CHAPTER 5: The Flame Unbound
The Red Monastery, Kestren Province – One Year Before Seyda's Arrival at Ravencair
The first time Seyda heard the name Kael, she was bleeding on holy stone.
Whip lashes crisscrossed her back in crimson spirals, each one dealt with the rhythm of prayer. Above her, the grand bell of the Red Monastery tolled—once for sin, once for shame, once for silence.
She did not scream.
At the end of the penance, as the bishop turned to leave, she lifted her head and whispered:
"If the Flame speaks only through pain, then I will set the world on fire."
They called her mad after that. Dangerous. Possessed. She was locked in a cell beneath the scriptorium, fed only on broth and prayer, her hands bound in scripture-inked silk.
But Seyda had never been so clear.
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Months Later – The Holy Siege of Briar Hollow
They sent her to the front not to lead, but to burn. In the name of the Flame Church, she walked among corpses and rebels, her white-blonde hair soaked in ash. Her staff glowed red-hot with divine heat. Villagers bowed when she passed—but only because they feared death more than hell.
Then came the name.
A rumor. A rebel. A ghost from the north.
"Kael of Ashmark." "The Warlord of the Hollow Teeth." "He spares the weak." "He makes gods bleed."
Seyda listened.
Watched.
And one night, beneath the light of a burning barn, she asked a dying peasant what he saw in this man.
The woman smiled with half her jaw missing.
"He doesn't ask us to suffer to be saved."
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Six Months Later – Seyda Defects
The Church called it heresy. Seyda called it clarity.
She fled with a handful of loyal zealots—flame-marked women and men who had begun to question. They followed her through forests, along forgotten trails, all the way north to the fog-veiled cliffs of Gravenmarsh.
And when they reached the smoke-wreathed edges of Ravencair, the guards aimed bows at them.
Seyda stepped forward, unarmed.
"I am Flame-born," she said. "But I no longer burn for gods. I burn for Sovereign Kael."
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Now – Ravencair's Inner Keep
Kael studied her in silence.
She stood before him—barefoot, draped in red-and-charcoal robes, her eyes smoldering not with madness, but with conviction. Behind her, seven followers knelt in silence, their foreheads marked in blackened flame sigils.
"You know I don't believe in gods," Kael said.
"I don't need you to," Seyda replied. "But they do. And belief is fire. I've simply changed the wick."
Myrren, standing beside Kael, leaned in. "She's dangerous."
Kael's expression was unreadable. "So am I."
He approached Seyda.
"You'd burn the old world down to build mine?"
"Yes," she said. "Because they lied to us about what it means to be saved."
Kael looked at her, then to the others. "You'll kneel to no god here. But if you want purpose, if you want blood, and if you can stand when the flames die down—then stand with me."
She smiled.
"We are yours, Sovereign. Flame and flesh."
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Far South – Church of the Flame, Kestren
The Bishop read the latest report with trembling hands. Seven zealots gone. One priest's throat slit. The Red Monastery torched in the night.
No gold was stolen. But one message was burned into the chapel wall, written in char:
"THE FLAME BELONGS TO HIM NOW."