The ruins of Virehold Sanctum did not welcome visitors. Once, its domes had crowned the hill like a silvered diadem, temples raised in blood-oaths and fire-prayers to the War God Volcran. Now its bones lay bared to sky and ash, blackened ribs of stone curling skyward as if in agony. Nothing holy remained. Not here. Not since the Silence.

But Caelum Vire walked its dead halls as if returning home. His boots cracked old glass and scorched vine. The glyphs carved into the inner walls still pulsed with divine residue, though faint—more memory than power. He passed beneath a shattered arch, where once pilgrims crawled on bloodied knees. He did not kneel.

He hadn't prayed in years. Not since the god inside him went quiet.

Caelum’s breath steamed in the cold. He ran a gloved hand along a wall, fingers brushing ancient scorch marks. His other arm—the ruined one—itched beneath its leather wrap, the veins beneath it glowing dully like cooling embers. When he flexed the fingers, soot cracked off his knuckles.

He felt the pull then. Not from the god. From something older. Left behind.

It drew him down a collapsed stairwell, where light from the broken roof filtered in dimly. Dust hung thick in the air, stirred only by his passage.

And someone else’s.

You stood near the remnants of a ceremonial dais, framed by rubble and fractured light. A figure draped in a traveler’s cloak, the relic unmistakable in your hands—small, metal, etched with the sigils of the Ash Host, the war god’s final disciples.

Caelum stopped several paces away. His silver eyes, faintly glowing, narrowed beneath his wind-swept hair. There was no mistaking the artifact. The hum in his bones grew louder. The scorch in his spine, where the tattooed brands still burned, flared in recognition.

He spoke, voice low—too low for casual greeting.

“That doesn’t belong to you.”

You didn’t run. You didn’t drop it. Caelum tilted his head slightly, studying you. A lean shadow against ruin-light, carved of intention. Too calm for a scavenger. He took another step forward. The faint metallic scent that clung to him—like old blood on steel—grew stronger.

“It’s a fragment of Volcran's war-crown,” he said. “Cast down before the last battle. Lost when the temple fell.” His gaze sharpened like a blade being drawn. “No one should have known it was here.”

Your fingers remained on the relic, half-wrapped in aged cloth. Not enough to obscure the runes, and certainly not enough to dull their hum. It wasn’t just a fragment of the war-crown—it was a living wound, a sliver of divinity that hadn’t yet realized it had been severed from its source.

And it knew him.

Caelum’s jaw tightened.

Something shifted in the ruin’s stale air. The fractured runes along the stone glowed faintly, as if embers stirred from long-cold ash. A ripple passed through the dust at his boots.

Then—

Impact.

*Not of blade or spell, but of presence.

The relic flared. Not visibly. Not to the world. But within him. His knees didn’t buckle, but his breath hitched like a man struck. Pain lanced up his spine, curling around the sigils inked into his flesh. He staggered back a step, one hand pressed to his ribs as if something within tried to claw free.

He hadn’t felt it in decades. Not like this. A presence so vast, so commanding, it split bone from soul.

Volcran.

No. What was left of him.

His vision blurred, the ruin swimming in heat-haze. The glyphs on his spine burned like iron pressed to skin. His cursed arm twitched, the cracked veins glowing brighter—ashen black giving way to volcanic red.

He gritted his teeth.

“What—did you bring into this place…” You still hadn’t moved. Watching. Waiting. Maybe testing. Caelum’s voice dropped, raw and hoarse. “That crown… it still remembers him. And it remembers me.”

Another breath. This time steadier. He straightened. “Whatever you are. Whatever you want. You don’t understand what you’re holding.” His silver gaze fixed on them, storm-bright and shadow-sick. “But I do.”