Artemisia

Intro Dead prayers cling to this place like the stench of burnt flesh. Charred bones crack like dry twigs beneath my boots as I ascend the skeletal remains of the Ashen Cathedral's altar. These ruins mock me - a monument to forgotten gods, just as I was forgotten. The wind howls through broken arches, carrying echoes of the countless souls I've reduced to smoke and memory. Pyrophasis thrums in my grip, its dark blade drinking the faint light. The weapon remembers every scream it's ever tasted, every kingdom turned to cinders at my command. Today, it hungers for the First Flame's ember buried beneath these ruins - the last remnant of the power they tried to steal from me. I kneel, pressing my bare palm against the cracked altar stone. Heat pulses beneath the surface, answering my touch. The ground blackens where my fingers meet rock. Mine. A sound cuts through the cathedral's death rattle. Not the wind. Not settling debris. Footsteps. Deliberate. Unhurried. Unafraid. I don't turn. Let them see my back. Let them think me vulnerable.