It began with a tremor.
Not a quake that broke stone or shattered walls—but a pulse, carried through the leyline beneath the Veil Fortress. The flames flickered across the city—not from wind or exhaustion, but from interference.
Ashwan felt it before the bells rang.
He stood in the central sanctum, staff across his back, the Mantle of the Flamekeeper resting on his shoulders. The glyphs on the cloak had begun to glow erratically.
> "They've started," he whispered.
Within seconds, alarms sounded from all corners of the fortress. High above, the watchtowers ignited red-flame signals, the unmistakable hue of a dimensional breach—not one, but multiple.
Thyrol raced into the chamber. "Five rifts just tore open across the valley. One is near the western ley-seal. They're not probing this time. They're invading."
Yalini followed, her eyes wide. "The ley currents are being drained unnaturally fast. They've weaponized the Mist itself. We have minutes, not hours."
Ashwan nodded.
> "Then the Second Incursion has begun."
---
Across the valley, dimensional rifts expanded like black wounds in the sky. From them poured Clanscourge legions—this time not beasts, but organized warbands clad in obsidian armor, marching in perfect, unnatural rhythm. Their shamans floated above them, chanting in reverse-speech, twisting the very air.
But most alarming of all—
A figure emerged from the largest rift.
Clad in red-and-black ceremonial robes, skin inked in living scripture, and wearing a golden jawbone crown—
The Clan High Incantor.
He raised one skeletal hand and pointed toward the Veil.
> "Let the Flamekeeper witness the undoing of his inheritance."
---
Inside the War Hall, the command team moved fast.
Ruvana was already issuing air support directives, launching flame-blade squads to the skies. Thyrol activated the Sunwheel Turrets, ancient defensive devices powered by mirrored fire-glyphs. Yalini stood by the leyline altar, pouring all her mana into sustaining the fortress's barrier seals.
Ashwan stepped onto the central platform and raised his staff.
The entire city quieted.
His voice, carried by mantra echo, rang clear across every wall and gate.
> "Vayundhara has burned, broken, and bled. But it has not fallen.
The Clans believe we are weak. They believe the Veil is thinned.
Let them come.
Let them remember."
He turned toward the gate.
The Flamekeeper would meet them himself.
---
At the battlefield's edge, just outside the Veil's main gate, Ashwan stepped forward alone. His mantle billowed behind him, the twin-bladed staff glowing faintly at its core.
The High Incantor laughed. "You face us with twelve soldiers and a ruined tower?"
Ashwan answered with a single word:
> "No."
Behind him, the walls of the Veil Fortress opened.
From its gates, a line of warriors emerged—not soldiers, but flamebearers. People of the fortress: blacksmiths, monks, farmers, even children of the Flame Schools, each carrying a weapon, each with a fire sigil glowing on their skin.
A city that had nothing left to give had given everything.
Ashwan pointed his staff forward.
> "You wanted war.
You will get legacy."
---
The battle began in a blaze.
Skyships rained flame bolts. Air-dancers collided with shaman-gliders mid-air. Earth cracked from mantra detonations. And at the center, Ashwan met the High Incantor blow for blow, staff clashing against cursed blades of bone and voidsteel.
Every strike he delivered echoed not just through the battlefield, but through the leyline itself. With each blow, the Mist thinned. The rifts pulsed violently.
And then—
Ashwan stabbed the staff into the ground.
It burned gold.
> "Veil Protocol: Flamewake."
From the base of the tower to the edge of the battlefield, a golden firewall erupted, drawing energy from Thondra Kottai itself.
The Incantor screamed. The rifts shrank. The sky began to seal.
And the battlefield stood, bathed in gold.
---
When the dust settled, Ashwan stood alone among fallen shadows.
Wounded, scorched, breathing hard—but alive.
The Second Incursion had failed.
But the war was far from over.
Behind him, the Veil Fortress still stood.
And above him, the star that had returned now had a second beside it.
Another Flamekeeper was awakening.