Archmage Reborn: the path of shadows

Rain fell softly over Elmsfall, hissing as it met the scorched ground. The earth, still hot from the last battle, exhaled steam in curling tendrils. The storm brought no relief—only weight. The kind of weight that presses on the chest before a storm breaks… or a blade is drawn.

Kael stood at the edge of the crater, staring into the hollow he had carved into the world. His cloak clung damply to his shoulders, and the runes carved into his skin pulsed with a steady, uneasy rhythm.

He could feel it.

Something—someone—was coming.

Not one of the High Flame's agents. Not a creation of the Warden. No, this was something worse.

It was human. But not right.

He appeared just as the sun dipped below the horizon, the dying light catching on shards of metal woven into his cloak. He was tall, lean, and moved like someone who had rehearsed this moment a thousand times in the dark. His boots made no sound. His presence arrived first, like a whisper from an old wound.

His eyes glowed a cold, unnatural blue—too bright, too still.

"Kael Draven," he said, a strange smile touching the corners of his mouth. "You're real."

Kael didn't raise his flame. Not yet. He only watched the man carefully.

"Name?" he asked.

The man tilted his head slightly.

"I've had many. Most of them meaningless. But back when you ruled the Inner Flame Citadel, they called me... Ashfang."

The name hit like a shadow from the past.

Kael narrowed his eyes. He remembered.

Not a warrior. Not a commander.

A scribe.

A boy who had once followed him through the Citadel's halls. Eager. Bright-eyed. Always carrying too many books and asking too many questions. A child who wrote poems about battles he never fought.

"You were barely more than a child when I died," Kael said quietly.

"And you," Ashfang breathed, "were a god."

He stepped forward, slow and reverent, like a worshipper approaching an altar.

"But they forgot you. Let you die. Let them write over your legend with shame. I never did."

He lifted an arm, and from within his sleeve, a blade unfolded—long and curved, crafted from interlocking voidsteel shards. The metal whispered as it moved, drinking the light around it.

"I won't kill you, Kael," he said, voice shaking now—not with fear, but awe. "I'll become you."

He struck.

No warning. No spell. Just speed—sharp and sudden.

Kael barely had time to raise his arm before the blade sliced into his shoulder. Flame erupted instinctively, but it fizzled where it touched the voidsteel. It refused to burn.

"I've made myself immune," Ashfang said, his eyes wild with devotion. "I fed myself on your legend. Burned every copy of your spellbooks, ground the ashes into ink, and drank them."

Kael dropped low, his jaw clenched.

Spell: Firestep Mirage.

A flash of heat and he was gone—then back again, behind Ashfang, his palm glowing.

Spell: Flamebrand Smash.

He struck hard.

But Ashfang twisted mid-spin, catching the blow with a gauntlet laced in voidsteel. The metal hissed, but it held.

"This is how I honor you," he said, eyes blazing. "By destroying the version of you that isn't worthy."

Kael's flames surged higher, responding to the fury in his chest. This wasn't a duel.

It was a deranged prayer.

Ashfang didn't want to defeat him.

He wanted to replace him.

The ground cracked and split beneath their feet as fire collided with void, every clash echoing like thunder. Sparks rained like dying stars. The fight was raw, brutal—less an exchange of spells and more a collision of identities.

Both men bled.

But neither gave in.

Not until Kael caught Ashfang by the throat and lifted him off the ground, glyphs burning up his arm.

"You never knew me," he growled. "You clung to the myth. You never cared about the man."

Ashfang gasped for breath, blood trickling from his lips.

"Then show me," he wheezed, "show me who you really are."

Kael didn't hesitate.

He let the glyphs fall away. Let the spells go silent.

And opened himself.

He released pure soulfire—wild, raw, unshaped. Not drawn from knowledge, but memory. Not cast, but felt.

Ashfang screamed as the flames consumed the voidsteel, tearing away the false armor he'd built from borrowed stories.

When it was done, he collapsed in the ash—broken, shivering, but smiling through blood.

"You're even more beautiful now," he whispered, voice barely audible. "When you're broken."

Kael said nothing.

He turned and walked away, the rain hissing louder against the earth.

He knew it now.

The bounty hunters wouldn't stop. The mark had spread. The world had felt the shift.

But not everyone was coming for coin.

Some wanted his name.

Some wanted his death.

And some—

Some wanted his flame