Chapter Six: When Kaelen Stops Burning
Part One: The Ember That Stayed Behind
Location: Legato Stronghold, Ember Ward — The Unlit Wing
The flame had long since died.
But the heat still lingered.
The stone hallway creaked with the kind of silence that made even Selka slow her steps. Dust curled at the edges of the old training mats—burned once, healed, burned again. The walls were uneven here, scorched in waves as if a boy had once tried to set the world ablaze with his fists alone.
Kaelen's wing.
Yolti walked beside her, arms folded, sharp-eyed but quiet for once. His usual remarks were nowhere to be found, as if the hallway itself had asked them to be still.
Zephryn didn't speak either.
He just trailed a few steps behind, head tilted, listening for something he couldn't name.
There was no fire left in this part of the stronghold. Not in the torches, not in the veins of the walls, not in the air itself. It had all burned out the night Kaelen stopped training here. The night the flame that moved like war—choked.
They stopped before the old door.
It was cracked down the center. Just a thin fracture, like someone had tried to punch their way out—and failed.
Selka's hand rose without thinking. She touched it. Not the crack—just the frame.
"Do you think," she whispered, "he ever meant to stop?"
Zephryn's breath caught. His voice came low. "Kaelen doesn't stop. He just… holds."
Yolti clicked his tongue, not in annoyance, but memory. "He held too much."
Inside, the room was barely wide enough for two people. But one had trained here like it was an entire battlefield. The scarring in the stone told the story—slashing lines, impact dents, even a small crater near the left wall where Kaelen had, according to rumor, collapsed after pushing his halberd against the Veilmark until it cracked.
The room hummed. Not loudly. Not like resonance.
It hummed like an ember still buried beneath the ash. Not gone. Just… waiting.
Zephryn stepped in first.
Selka followed, slowly, every footstep mapped by memory.
There were no pictures in the room. No posters. No personal items. Just a halberd mount—empty. Just a corner where sweat had darkened the ground. Just a mirror… cracked right down the middle.
Selka stared at it.
"I think this was where he broke the first time."
Zephryn nodded. "Before the Trial?"
"No," Yolti said quietly, arms still folded as he stared at the floor. "Before the Lyceum. This is where Kaelen used to come to try and break his father's voice out of his head."
That silenced everything.
Even the hum.
They stayed in that room for a long time.
They didn't speak much after that.
Because the room didn't want stories.
It already had one.
One written in heat. In pressure. In restraint.
When they finally left, Zephryn didn't close the door.
He just looked over his shoulder one last time, the cracked mirror catching his eye.
And for a single heartbeat—
—he thought he saw Kaelen standing there.
Back turned.
Fist clenched.
Burning.