Chapter 75 – Ashes Between Stars

The battlefield had fallen silent, though the scars remained: shattered earth, broken steel, and the faint stink of abyssal smoke that refused to vanish.

Kael sat on a crumbling wall, his blade planted in the dirt beside him. He stared at the horizon, where the eclipse had faded into a pale, fragile dawn. For a moment, he looked less like a warrior and more like a man lost between victories that tasted like ash.

Aria approached, her robes torn, her hands trembling as she carried water in a dented flask. She pressed it into his grip without a word.

He drank, wiped his mouth, and muttered, “They looked at me like I was a monster.”

“They looked at you like they didn’t understand,” Aria said softly, settling beside him. “Fear isn’t the same as truth.”

Kael gave a dry laugh. “Fear spreads faster than truth ever will.”

For a while, they sat in silence, listening to the crackle of distant fires. The soldiers were tending to the wounded, burying the dead, and whispering stories already warped by fear and awe.

Aria broke the quiet. “You didn’t let it take you.” Her voice wavered, but her eyes were steady. “I saw it pulling at you, trying to drown you. But you fought it. That matters more than any prophecy.”

Kael’s grip tightened on his blade. “The abyss hasn’t given up. I felt it. It… knows me now.” His eyes darkened. “It wants me.”

Aria reached out, her hand brushing his scarred one. “Then let it want. Let it hunger. You are not its vessel—you are Kael. And you are not alone.”

For the first time in days, he allowed himself to look at her fully. In her eyes, there was no fear, only fierce conviction.

A strange warmth broke through the shadows gnawing at him. Fragile, but real.

Before he could answer, the wind shifted. A raven descended, its wings ink-black against the dawn, a scroll tied to its leg. Soldiers murmured nervously, as though the bird itself carried ill omen.

Kael untied the scroll and unrolled it. His eyes narrowed as he read. The parchment bore the seal of the Dominion’s Council. The words were simple, but heavy as chains:

“By decree of the High Council: Kael, you are summoned to stand before judgment.”

Aria stiffened. “Judgment?”

Kael’s jaw clenched. He crushed the scroll in his fist, shadows curling from the cracks in his knuckles.

“They’re not summoning me to judge,” he said coldly. “They’re summoning me to bind.”

And as dawn bled into day, Kael knew: his greatest enemies were no longer only monsters of the abyss, but the very world he had saved.