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CHAPTER 26 — The Path of Ash and Echoes
The Cinder Gate did not open quietly.
It roared.
A howl of molten wind blasted across the blackened plains, whipping the ash into spirals as tall as towers. Even from a distance, Dragonsong felt its heat — not burning the skin, but burning memory, searing traces of forgotten lives into the edges of his mind.
Arin shielded his eyes.
"What… what place is that?"
Dragonsong stared, jaw locked. "A tomb. A birthplace. A battlefield older than any chronicle."
But as they stepped closer, it felt less like a place and more like a threshold between two fates.
The Herald followed behind them, her bare feet silent despite the shifting ground. Her pale hair flickered like a candle in the wind. "Be warned," she said. "Past this point, nothing you believe about yourself will remain untouched."
Arin muttered, "Nothing has been untouched since we met him," nodding at Dragonsong.
The Herald didn't smile.
"He is different," she said softly. "The Gate knows his blood."
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The closer they came, the louder the world became — a deep humming, like the heartbeat of a dead god trying to beat again. The Gate itself was a jagged arch of obsidian and scorched bone, carved with runes that pulsed like dying stars.
When Dragonsong reached the threshold, his vision doubled.
For a heartbeat, he saw the Gate…
And beneath it, the throne of ash again — the same one from the sky's vision. This time, the figure on it was clearer:
A man made of embers and shadow, his eyes glowing with sovereign gold.
The Sovereign.
Awake.
Waiting.
Dragonsong staggered.
Arin caught him by the arm. "Hey— stay with me. What did you see?"
"Not what I saw," Dragonsong said, breathing hard. "What I'll become."
The Herald stepped forward. "You fear the wrong thing."
Dragonsong turned sharply. "And what should I fear instead?"
Her eyes glowed faint blue. "The truth."
She raised her hand, and the Gate responded — opening wider, light spilling out like a sunrise of fire.
Then she spoke a sentence that made Arin's skin crawl:
"This is where your soul was carved. And where his soul was broken."
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As they crossed into the Gate, the world warped.
The air thickened, heavy with the scent of scorched stone and long-dead magic. Shadows moved without bodies. Whispers slithered across the ground, speaking in the voices of people Dragonsong had never met yet somehow knew.
A child.
A warrior.
A dying king.
Fragments of lives — echoes.
Arin shivered. "Why do I hear people who aren't here?"
"Because this is where the Sovereign consumed them," the Herald said. "Their memories linger, trapped in the ash."
Dragonsong clenched his fists. "And I was born here?"
"Yes," she answered. "Not of a mother. Not of flesh. You were made… from what little remained unbroken."
Arin froze. "He's— he's not human?"
Dragonsong waited for the Herald to deny it.
She didn't.
"You are not his successor by choice," she said. "You are his reflection. What rises when the original falls."
Arin stepped back, breath shaking. "So all this time—"
"Enough," Dragonsong cut in. His voice was low, steady, sharp. "I am what I am. Nothing changes that."
The Herald studied him. "That strength is why he fears you."
A deep tremor echoed through the Cinder Gate.
A crack spread across the sky — the same golden wound from before — widening with every passing second.
"He breaks through," the Herald whispered. "We are out of time."
She turned, pointing toward the heart of the Cinder Wastes — a colossal stone platform surrounded by spiraling ash.
"The place of choosing," she said. "If you step onto it, the Gate will decide your role. His shadow—"
She pointed to Dragonsong's chest.
"—or his end."
Arin swallowed hard. "And if he refuses?"
The Herald's face darkened.
"Then the world burns."
Dragonsong stepped forward, firelight breathing across his skin.
His voice was calm.
Resolved.
Unshakable.
"Then let the Gate choose."
And he walked toward the platform…
…as the sky cracked open above them.
END OF CHAPTER 26
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