She Chose the Wrong Hero

Kael

The gate should have stayed sealed.

That was what they always said.

Four glyphs carved into the stone. Ancient wards. Old blood. Forbidden knowledge buried beneath the west tower, where even the council didn't walk without a mage beside them.

But Kael had always hated rules that tried to keep him out.

And tonight, the door opened with nothing more than his touch.

The metal was cold, but the moment his fingers brushed the surface, the wards pulsed like they remembered him. Like they had been waiting.

The gate gave way with a groan, and Kael stepped into the dark, not even surprised that the torches lit themselves as he passed.

The voice inside him had grown louder.

"Deeper."

"You were made for this."

---

The stairs wound down forever. Stone beneath his feet. Dust in the air. No footsteps but his own.

The quiet didn't bother him anymore.

Silence was honest.

People lied.

---

The chamber wasn't large, but it was alive.

Shelves carved into the walls held scrolls wrapped in red silk, covered in dust. Symbols circled the floor—half-buried by age, glowing faintly as if whispering to him. In the center stood a stone table, and above it, something darker shimmered in the ceiling like a crack that led to a world no one was meant to see.

Kael stepped to the edge.

He didn't hesitate.

He placed his hand on the table.

And the world pulled him under.

---

A battlefield.

Not one he recognized—but he knew it.

Ash in the sky. Blood beneath his feet. Fire climbing the bones of dead towers.

At the center of it, someone stood—wrapped in smoke, crowned in something sharp and cruel.

It was him.

Not as he was.

Stronger. Colder. Finished.

Kael flinched back, but the vision held tight.

A voice like thunder murmured just behind his ear:

"You survived for a reason."

"You were not chosen for peace."

"You are the end of the beginning."

"You are the last fire."

---

He opened his eyes with a gasp.

The table beneath his hand glowed faintly now, like it had branded him with something he couldn't see.

He pressed his hand to his chest.

His heart still beat.

But it felt different now.

Too steady.

Too certain.

Like doubt had been burned away.

---

He stayed there for a long time, unmoving, watching the shadows shift across the walls.

Then, quietly, he asked the air:

"Will she understand?"

The voice didn't answer.

Or maybe it did—and he just didn't want to hear the truth.

---

When Kael emerged from the underground hours later, the sky was starting to brighten. Pale blue. Still empty.

He made his way back to his chambers unnoticed, the guards at their posts too tired to see what had changed in him.

But something had.

He felt it with every step. In the way the ground no longer resisted him. In the way his magic stirred even when he wasn't calling it. In the way his thoughts no longer drifted back to doubt, but forward to what had to come next.

He had been waiting too long.

Holding back.

Playing the prince.

But the seal was broken now.

The old magic was awake.

And he was the only one strong enough to bear it.

---

Later that day, he stood before the council.

They spoke in circles, arguing over shadows they didn't understand. And when they finally turned to him, asking what he knew, Kael smiled.

Not wide.

Just enough.

"There are more seals," he said. "Five in total."

"If we want to control what's coming—we need to find them all."

Murmurs.

Uncertainty.

But he felt it—some of them agreed.

Even those who feared him still listened.

That was enough.

For now.

---

That night, Kael stood alone on the balcony of the east tower.

From here, he could see the whole city—its rooftops like coins, its streets thin as thread. Fires burned in distant hearths. Lanterns swayed in the wind.

And in a window across the courtyard, Elira's candle was still lit.

He watched it for a long time.

And when he finally turned away, the voice returned—soft now, almost kind.

"She will come back to you."

"But only when you become what she cannot deny."