Description

The wind howled through the peaks of Kareth-Vorn like a wounded beast, scouring the narrow mountain pass with shards of ice and sorrow. Cloaked in soot-black robes and leaning on a gnarled staff, the old woman climbed steadily toward the altar of the flame. Her breath came in ragged bursts, white against the night, but her steps did not falter. She was the last of her order, the final ember in a lineage long thought extinguished. And tonight, for the first time in a hundred years, the flame would burn again.

Snow crunched beneath her boots as she reached the summit, where a circle of blackened stones formed the ancient pyre. The sky above swirled with stormclouds and smoke, and somewhere far below, the kingdoms warred and schemed, blind to the truth buried beneath their feet. The woman knelt, her bones aching with age and duty, and drew a curved dagger from beneath her cloak. Its blade was dull, its purpose not. Blood was the old tongue's currency—and the dragons would only listen if the price was paid.

She pressed the dagger to her palm and hissed as her skin parted. Blood spilled onto the altar, soaking into runes etched before memory, runes carved by fire-breath and sealed by oath. The ground trembled. A dull throb echoed through the stones, as though the mountain itself had begun to stir. The woman raised her voice, low and fierce, chanting words forbidden since the old reign, when flame ruled sky and throne. Her breath steamed. Her blood sizzled on the stone.