The darkness didn't feel empty.
It pressed in with weight and memory, thick with unseen voices and ancient sorrow. Eira couldn't see the others. Couldn't even feel her own breath. Only the thrum of the shard in her chest, hot and steady reminded her she was still alive.
And then the voice returned. Not loud, but infinite.
"Flameborn. You carry what was broken."
She tried to speak but her lips wouldn't move. The shard pulsed harder, radiating warmth down her spine.
"One spark remains. Carried by blood. Stolen by flame. The Path opens, but it demands truth."
Images surged around her: A tower wrapped in fire. A woman, her mother? kneeling before a dying Mageborn elder. A circle of masked figures chanting beneath a full moon. The shard pulsed again and again, until the ache in her chest became unbearable.
Then light exploded outward.
And the room returned.
She was on her knees in the center of the Flamecircle, her palms braced against the stone. The others stood at the edge, frozen in place. Even Thorne looked shaken.
Eira rose slowly, breath ragged. "It spoke to me."
Lena stepped forward. "What did it say?"
"That the Path opens with truth. That I carry what was broken."
Lena's eyes widened. "Then this circle… it's more than sacred ground. It's a threshold."
Torin frowned. "To where?"
Kaela looked up sharply. "To something Maelis wants."
At the edge of the chamber, the air shifted. Cold wind rushed in through a crack in the wall, thin but deep. Smoke. The sharp bite of burning pine.
Thorne moved first. "They've set fire to the ridge."
Torin swore and turned toward the villagers. "We need to move. Now."
But Eira held up a hand.
"No."
They all looked at her.
Her voice was quiet, but steady. "If we keep running, they'll trap us. Over and over. We have to make a stand."
Kaela raised an eyebrow. "Here?"
"No. Just beyond this place." She turned back to the Flamecircle. "There's a passage under the threshold. I can feel it. That's where we go next."
Lena frowned. "And what's beyond that?"
Eira didn't answer right away.
Then she said, "A forge."
⸻
Above, at the ridge…
Maelis watched the smoke coil upward into the grey morning sky. The flames moved slower than she liked, damned early spring damp but they were enough.
"Seal the northern run," she said to the closest agent. "And flood the tunnels with ash. If she doesn't die in the fire, she'll suffocate in the dark."
The agent hesitated. "What about the villagers?"
"Collapsing burdens makes prey run faster."
She turned back toward the ruined archway, eyes narrowing.
She could feel her sister now. The shard in her own body was responding, fluttering weakly, like a dying bird trying to take flight.
"I'm close," she murmured. "You can't run forever."
"And you can't save them all."
⸻
Back beneath the ruins…
The hidden stair beneath the Flamecircle led downward into something older.
Not a city.
More like a vault.
As they descended, runes lit underfoot, no longer golden, but deep red, like slow embers buried beneath coals. The villagers moved in silence now, soot smudging their clothes and fear sharpening their footsteps.
The corridor ended in a vast open chamber carved directly into the stone. It resembled a forge but not of iron. No anvils or tongs. Instead, at the heart of the room stood a basin filled with flame that did not burn.
Eira approached slowly. The shard in her chest blazed so brightly now that it cast shadows behind her.
Lena's voice trembled. "It's the Wellspring."
Kaela drew in a breath. "But it's not water."
"No," Lena said. "It's power. Memory. All that was once given to us… before the Veil."
Eira stepped to the basin and looked down into the dancing light.
Reflections shimmered across the surface, images of fire, of stone, of countless hands shaping the world with will alone. Then her own face appeared. Younger. Afraid. Then older. Stronger.
Behind her, Thorne approached silently. "You don't have to do this alone."
Eira looked at him. "I know. But I'm the only one it listens to."
She reached out.
The flame didn't resist. It parted for her fingers like warm water.
And the room pulsed.
Symbols flared to life along the walls. Stone gave way, revealing more chambers, deeper vaults. And in the distance… a low, growing rumble.
Torin's voice echoed sharply. "They're collapsing the tunnels!"
Kaela spun. "We have maybe minutes before they reach us."
Eira turned back to the Wellspring. "Then it's time to fight."
She stepped back from the flame, now glowing brighter than ever, and faced the group.
"We can't keep hiding," she said. "Not anymore. The Veil has chased us long enough. We have this place. We have power. And we have each other."
Her voice rose, not in defiance, but in certainty.
"I won't run from what I am."
The flame behind her surged.
And as the first stones began to fall from the collapsing tunnel behind them, Eira lifted her hand.
And the fire obeyed.