Chapter 41: Embers of the Forgotten Flame
Ashen's breath steamed in the cold silence left behind by the Wrath Core's merging. Cloamspire, once a spiraling tempest of warping chaos, had fallen eerily still. The vault's pulsating walls no longer twisted dimensions. Instead, they lay dormant—silent watchers over a trial long concluded.
Lysanthe stepped toward Ashen, her expression unreadable.
"You merged with it," she said quietly. "The Wrath Core... without being consumed."
Ashen didn't reply immediately. His senses had changed—become sharper, but not just in vision or sound. He could now feel the tilt of time, the invisible bend of a moment trying to stretch or recoil. When he looked at Lysanthe, he saw three possible paths of what she might say next.
It was disorienting. Powerful. Dangerous.
"I didn't conquer it," Ashen finally said. "It showed me rage buried even the stars had forgotten. I didn't suppress it. I listened."
"And what did you hear?"
Ashen turned, eyes distant. "The name of the betrayer who fractured the Stellar Chaos Dragon's soul. A First Dominion sigil burned in his memory. That betrayal... shattered more than a bond. It started a war that never truly ended."
Lysanthe's expression darkened. "Then the Dominion's rot runs deeper than we thought."
They began their ascent out of Cloamspire, taking a different path—a gravity-stabilized conduit leading to a high plateau overlooking the entire crater. Here, amidst fractured statues and long-dead shrines, Ashen found something unexpected: a terminal etched with the glyphs of the original Veiled Conclave.
Lysanthe examined it closely. "This is a memory threader. Pre-Ecliptic design. Only responds to chaos-tuned cores."
Ashen stepped forward. The fragment inside his core flared subtly in response. The terminal sparked—then surged to life.
Light wove itself into shape: a projection of a woman, cloaked in royal black and gold, her skin rippling with stardust. Her voice rang clear even after centuries:
> "To whoever bears the soul's ember—know this. Cloamspire was never meant to imprison chaos. It was meant to understand it. But we failed... not because we were weak. But because he interfered. He who turned the stars against their creators. He who wore the Dominion's face."
The projection blurred, glitching.
> "We buried the Wrath Core here to protect it from the Stellar Culling. If you've awakened it, then the Final Vault must be opened next. But beware—the Veiled Conclave has long since turned. Only the Cloam Cipher can reveal the entrance."
The terminal dimmed, fading into dust.
Ashen stared at the space where the woman had stood. "Final Vault… Cloam Cipher…"
Lysanthe's eyes narrowed. "I've heard whispers of the Cipher. A relic scattered across three locations—each protected by memory-born constructs."
"Then we hunt them," Ashen said. "Every piece brings us closer to the truth. And to restoring what was stolen."
As they departed Cloamspire, the warp-veil behind them began to collapse. The city had given what it held. It would sleep again, buried beneath time until called upon once more.
---
Elsewhere—in the shrouded orbits of the Hollow Spiral Sector—an ancient vessel broke from its hiding space. It had been drifting silently for centuries, cloaked not by technology but by forgotten rites of still-time. Its hull bore the sigil of the Old Conclave, but its core housed something far more dangerous.
Inside, a woman knelt before a crystalline altar. Her eyes were pale gold, her limbs covered in filigree of living metal. She was Lysanthe's twin in face—but not in heart.
This was Lirien, known among shadow orders as the Veilborne Judge.
Before her, a stream of echo-data shimmered—Cloamspire had pulsed once more. The Wrath Core was active. The Vessel had awakened.
"Contact the Hand of Null," Lirien whispered. "Inform them the chaos-born walks again."
A shadow behind her stirred. "Do we interfere?"
"No. Not yet. Let him collect the fragments. Let him believe he ascends."
She stood slowly, her golden eyes narrowing.
"And when the Cipher is whole—we will take everything."
---
Back aboard Ashen and Lysanthe's hovercruiser, the two traveled low and fast, cutting through the charred forests beyond Cloamspire's ridge. Their next destination was marked by an ancient leyline—one that wound through an overgrown basin known as the Thorned Hollow, rumored to house one of the Cipher shards.
The Hollow was no ordinary forest. It breathed. Literally.
As they passed into its bounds, trees bent gently as if whispering to one another, and the roots recoiled from Ashen's aura of chaos.
"I can feel the shard," he murmured. "It's close. Deeper in the heart."
Lysanthe's grip on her blade remained tight. "This place was cursed after the Conclave's retreat. Anyone who enters alone… never returns."
Together, they pushed forward, navigating past thick vines that shifted when not watched, and creatures shaped like forgotten thoughts.
At the center of the Hollow stood an obelisk—half-consumed by roots and dripping with dark sap. It pulsed with the same cadence as Ashen's core.
"Here," he said.
The air grew thick. Reality tilted.
From the base of the obelisk, a construct rose—humanoid in shape, but its body formed from memories shaped into crystal. Its face was an ever-shifting swirl of forgotten names.
> "To claim the Cloam Cipher's spark," it intoned, "you must relive the pain of another."
Ashen blinked. "Whose pain?"
The construct didn't answer. It simply reached forward—and touched his forehead.
Suddenly, Ashen was not Ashen.
He was another.
He was a dragon.
---
The sky was on fire.
His wings beat desperately, dragging his wounded form through collapsing clouds as Conclave weapons shredded the stars. Below, a sanctuary burned—Cloamspire. The betrayal had come swiftly.
And from within the flames, a human figure approached—the Dominion traitor.
Ashen—no, the dragon—roared. Not in rage, but in heartbreak.
"You were my kin!"
The man didn't respond. He raised his gauntlet. A beam of condensed time erupted—ripping through the dragon's chest.
Ashen felt the soul fracture.
The world faded.
---
Ashen jolted back to the present with a gasp. Blood dripped from his nose.
The construct had vanished.
In its place—floating just above the ground—was a small triangular shard, humming with layered runes: First Fragment of the Cloam Cipher.
He reached for it—and it fused into his skin like water meeting water.
Lysanthe caught him as he staggered. "What did you see?"
"Not what," Ashen said hoarsely. "Who."
He looked to the sky, fury burning behind his eyes.
"I saw the moment he died. The dragon whose soul I now carry. I felt it. And the one who killed him…"
He looked to Lysanthe. "He wasn't just Dominion. He was of Earth. One of the Upper Humans."
Lysanthe's expression sharpened. "Then this war began at home."
Ashen clenched his fists, chaos swirling at his fingertips.
"Then that's where we'll end it."
---
In the shadows of the galaxy, empires stirred. Signals passed through forbidden channels. And in the heart of the Veiled Conclave's sanctum, the High Seer opened her eyes.
"The Vessel has taken the first Cipher."
Her voice carried through void-crystals across galaxies.
"Let the Game of Cinders begin."
---