CHAPTER 1536: STORY 1536: FRACTURES IN THE ASH

The silence that followed the battle was more suffocating than the clash itself. Ash drifted through the air like falling snow, settling on blood, broken shields, and the cooling husks of the spawn. Every breath came with the acrid tang of molten stone.

Elara knelt in the dust, her arms wrapped around the Ashborn Child. Its ember glow was little more than a trembling spark, a heartbeat flickering between life and extinction. She rocked it gently, whispering words too soft to hear, her face streaked with soot and tears.

Kael stood near her, blade slack at his side. His chest rose and fell in jagged rhythm, but it wasn’t exhaustion that bowed his shoulders—it was the weight of choice.

The scarred woman broke the silence. Her voice was raw, hoarse from battle, yet unyielding. “Enough. You’ve seen it. Each cry strips the world thinner, and each flare brings us closer to his chains. That thing is no savior. It’s the key that will unbind him.”

Her words lit sparks among her followers. Murmurs rose, sharp and cutting. Some clutched their wounds and nodded, others lifted weapons with weary hands, their fear transmuted into something harder.

Elara lifted her head, flame flickering faintly around her shoulders. “It holds him,” she said, her voice trembling but fierce. “Every light it gave us wasn’t just for battle—it stirred the Gate because it’s bound to him. The chains answered its cry. You kill it, and you kill the only lock still holding.”

The scarred woman jabbed her spear into the ash. “Or it is the lock breaking. And you’re blind because you want to believe in hope.”

The circle of survivors tightened. Blades whispered from sheaths, the hiss louder than any battle cry. Their eyes turned on Kael, some desperate, some pleading, some burning with the cold certainty of men who would rather kill one fragile ember than risk feeding the fire behind the Gate.

Kael’s grip on his sword tightened until his knuckles split. He heard both truths, each a blade pressed against his throat. The child’s light had saved them—but each flare drew them closer to doom.

The ground trembled suddenly, silencing the murmurs.

The chains across the Gate flared, molten veins brightening as the colossal doors shuddered in their sockets. A sound thundered from within—not a roar, not yet, but the grinding of stone as something vast shifted. The Unborn stirred, and the world held its breath.

The survivors recoiled in terror, their fragile courage breaking into panic. Some fled a few steps before shame dragged them back. Others raised weapons toward the child again, as if killing it might silence the Gate.

Kael moved before they could. He planted himself between them and Elara, his blade raised, voice like a furnace. “No hand touches them. Not while I breathe.”

The scarred woman’s eyes locked with his, steel meeting steel. “Then we’ll see how long your breath lasts, warrior.”

Behind them, the Cinder Gate groaned, chains rattling louder, brighter, as though laughing at their fracture.

The Unborn was not bound by iron alone—he was bound by their unity. And that bond was splintering.