Exiled Mage of the Outlands

The chamber was quiet again.

Too quiet.

Kael leaned against the cold stone wall, wiping blood from his mouth as the summoned bones collapsed into dust beside him. The weight of his magic—of what he'd pulled from the ground—still clung to his spine like a shroud.

He hated how easy it had become to reach down and take.

Across from him, Seratha stirred a bowl of thick red liquid over a flame that never flickered. She'd said little since the Obsidian Blade's death. But now, she spoke without looking up.

"Every time you call the dead, you borrow from your own soul."

Kael didn't answer. He couldn't.

"It will hollow you out," she continued, "unless you learn to anchor them. Not with brute force—but with knowledge. With memory."

He swallowed hard. "What kind of memory?"

She raised her eyes, pale and glinting. "Kal'Veyr's."

Riven stepped forward immediately. "No."

Kael didn't move.

"She's asking him to give a piece of that monster room to breathe," she snapped. "To let him in. Are you mad?"

Seratha stood, robes whispering like old parchment. "I offer knowledge, not possession. The memory I seek is sealed in Kael's blood. Locked behind trauma, rebirth, and resistance. Unlocking it will show him how Kal'Veyr anchored his revenants. How he commanded entire battlefields of the dead."

She paused. "But yes. It is dangerous."

Kael met Riven's eyes. "If I can learn to control this—really control it—we'll survive what's coming."

Riven's voice cracked. "And if it changes you?"

"Then hold me to who I am now."

A beat of silence.

Then she nodded.

Seratha dipped her fingers into the bowl and painted a spiral glyph over Kael's heart—where the Lifebinder mark had first burned itself into his skin.

"Drink," she said.

The bowl was warm.

Metallic.

Alive.

Kael drank.

The world tilted.

Then split open.

He stood beneath a burning sky.

The clouds were black with smoke and wings—so many reanimated creatures soaring across the horizon, their bones trailing green fire.

Below, the earth boiled with chaos.

Kal'Veyr stood atop a ridge of flame, arms outstretched, his long black coat flaring like wings, eyes hollow with radiant power.

Hundreds of skeletal beasts marched before him—some as large as carriages, others as small as rats—but all bound by glowing chains of soulfire.

In the center of the battlefield, a lone woman stood facing him.

Lyrena.

Kal'Veyr's wife.

Kael's mind reeled. He had a wife?

She was not frightened.

She was weeping.

"I asked you to stop," she said.

Kal'Veyr's voice echoed like a storm. "They attacked us first."

"They attacked you," she whispered. "You threatened them, made the earth scream, raised the fallen until even the children ran in fear."

"I gave us protection."

"You gave us ruin."

She touched her belly—round with child.

"You gave me love once. Now you give me ghosts."

Kal'Veyr stepped forward.

He raised a skeletal wolf from the soil and placed its spectral head in her hands.

"I gave you eternity," he said.

She looked at him with a grief that shattered mountains.

"I never wanted eternity," she said. "I only wanted you."

Kael jerked awake with a gasp.

His heart thundered.

Sweat drenched his skin.

Riven was at his side, hands on his shoulders. "Kael. Hey. Look at me. You're back."

He blinked hard. "He… loved her."

Seratha stood silently behind them. "And now you understand."

Kael looked at his hands—still shaking from the vision. He could feel it now. The structure of the bindings. The latticework of pain, will, and memory Kal'Veyr had used to command an army of the dead.

"It wasn't power that broke him," Kael whispered. "It was loss."

Riven crouched beside him, brushing blood from his cheek. "And you? What will break you?"

Kael's gaze lifted to hers.

"I'm not going to break."

Before she could answer, a pulse hit the chamber.A shockwave of cold and sorrow, rippling through the very stone beneath them.

Kael staggered.

Riven drew both blades, eyes wide.

Seratha's head snapped up. "You feel that?"

Kael turned, dread pooling in his chest.

"A grave just called my name."