NOVEL WEB Chapter 13: The Ash That Speaks
The forest at the base of Nareth was called The Mourning Vale—a place where trees grew twisted and crooked, and the wind never ceased its mournful sigh.
Aaron moved through the vale alone.
The branches above clawed at the gray sky like broken hands.
The leaves whispered in a language he did not understand—yet somehow, deep inside, remembered.
There was no path. No footprints in the ash-strewn earth.
But the air carried a scent of memory—bitter and burnt.
He knew Ashen had come this way.
And he knew Lucien had intended for him to follow.
---
🌫️ The First Echo
Hours passed. The wind shifted.
A voice drifted through the trees—soft, accusing:
> "Why didn't you save me?"
It was Ashen's voice. Yet when Aaron turned, only a swirl of gray dust drifted from the roots of an ancient tree.
Again:
> "You left us. Just like she did."
Aaron gritted his teeth. "It's not real."
The voice grew sharper, closer, a whisper on the edge of the wind:
> "You're not a hero. You're just fire… waiting for permission to burn."
Aaron raised his hand.
For the first time since the mountain, the flame answered—not with a roar, but a hiss.
---
🕯️ The Ash That Speaks
Deeper into the vale, Aaron came to a hollow beneath the roots of an ancient stone pine.
Curled there was a figure—gray, eyeless, shaped from ash and flickering memory.
It opened its mouth, but the voice that emerged was not its own.
> "You seek the boy. But you have not yet found yourself."
Aaron stepped closer, voice steady.
> "What are you?"
The ash-being tilted its head.
> "I am what your ancestors left behind.
Pain remembered.
Fire denied.
Truth unburned."
Aaron's breath caught.
> "You knew my blood?"
> "I knew her—the woman who fled from fire, carrying you in her arms.
She gave up her name to save yours.
Would you do the same?"
---
🔥 Trial of the Name
The ash-being raised one finger. A symbol ignited in the air—a flame within a flame, circled by a broken crown.
> "This is your true name.
Not 'Hotveil'. Not 'Aaron'.
This."
Aaron stared at the glyph, pulsing like a heartbeat.
> "If you take it," the being said, "you lose what you were—but gain what you could become."
He reached out.
The ash flared—and so did he.
Visions crashed over him:
A city engulfed in flames.
A child torn from a woman with sky-blue eyes.
Lucien, kneeling before her, pleading for mercy.
And the boy—himself—trapped in a cage of mirrors, forgotten.
Then the ash collapsed.
Aaron stood alone, but no longer empty.
---
🌌 The New Name
He whispered the symbol.
The flame in his hand soared upward, taking shape—a burning feather against the night sky.
His eyes shifted—not in color, but in depth.
He no longer looked like a boy searching for answers.
He looked like a man who remembers.
---
📜 Back at Hollowmere
Far away, in the temple ruins where The Pale Thorn gathered, Lucien's eyes snapped open with a sharp breath.
> "He touched it," he said.
An agent at his side asked, "What now?"
Lucien's gaze darkened as he looked into the shadowed depths.
> "Now… we stop chasing the boy."
> "Now, we make the boy chase us."