The Thirteenth Ember - Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Aeryn had seen emberglass before — tiny fragments used to light sacred halls, passed down through ancient families like dying stars sealed in crystal.
But never this.
The shard in Kael’s palm pulsed like a living wound — glowing with a slow, rhythmic heat that answered the emberstone around her neck. Her own stone had gone warm and still, no longer calling out.
Because it had found its match.
She stared at it, numb. “That can’t be the thirteenth.”
Kael said nothing.
“ is a myth,” she continued, half to herself. “A legend used to scare childrenand fuel fireside stories. It was destroyed centuries ago.”
Kael’s voice was quiet. “That’s what they wanted the world to believe.”
She looked up at him, eyes sharp. “Who are you?”
He closed his hand around the shard. “Someone who shouldn’t be alive.”
That wasn’t an answer. But it was honest.
He looked exhausted. Shadows beneath his eyes, lips pale. But his presence — the slow, simmering energy he carried — filled the hollow like a second fire. He wasn’t just carrying the ember.
He was connected to it.
“What does it do to you?” she asked.
Kael met her gaze. “It remembers.”
She blinked. “What?”
“The ember isn’t just fire. It holds memory. Power. Everything it touches leaves a scar. And I’ve touched it for too long.”
“Then why keep it?”
He looked away. “Because if I lose it, they’ll use it.”
“They?”
Kael’s jaw tightened. “The Ardyn. The Council. The ones who say they’re ending the war but are only changing its shape.”
Aeryn sat back, heart thudding. “So you stole it?”
“No,” he said. “I buried it.”
Her breath caught.
He was the one they whispered about in rumors. The deserter. The ghost. The soldier who walked into the Ember Vault and never returned — because he had taken the last ember with him.
Kael.
And now he was here, bleeding in a hollow beneath the pines, whispering half-truths to a healer who should have turned him in.
Aeryn felt the emberstone grow warm again. Not a call this time — a warning.
“You can’t stay here,” she said, standing.
Kael’s brow furrowed. “You’re sending me away?”
“No,” she said quietly. “I’m going with you.”
He stared at her.
“You’re a walking firestorm,” Aeryn said. “And the people hunting you don’t care how many burn as long as they reach you.”
She took a breath, steadied herself.
“But if is still alive… then I need to know why. And I need to know what it’s going to do to you.”
Kael’s lips curled into the faintest, saddest smile.
“It already has.”