Kaela left before dawn.
She took only what she could carry—a waterskin, dried fruit, her mother's dagger, and a cloak lined with fox fur. The rest she left behind: her bed of straw, the soot-streaked walls of their cottage, and her mother's worried eyes.
"You'll return," Seris said, pressing a thin silver chain into Kaela's hand. A pendant hung from it—an ember encased in glass, still warm. "This will guide you when the fire blinds you."
Kaela didn't understand, but she nodded. "I'll come back. I promise."
She didn't look back when she left.
The climb was brutal. The winds howled with cold teeth, and the trail wound higher than she'd ever dared. As she ascended, the trees thinned and the sky turned strange—a molten red haze now clung to the mountain's peak like a second sun.
Birds flew in wide arcs around it. Wolves had vanished. Only silence and ash remained.
Three days into the climb, she reached the Shattered Path, where old stone steps carved by hands long gone twisted up the inner ridge. Here, the air smelled of sulfur and fire. At night, she huddled in narrow caves, listening to the mountain breathe—deep, slow, and alive.
On the fourth night, she found it.
A door, half-buried in ash.
It stood ten feet tall, carved from obsidian, its surface etched with runes that pulsed like coals. She reached for it without fear—her hand glowing in response. As her fingers touched the surface, the runes flared, and the door groaned open.
Beyond lay a tunnel of black stone that sloped downward, lined with veins of glowing magma. The air shimmered with heat and magic. And deeper still, she heard it:
"Come."
The voice echoed not in her ears, but in her bones.
She walked.
Time lost meaning. The tunnel narrowed, widened, twisted. Sometimes she saw murals carved into the stone: winged beasts locked in battle, a woman crowned in flame, a sword dipped in gold.
And finally, she stepped into a vast chamber.
A single heartbeat of stillness. Then—
It opened its eyes.
Gold, slitted, ancient. The creature coiled in the chamber was immense—scales like obsidian armor, wings folded like night, and fire leaking from its nostrils.
"I have waited long, Embermarked," it said.
Kaela's knees buckled.
"You… know me?"
"I called you," the dragon said. Its voice was thunder, sorrow, and flame. "I am Vireza. Last of the flame-born. And you… are the last Queen of Fire."