Stone swallowed her. Not cold stone—breathing stone. It pulsed like veins in the earth, glowing red beneath her feet.
The underground labyrinth was alive.
Every step echoed with whispers of ancestors. Forgotten Emberbloods whose powers had been stripped, buried, erased.
"Elira, they remember you," a voice said from the wall.
She clenched her fists. "I remember them too."
She pressed forward, and the walls began to change—etched with murals of flame and betrayal, love and sacrifice. One panel stopped her cold.
It showed her father.
But not as the man she remembered—this version was smiling beside a hooded figure. The same hooded figure who had killed him. Her hand trembled.
"They were… allies?"
Suddenly, the floor cracked. The labyrinth shook, and from the flames rose a creature. Half-shadow, half-memory. It bore her father's face.
"Elira," it hissed. "The truth burns."
She screamed as fire surged around her—and leapt straight into it.