces, utterly alien, yet grimly aligned.

  When the last of the cultists collapsed into the dirt with a strangled cry, silence fell once more.

  Blood dripped from Kael’s blade.

  Soot stained the priest’s robes.

  Kael’s breath rasped loud in the stillness, his pulse a pounding roar in his ears.

  "You fought well," he muttered finally, the words rough, unfamiliar on his tongue.

  The white-haired priest inclined his head, a gesture so slight it was almost an afterthought.

  "So did you.

  For someone like you."

  Kael snorted — a sound half amusement, half lingering ache.

  He stepped forward and plunged his sword into the ground like a banner at a grave.

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  The priest regarded him for a long, heavy moment, then answered:

  "Caelum Ardentis.

  Servant of the Light.

  A lost one among the pure."

  Kael’ryn lowered his gaze, a low growl rumbling in his throat — instinct, not thought.

  Something about this man rattled him to his very core.

  "Kael’ryn Vargan," he replied hoarsely.

  "Half blood, half curse."

  Caelum nodded, as if he had known it from the moment their eyes met.

  "Then neither of us belongs among the living," he said, voice devoid of sorrow or hope.

  Kael lifted his head again, meeting that frozen stare.

  And in that instant — that fragile, stolen breath — Kael knew:

  Whatever had brought him here —

  It was not the cult.

  Not the mysteries of his birth.

  It was this man.

  Caelum.

  A light so cold that even his burning soul ached to be near it.