Chapter 12
The stars had begun to whisper again.
Nezutsu sat cross-legged within the Hollow Thread's inner sanctum — an ancient chamber carved beneath the spines of the dead mountains. The candlelight around him danced without wind, flickering in unnatural rhythms, like hearts trying to remember how to beat.
Velgrim watched from the doorway, arms folded. "Something's changing in you."
"I feel… awake," Nezutsu replied, eyes closed. "But not like I woke up. Like something else did."
The air crackled. Not with magic, but with memory.
A scroll before him unraveled itself, revealing a single, ancient rune. Not written with ink. Burned into the page.
"That's not a rune of this era," Velgrim muttered.
"It's a name," Nezutsu said quietly.
"Whose?"
"…Mine. But not Nezutsu."
As he spoke, the flames responded — turning violet, flickering upward like a crown.
The Mark of the Flame-Soul
When Nezutsu touched the rune, pain sliced through his veins — not physical, not magical, but ancestral. He gasped as visions flooded his mind.
A boy of fire kneeling before a crumbling god.
A sword made of will, not steel.
A war that erased every name… but his.
In that vision, someone — a faceless woman cloaked in celestial silk — whispered:
"You are not Nezutsu. That is the name given to your shell. The name beneath the flame… is Ash Sovereign."
He jolted awake, sweat and violet light pouring from his skin.
Velgrim was already kneeling.
"Ash Sovereign…" he echoed. "That name was struck from the Celestial Codex centuries ago. It was the title of the one who defied the Divine Council… and won."
"But I don't remember being him."
"Perhaps you're not him. Perhaps you're what was left after him."
Nezutsu stood slowly. "Then I need to find out what that means."
From behind the veil of shadows, Kaelith appeared. "And I know where we begin. The Temple of the God-Eater."