Chapter Text
Ashfall’s Exile
Nobody knew why the hero had been exiled.
Not truly.
There were rumors, of course—whispers traded like contraband in tavern corners and over flickering campfires. Some claimed the hero had turned traitor in the middle of the Great Firestorm. Others said they’d struck a commander, or fled the battlefield, or even tried to burn the capital themselves.
Only a handful of the old guard remembered the real reason… and none dared to speak it aloud.
The truth was simpler. More human.
And far less forgivable.
Before exile, Ashen Vale had been the kingdom’s brightest flame-wielder: a firemancer whose hands could split a burning house apart without scorching a soul inside. Their duty was sacred—protect the useful, protect the vital, protect those who matter most to the kingdom.
At least, that was the oath.
Ashen had believed in it, once.
Until the night the North Wing ignited.
A storage tower—packed with war records, tactical scrolls, and supplies—burst into blistering flame, turning its stone walls into molten rivers. The heat warped steel. Even the royal guards refused to approach.
Inside that inferno were six high-value officers the kingdom could not afford to lose.
And one low-ranking scribe whom everyone had forgotten existed.
Lyris.
Ashen’s lover.
The commander’s order hit like a lash:
“Save the officers. The scribe is expendable.”
Ashen’s stomach had twisted. Expendable—as if Lyris were a tool, not a person. As if love could be quantified on a battlefield ledger.
The flames roared, hungry and merciless.
Ashen disobeyed.
They plunged into the inferno, fire bending desperately around their outstretched arms as they carved a burning path to the scribe’s room. It barely mattered that the officers were trapped deeper in the tower, their shouts muffled beneath collapsing beams. Instinct made the choice. Love sealed it.
Ashen found Lyris unconscious under a fallen rafter, skin blistered, breath faint. They gathered them up, shielding them with their own cloak of flame until both collapsed outside the tower, coughing smoke.
The explosion that followed flattened the building—and killed the officers the kingdom deemed useful.
By dawn, Ashen was in chains.
Saving Lyris had been called treason.
Choosing one life over six irreplaceable ones.
Letting “emotion override duty.”
They were stripped of their title, their rank, their home. Their firestaff was snapped in two. The king’s decree was final:
“Never wield fire on behalf of the kingdom again.”
And so, Ashen Vale—once the kingdom’s greatest firemancer—walked into exile with nothing but ash on their boots and Lyris’s weak, grateful hand in their own.
Years later, travelers told stories of a nameless wanderer who arrived whenever fire ravaged a village, shaping flames with impossible control, saving farmers and children and strangers without ever asking a reward.
Some swore they traveled with a bookish companion who carried ink-stained fingers and watched the hero with a gaze full of quiet, unwavering devotion.
But whenever anyone asked who the wanderer really was, or why their mastery of fire was outlawed, no one could answer.
After all, the kingdom only recorded the “useful” things.
And love had never made the list.