The dawn was a thin smear of cold light over the Ashwilds, but Kael felt nothing of its chill. His skin still burned with a quiet heat, a secret coiled beneath his flesh.
The Ego Knife hung silent at his side, but his focus was on the searing in his veins—his blood.
A jagged rock had sliced his palm during the night. He hissed, looking down to see the deep crimson bead welling up. But as the blood touched the cracked stone beneath him, something impossible happened.
The drop didn't darken the dust. Instead, it shimmered—black and liquid like ink, then burst into flames that roared with unnatural blue fire.
The flames weren't like any fire he'd known. They crackled with a strange energy, burning cold and hot all at once, eating away at the stone like it was nothing but dust and atoms.
Kael's breath caught.
His blood wasn't just fire.
It was Hel Fuel — a rare, nearly mythical substance, said to have powered the war machines of the ancient planet Hel. Flames that burned not just flesh and metal, but the very atoms themselves.
Tentatively, Kael flexed his fingers, and with a will, he forced the blood to spill again. The blue fire ignited, flickering in controlled bursts.
He could wield it.
Control it.
Ignite it at will.
The implications crashed through his mind like a supernova. His exile, his curse—his flame—was more than a danger. It was a weapon. A power that could reshape worlds.
But with such power came a new question:
Was he destined to burn everything… or become the fire that forged a new future?
Kael's eyes narrowed. The flames danced on his palm, a volatile promise.
The fire within him was awakening. And so was the war.