UTHRED: HEIR OF ASH AND STEEL

The messenger came at dawn, cloaked in ash and silence. He carried no banner, no seal, only a folded scrap of burnt vellum—smelling of smoke and iron.

Uthred read it alone.

"You stepped into the flame. So now step into the truth. Come to the broken ridge. Come alone. The fire remembers. —K."

He stared at the letter for a long time, then held it to a candle.

The parchment refused to burn.

The same hour, Vale stood beneath the eaves of the Temple of Embers, wrapped in a cloak of storm-gray silk. Her palm, still bearing the god-mark from Morlana's flame rite, pulsed faintly.

She had not told Uthred of the first vision.

But now, as she touched the temple's oldest wall, her breath caught.

This time, the vision was not of the future—but of two futures.

One path showed Elion on a throne of glass, surrounded by ash and crows.

The other showed him in chains, kneeling at the feet of a red-masked figure she did not recognize.

She awoke to her own scream.

Uthred rode alone beneath a blood-colored sky, following an old trail once used by smugglers and rebels alike. The Broken Ridge had earned its name during the war—a jagged cliff where the Flame Guard had once detonated a mountainside to trap a legion of Dust soldiers.

Now it was still. The wind sharp. The soil black with memory.

Kairon stood near the edge, unmasked.

He looked older. Tired. But still dangerous.

"You came," he said.

Uthred dismounted. "You called."

"I wanted to see if the king could still bleed."

"Test me."

Kairon chuckled bitterly. "Not yet."

He stepped aside, revealing a sword driven into the rock.

Uthred froze.

It was Aedric's blade.

His father's sword—lost during the fall of Eldhame.

"Where did you get this?" Uthred asked.

Kairon stared at the horizon. "I took it from a man who claimed to serve your line. He wore your colors. But he sold your name."

Uthred gripped the hilt, feeling the familiar weight.

"It should have died with him."

"No," Kairon said. "It should rise with you. Or end with me."

Kairon paced slowly. "You think this is about rebellion. About power. But this is about belief. The people don't fear you. They fear what your victory means: that the world they knew is gone."

Uthred turned. "Then let them build a better one."

"They don't want better. They want blood. And fire. And someone to blame."

He looked Uthred in the eye. "So let's make it simple."

He drew a dagger from his belt.

"Single combat. At the next full moon. You and me. No crown. No gods. Just men."

"If I win?"

"The Flameborne kneel. We end this."

"And if you win?"

"You take off the crown. Forever."

Uthred said nothing for a long time.

Then he pulled Aedric's sword from the stone.

"I'll be there."

He turned and walked to his horse.

Kairon called after him. "Bring the boy. Let him see what the fire does to men like us."

Uthred didn't look back.