The sunlight outside Solrath Keep was pale, washed-out—as if the world sensed something had shifted beneath its surface.
Elara walked ahead of the others, the pendant clutched tightly in her palm. It was warm now, like it had tasted truth and hungered for more. Her thoughts circled around the Warden's warning.
"You bring the flame, but not the chain."
Raphael caught up to her. "We should rest. You're shaking."
"I can't." Her voice was tight. "That vision… she was me. I don't know how or why, but it means something."
"It means the path you're on has already been walked—by some version of you," he said quietly. "We need to break that cycle."
They set camp in the shadow of the forest. Tarin tried to sleep, but the carvings, the Warden, the burning double—all haunted his dreams. When he finally dozed off, Elara stayed awake, eyes fixed on the pendant.
Then—she heard it.
A whisper.
Not from the forest. From the stone itself.
"Find me. Before he does."
Elara's blood ran cold. She gripped the pendant tighter. The voice didn't return.
At dawn, they rode again—toward the ruins of Maedrin Hollow, the only other site tied to the Ash Line's magic, mentioned in Raphael's old maps.
As they approached the hollow, something felt… wrong.
No birds.
No wind.
Again.
The ruins were covered in soot, as if a fire had long raged and left only silence behind.
Tarin looked around. "This isn't right. This place is dead."
"That's what they want us to think," Elara said.
They entered the heart of the ruin—a collapsed temple. At its center, another altar, but this one was shattered entirely. Scorch marks covered the stones. Elara knelt, brushing aside the ash.
A name carved into the stone caught her breath.
SOREN.
She gasped.
"My brother," she whispered.
Raphael turned sharply. "What?"
"He disappeared when I was seven. They told me he died in the fires." Her hand trembled over the name. "But this… this proves he was here. After."
Suddenly, the shadows shifted.
A shape darted past them.
Raphael drew his sword. "We're not alone."
Elara rose, flames lighting her hands.
From the darkness, a boy stepped out.
Pale. Ash-streaked. Eyes wide, haunted. He couldn't have been older than sixteen.
"You shouldn't be here," he whispered.
Tarin stepped back. "Who are you?"
The boy looked at Elara.
"I'm the memory left behind… when the flame consumes what the chain cannot save."
Elara's chest tightened. "Soren?"
He nodded once. "But not the way you remember."
The world tilted. Raphael moved between them, but Soren didn't flinch.
"You're running out of time. The masked one isn't hunting you anymore, Elara. He's luring you in. You were always meant to find the pieces. He just needs you to assemble them."
Elara's breath caught.
"He's using me."
Soren stepped back, his image flickering.
"I don't have long," he said. "But know this—if you open the final gate without the chain, you won't just lose yourself. You'll lose everyone you love."
Then he vanished—like smoke on wind.
They stood in stunned silence.
Finally, Tarin whispered, "This just became personal, didn't it?"
Elara's jaw clenched.
"Yes," she said. "And I'm going to end it."
A sudden wind swept through the ruins, scattering ash like ghosts breaking free.
Raphael tightened his grip on his sword. "We should move. If Soren's right, the masked one could already be watching."
"We're heading toward him anyway," Elara muttered. "Might as well make it on our terms."
They left the ruins before the sky could turn, the whisper of magic trailing them like smoke they couldn't shake. Elara rode in silence, one hand always over the pendant, as if its warmth kept her anchored to this world—and not whatever version of herself she had seen in the Warden's vision.
Tarin finally broke the silence. "Your brother… was he always tied to the Ash Line?"
"No," Elara said softly. "He wasn't even a wielder. Just a curious boy who wanted to be brave." Her voice cracked. "He must've come here... searching. And the magic took him."
"Or someone led him here," Raphael said. "Same as you."
She didn't reply.
That night, they stopped in a valley of ruins half-swallowed by vines. The air pulsed faintly—like old echoes stirring beneath their feet. As Raphael set up a weak ward, Tarin approached Elara, offering her a strip of dried meat.
"You should eat."
She took it but didn't touch it.
"I keep thinking about what Soren said," she whispered. "That if I open the final gate without the chain, I'll lose everyone I love."
"We won't let that happen."
"That's just it," she said, eyes flicking toward the pendant. "He knew. He knew everything about me—the masked one. He knew I'd come here. He knew I'd follow the signs. What if all of this is a trap I walked into willingly?"
"Then let's trap him back."
She looked up at him.
"I mean it," Tarin said. "We set the fire. We choose the place. And when he shows up, we make sure it ends with him on the ground."
Elara almost smiled—but it faded quickly.
Suddenly, the pendant glowed faintly, and she froze.
"What is it?" Raphael asked, stepping closer.
She held it up.
The glow pulsed once, then shimmered—and a single rune appeared in the air, suspended above the gem. It was shaped like an open eye with flame dripping from the pupil.
Raphael inhaled sharply. "That's the Watcher's Brand."
Tarin frowned. "What's that?"
"It means he sees her," Raphael said grimly. "Right now. Wherever he is—he's looking through the flame."
And then—Elara felt it.
A presence. Cold, slow, patient. Like something ancient curling through her thoughts.
"Almost there, little spark."
The voice slithered across her mind like oil over water.
She yanked the pendant from her neck and threw it to the ground. It dimmed—but didn't die.
"I saw him," she whispered. "I felt him in my head."
"You're marked," Raphael said. "No more running."
Tarin nodded. "Then we make our stand."
The sky above them cracked with distant thunder.
Far away, hidden in a tower of shadows, the masked one smiled beneath the ash-colored veil covering his face.
"She remembers the flame," he whispered.
His hand hovered over a second pendant—identical to Elara's.
"But not the chain."
And in the stone circle behind him, another figure stirred in the darkness—bound, unmoving, eyes dull with memory.
Soren.
Alive.
The figure chained behind the masked one shifted slightly, as if reacting to the whisper. A low groan escaped his lips, cracked and unused. The chains binding him were unlike metal—twisted strands of ash and light, pulsing with sickly heat.
The masked one turned to him, crouching.
"You felt her," he said softly. "Didn't you?"
Soren didn't speak.
But his eyes—dull as they were—flickered for just a second. That was enough.
"She's close now. Closer than she's ever been."
He reached out, fingers brushing Soren's forehead with mock tenderness.
"She'll come to save you. That's what she does. That's what the flame always does."
Behind him, the air shimmered—revealing a circle of watchers. Tall, cloaked figures. Some bore masks. Some bore no faces at all. All were silent.
"She will come," the masked one said, louder now, speaking not just to Soren—but to them. "And she will open the gate. The final ember will burn—and we will become what the Line was meant to unleash."
One watcher stepped forward. Her voice was like cracked bells. "And if she resists?"
"Then we remind her what's at stake."
Back in the valley, Elara couldn't sleep. The ward Raphael cast flickered weakly at the edges, like a match barely holding flame. The pendant still pulsed faintly on the ground where she'd dropped it.
Tarin sat beside her, eyes on the trees. "If he can see through it, why not just destroy it?"
"I tried," she said. "Before you joined us. I smashed it with a hammer. Burned it. Drowned it. It always comes back."
Raphael approached quietly. "It's a tether. Not just to the masked one… but to the Line itself."
Elara turned. "Then how do we sever it?"
"There's only one thing that can break a tether like that," he said grimly. "The Chain of Cindralis."
She blinked. "That's just a myth."
"Most truths begin as myths."
Tarin frowned. "So where is it?"
"That's the problem," Raphael said. "It was lost during the Collapse. But if the masked one wants her to open the gate without it, then he knows where it is—and he's making sure she never finds it."
Elara stood. "Then we find it first."
By morning, they rode north—toward the Ghost Library of Nareth, a hidden archive once used by Flamecallers before the Purge. It was their best hope of locating any mention of the Chain's last known place.
The forest gave way to rocky hills, then to a shattered plain. Blackened stones jutted from the ground like broken teeth. As they crossed it, Elara's pendant grew colder. Not dangerous—but waiting.
The wind carried a faint hum—like voices in chorus, long buried beneath centuries of ash.
By midday, they saw it.
The Ghost Library.
It was not a building—but a ruin half-submerged in the bones of a petrified tree. The bark still stood tall, hollowed and glowing faintly from within. Scrolls, broken spines, fragments of lost languages hung in vines like forgotten dreams.
As they entered, the air thickened.
Time bent.
And a voice greeted them—not from the shadows, but from everywhere.
"Seeker of flame. Heir of the Line. You are late."
Elara stepped forward. "Who are you?"
"I am what remains of memory."
From the roots, a form emerged—half-woman, half-light, with ash trailing her limbs. Her eyes glowed white with ancient knowing.
Tarin gripped his blade. "Is she real?"
Raphael raised a hand. "She's an Echo. A guardian."
The Echo spoke again.
"You seek the Chain. But the Chain does not seek you. It rests where the Line first cracked… beneath the bones of fire's first betrayal."
Elara's breath caught.
She knew the place.
The Ember Wound.
The crater that birthed the Ash Line.
The place her ancestors died to seal.
"The Chain is there?" she whispered.
"Yes. But beware, Flameborn. You are not the only one seeking to mend what was broken. He waits beneath. And the chain… may not want to be found."
Outside the library, storm clouds gathered—unnatural, circling the plains like predators scenting blood.
And in a tower far to the east, the masked one opened his palm.
Within it—Elara's flame.
And beside him…
Soren screamed.