Chapter 63 The World Will Soon Burn
(Arkael Ashborne)
Arkael felt the embers stirring beneath his skin. The hatred he carried for Apollo—the usurper, the Demon King, the black-winged monster who had shattered their Queen—burned hotter than molten stone. He saw, as clearly as if it were yesterday, the silhouette of black wings against a burning sky, the crown of shadow tipping as their Queen fell.
But rage alone would not win this war.
Only strategy would.
He lifted a hand—silencing the room. “We do nothing recklessly,” Arkael said. “Not yet.”
One of the warriors slammed his giant furry fist onto the table. “Not yet? She is one of ours! His captive—his slave—his next victim!” Spittle sparked off his lips, hitting the hot stone and sizzling away.
Arkael’s expression did not change.
“If we strike now,” he said, voice icy, “we die.”
A bitter hush followed.
He stepped around the table, each stride controlled, deliberate, the way one walks around a sleeping beast. His cloak whispered over carved histories, brushing across etched flames and names of the dead, as if the past itself were listening.
“Think,” he said. “If Apollo has kept her alive… if he has not already executed her… then he wants something.”
The room tightened around those words.
“Does he know who she is?” Mereth asked.
Arkael shook his head. “No. If he did, we would have felt her death by now.”
Sorin wiped sweat from his brow. “Then what awakened her flame? She cannot have done it alone.”
Arkael hesitated.
He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want it to be true. But the traces of the magic pulse… the direction of the surge… the echoes he felt through the earth… there can only be one explanation.
He exhaled slowly. “She awakened because of him.”
A collective gasp cut through the circle.
The words themselves felt poisonous.
“No,” Sorin whispered. “You mean—”
“Yes,” Arkael said flatly. “Their magics collided. His power touched hers. Her blood reacted.” His jaw tightened. “He triggered the awakening.”
Mereth’s staff clattered to the stone floor. “Then the old prophecy—”
Arkael cut her off sharply. “We do not speak the prophecy aloud.”
But silence only made it more present. A shadow stretching across the chamber. Unspoken words seemed to crawl along the walls, etching themselves in phantom flame: When Devil and Heir share fire, the world will change its skin.
Sorin swallowed. “If their powers resonated… does that mean the bond forms? The one the prophecy warned of?”
The room held its breath.
Arkael stared at the glowing ember-mark on his arm, feeling its pulse echo the girl’s distant flame.
And he lied.
“No.”
Because if the council knew the truth—that the Devil’s magic touching the Heir’s could form a bond strong enough to reshape realms, burn worlds, break thrones—they would demand war.
A war they were not ready for. A war they would lose. He could already see it: his people charging across blackened plains, their bodies falling in waves against obsidian gates, their names added to the table beneath his hands.
“Then what do we do?” Mereth whispered.
Arkael stepped back into the centre of the circle. “We watch.”
Disbelief exploded across the faces of his council.
“Watch?!”
“While he corrupts her—?”
“While he learns what she is?”
“While she is alone in his den?”
Arkael’s roar shook the cavern. “ENOUGH.”
Flames erupted from cracks in the ground, licking the edges of the stone table. Sparks rained from the ceiling. His voice thundered with centuries of rage.
“I will NOT throw our people into a war we cannot win.”
Silence swallowed the chamber.
Arkael inhaled slowly, the fire folding back into his chest like obedient serpents.
“We will not act,” he repeated, voice cold iron. “Not until the time is right.”
“And when is that?” Sorin asked carefully.
“When we have an advantage.”
He turned, shadows carving sharp lines across his face.
“And when I have my son’s report.”
A few of the warriors stiffened. Mereth’s eyes widened. Sorin shifted uneasily.
“Caelum,” she murmured. “He is still inside the palace?”
Arkael nodded once.
For a heartbeat, fatherly fear twisted under his ribs—but he crushed it. Buried it. Duty first. Always. He had already sacrificed his own freedom, his crown, his Queen. One more piece on the board would not break him. That was the lie he told himself, anyway.
“He has infiltrated the highest levels,” Arkael said. “Under an unknown name. He has Apollo’s trust.”
A flicker of malicious pride ignited across the council.
“Then he has access to the girl,” Sorin breathed.
Arkael’s eyes darkened. “Yes.”
“And if she is… awakening,” Mereth said cautiously, “she will soon stir attention. Danger. Desire.”
“She already has.” Arkael’s lips curved in a humourless smile. “A power like that does not slumber quietly.”
Sorin’s eyes flicked toward the entrance of the cavern, where embers still swirled through the air like drifting souls.
“What should Caelum do?” he asked.
Arkael looked at the glowing signature on his arm. Felt its pulse. Felt the faint heartbeat of the girl across the realm.
And his expression shifted into something lethal.
“Caelum will get close to her,” Arkael said softly. “Closer than Apollo ever suspects.”
A murmur rippled through the room—half anticipation, half fear.
“And then?” Mereth asked.
“When the time comes…” Arkael said, “he will bring her to us.”
The warriors nodded. Some touched weapons. Others smirked with premature triumph.
But one question hung in the chamber like smoke: “What happens if the girl doesn’t want to leave the Devil?”
Arkael felt the ember-mark blaze painfully—hotter than before.
For a sickening moment, he wondered if the Heir had cried out again. If Apollo touched her. If the prophecy’s nightmare had already begun.
He clenched his fist.
“If she does not want to leave,” Arkael said, “then Caelum will make her want to.”
No one questioned how.
They all knew the son of Ashborne had inherited more than fire.
Charm. Beauty. Manipulation. A serpent’s tongue and a fox’s smile.
The perfect spy. The perfect seducer. A weapon shaped by necessity.
Arkael turned away from the council, walking toward the entrance of the cavern. The ember-lit wind whipped around him, lifting his dark auburn hair, tugging at his cloak. The first traces of the Heir’s awakening still shimmered in the air, glowing like lingering embers of a dying star. Distant thunder rolled through the stone—a sound from the direction of the Devil’s lands—as if even the storms above were shifting on their haunches to listen.
He stared toward the Devil’s palace. Toward her. Toward the flame he had waited nearly a millennium to feel again.
“Rest while you can,” he murmured under his breath, voice low, carved from stone and fire. “For soon… the world will burn once more.”
Behind him, the Emberborn whispered in perfect unison:
“For the Queen.”
Arkael closed his eyes.
And for the first time in centuries, hope and terror tasted the same. They sat bitter and bright on his tongue, indistinguishable as smoke in the dark.