Three nights after the stranger's warning, the sanctuary's flame gutters flickered, though there was no wind.
Aran woke instantly, his instincts honed by a life of battles. Elira stirred beside him, sensing the change. Together they moved through the sanctuary halls, passing the sleeping forms of those they had sworn to protect.
Outside, under the twin moons, a figure stood at the boundary stones—a boy, barefoot and shivering, his eyes wide and empty.
Aran approached cautiously. "Are you lost, lad?"
The boy did not answer. Instead, he raised his hand. Burned into his palm was a mark: a black spiral curling inward, devouring itself.
Elira gasped. "The Mark of the Hollow Star."
It was a symbol not seen in a thousand years, whispered only in the oldest, darkest legends: a prophecy that spoke of the Flame's end—not by battle, but by forgetting.
The boy collapsed into Aran's arms, and as he did, he whispered in a voice not his own:
"The light falters. The void remembers. The promise... will be tested."
Aran and Elira exchanged a glance, the weight of destiny pressing down once more.
This time, it would not be monsters of flesh they would fight, but something far older—an enemy born of silence, of lost faith, of dying memory.
And Aran swore silently, fiercely:
No matter how long the night, the flame within us will never die.