The darkness didn't move.
It watched.
Elyra held her breath as the Curator stepped aside, gesturing for them to enter the Archives proper. The massive chamber yawned ahead—vaulted ceilings woven with arcane light, endless shelves that spiraled upward into shadow, and tomes that whispered as they passed.
"Don't touch anything unless it touches you first," Kael muttered, eyes scanning for threats.
Elyra gave a dry laugh. "Comforting."
Vespera moved slowly, her steps heavy. Whatever had changed in her since the Pale Flame now pulsed stronger. Her fingers brushed a floating crystal flask—and flinched back as it flared with crimson light.
The Curator did not speak again. It simply watched, head tilted, its robes flowing like ink in water.
They explored in tense silence, each pulled toward different corners by invisible threads.
Elyra found a book bound in molten gold, warm to the touch. Its pages unfolded into fire—memories of past Flamebound, their triumphs and mistakes bleeding through ink and flame. Her hand trembled as she turned each glowing page. Visions leapt out—dragons circling shattered moons, a Flameborn kneeling in chains, a voice whispering, "The cost is always more than the gift."
Kael lingered at a shattered blade suspended in glass, its edge blackened by time. "This belonged to the first Warden," he said quietly. "He burned entire cities to stop what we're trying to stop now."
"Did it work?" Elyra asked.
Kael's jaw clenched. "No. It just made the world forget."
Vespera sat beneath a mural of stars collapsing. She whispered something under her breath, too low to hear, but her eyes glistened—not with tears, but with knowing. A terrible knowing.
"The archives remember," the Curator finally said. "But memory is not mercy."
Elyra turned to face it. "Why show us this?"
The Curator's obsidian gaze pierced her. "Because if you are to bear the flame, you must understand what was lost to it. Power never comes free. And yours is ancient, angry, and starved."
From beneath the stone, a tremor rattled the floor.
The lights flickered.
And in the distance, a roar echoed—a sound no human throat could make.
Kael drew his sword. "That wasn't part of the tour."
The Curator's face remained unchanged. "The Archive is awake now. And it will test you."
"Test us how?" Elyra demanded.
The walls around them shifted.
Stone melted into mirrors.
And suddenly, they were alone—separated, each trapped in a fragment of their own memory. Each forced to face what they feared most.
Elyra blinked. She was no longer in the Archives.
She stood in the ruins of Solara Citadel, the sky above torn and bleeding flame. Screams echoed across the hollowed stone. At the heart of it, Starflame stood unbound, wild, and furious—raging against everything, even her.
"You let them burn," a voice accused.
She turned. Her younger self stood there, eyes filled with betrayal. "You wanted the power more than you wanted to save them."
"No," Elyra whispered. "That's not true."
"Isn't it?"
The younger Elyra raised her hands, and fire poured from them. The same fire Elyra had wielded against the dragon, against the Hollow King, against her own fear.
"You think you're different," the memory said. "But fire always consumes."
Kael staggered through a frozen battlefield. Every soldier he'd ever led—dead. Every mistake, every command that cost a life—they rose from the ice, eyes empty, mouths whispering curses.
"You chose duty over mercy," a soldier hissed.
"I did what I had to," Kael growled.
"You chose to be feared."
"I chose to be effective."
"But what did it cost you?"
He saw himself, kneeling before the Pale Flame, offering not a vow—but his heart. Cold, closed, unbreakable. Until Elyra.
And that scared him more than death.
Vespera was drowning.
Not in water, but in memory.
She saw the temple. Her blood on the altar. Her sister screaming as the fire took her. She'd promised to control it—but she failed.
And the gods didn't forgive failures.
"Your price was never enough," said a figure cloaked in gold.
"I gave everything," she rasped.
"Then give more."
The fire crept up her skin again, marking her anew. Binding her to a fate she never wanted.
In the real world, the Archives shook.
The Curator watched the test unfold, silent and still.
And far above, the Obsidian Spire cracked.