The training grounds of the Sun Clan pulsed with heat. Flaming torches lined the red sandstone walls, casting flickering shadows on the faces of young cultivators. It was evening, yet the temperature only seemed to rise—especially near Veer.
While others sat in quiet meditation, veins of sweat gliding down their temples, Veer remained in his stance—knees folded, spine straight, eyes shut—motionless as stone. But inside, his body was a battlefield.
Fire and wind clashed within him. Not in chaos—but in harmony so sharp it almost tore him apart. The wind fed the fire, but it also threatened to make it too wild, too untamed.
> "Balance it… breathe through it," he told himself.
But then… it happened again.
A whisper.
Soft. Ancient. In a tongue he didn't know but somehow understood.
> "He walks the path… not of light… but of blaze and burden…"
Veer's eyes snapped open. But no one around him reacted. They were still lost in their trance. The whisper wasn't from outside. It was within.
He closed his eyes again. Focused.
> "You are not just heir to the flame…"
His breath quickened. His inner fire surged uncontrollably. The golden energy lines tracing through his veins now glowed a deep crimson, almost as if blood itself had caught fire.
"Veer!" someone shouted nearby.
It was Ranya, the healer from the Flame Pavilion. She had sensed it too—the disturbance in his aura.
"Stop the meditation! Your meridians—they're overloading!"
But he couldn't stop now. Something… or someone... was calling from within the flame.
Suddenly, his spine arched. A blazing symbol appeared on his chest, glowing through his robe like molten gold —a mark resembling a sun with jagged edges, split in half.
Pain shot through every cell in his body. But along with the pain came… clarity.
He remembered a voice from his childhood. A hidden scroll his father burned. A line whispered to him when he once fell sick under the summer sun:
> "The Sun does not always bless. Sometimes, it burns away the fate itself."
The whisper returned, louder this time.
> "The seal is broken."
Veer screamed.
Flames erupted from his body in a violent burst, knocking back everyone around him. Even the stone tiles cracked under the force.
Everything faded to black.
---
Elsewhere…
Inside the Elders' Chamber, a large pillar made of eternal flame suddenly shifted its color. From radiant gold… to a dark solar red.
Every elder stood.
"That color… it hasn't appeared in over a hundred years," murmured Elder Bhairav, gripping his staff. "The blood of the Cursed Sun... has awakened."
---
Back in the training ground…
Veer was gone.
No blood. No ashes.
Only a burn mark, etched into the stone floor in the shape of a broken sun.