The night sky over Vael'Tharis burned with a dying red glow, as if the heavens themselves were on fire. Beneath that infernal light, Ashen Dain lay among the ruins of a forgotten battlefield, his breath ragged, his body broken. The air smelled of cinders and rot, a reminder that this place had once been consumed by an ancient war—one that had never truly ended.
The cold seeped into his bones, yet at the core of his being, he felt something burning. A flame that was not his own.
His trembling fingers grasped at his chest, where a fractured Ember pulsed beneath his skin. It was unlike any other. Not just a shard of forgotten power, but a curse.
"You were never meant to live, yet here you stand at the threshold of eternity."
The voice echoed inside his skull, deep and unrelenting, like fire whispering through the cracks of a dying world. It was not human. It was the Ember speaking to him.
Pain shot through him as the foreign power tried to consume him, flooding his veins with unbearable heat. His mind flickered with visions—a burning throne, a world reduced to ash, a name lost to history.
Dain refused to submit.
He gritted his teeth, pushing back against the Ember's will. If it sought to hollow him out, he would carve his own fate instead.
With one final breath, he seized the fire, claiming it as his own.
And the night trembled as a new Seeker of the Ember Cycle was born.