Chapter 20: Embers Wake
Summer came, golden and unrelenting, smothering the world in heavy air and possibility.
Daltigoth no longer looked like a battlefield. Piece by piece, it was constructed anew as a home. Silk-sewn flags streamed above new ramparts. The citadel thrummed with rebuilding, not war. And Lira —
Lira had not been seen for three days.
Kaela glared out the tower window, arms crossed. "If she's not back by sundown, I'm going out to find her myself."
"You said that yesterday," Kerris said without even looking up from sharpening a blade.
"And I meant it then too."
Thalen floated into view, upside-down and holding a book. "She went to search for the source of the roots of the obsidian tree, remember? She told us not to follow unless something started breaking or bleeding."
Kaela growled. "Something will start breaking."
—
Lira walked alone across the ashlands.
What was once an area of death, cursed and barren because of the Queen's corruption, now shone with gentle new life. Moss edged with green curled between shattered stones. Birds warbled uncertainly from distant hills.
At its heart, she found the crater.
What had been the Queen's throne room was now a hollowed ring of melted rock and fused glass. The staff's remnants lay at the center — a shard no longer glowing, but humming.
Lira knelt beside it. "You're quiet now," she murmured. "I'm not."
As she touched it, the spiral on her palm flashed — not pain, but memory.
A flicker: a thousand voices singing in harmony.
A vision: flames entwined around a cradle, not to destroy, but to guard.
Then quiet.
When she awoke, one flower — violet and unfeasible — had forced its way up alongside the shard.
She did not pluck it. She smiled.
Then headed home.
—
They marked the Naming Day a week later. Not for a child, but for the city.
"Why can't it be called New Daltigoth?" Kaela demanded, appalled. "That's wonderful. It has heft."
Thalen guffawed. "It sounds like a bakery."
"Bakery?!"
Kerris snarled, "Just call it Flamehold and forget about it."
Lira listened to them argue for ten minutes, then quietly placed a silencing spell on the three of them.
She stood before the gathered crowd before her — dozens of faces, scarred yet alive — and spoke to them:
"We've all lost names. And made new ones. This city is more than stone. More than fire. It was born from both. So let's name it what it is."
A beat of silence.
"Let's call it Hearthdeep."
The name caught.
That night, beneath stars scattered like seeds across dark soil, Lira carved the name into the new gate.
Kaela leaned over her shoulder. "Still think Kaelatown had a ring to it."
Lira laughed. "You get to pick the next one."
"Deal."
And the Hearthdeepers built a hundred fires in their wake.
Not for battle."
For heat.
—
Peace doesn't last, however.
The undermines beneath Hearthdeep had been shut since the war. Most assumed they were collapsed, accursed, or best left forgotten.
But rock remembers.
And so did what it encased.
—
"I'm telling you, something's down there," said Ralik, the youngest of the new city guards. He clutched his helmet like it might protect him from Kaela's glare.
"You heard a voice in the stone?" Kaela repeated, arching a brow. "Was it singing? Whispering? Offering discounts on magical swords?"
"I'm serious!" Ralik insisted. "It said my name. Three times. And then—then the earth. shifted."
Thalen looked up from a tray of enchanted scones. "Might be residual echo magic from the Queen's staff. Or a trapped spirit. Or indigestion. Hard to tell without snacks."
Lira's smile was thin, but her eyes were sharp. "I'll go."
Kaela stepped beside her. "We'll go."
—
The mine entrance hung open like a forgotten mouth. Moss covered the brim like hair on old teeth. No light was brave enough to travel far inside. The aroma of memory and pressure lingered in the air.
They descended slowly — Lira, Kaela, Kerris, Thalen, and two exceedingly reluctant guards.
Halfway down, the walls began to glow.
Not with magic — with carvings.
Spirals. Flames. A woman's face replicated over and over, not the Queen's, but. Lira's.
Kaela stopped. "Okay, that's new."
Thalen turned a circle, his mouth wide. "These weren't here before."
Kerris's hand fell on the hilt of his sword. "Something's rewriting the stone."
Lira ran her fingers over the nearest image.
It blinked.
They all stood transfixed.
And then — the walls spoke.
"Lira. Daughter of Fire. Echo of the Broken Flame. Do you remember?"
The voice was not hers. But it knew her.
Lira stepped forward. "Who are you?
"The first to burn. The first to bear the mark before gods bore names."
The ground shook. Dust rained like snow.
"I don't approve of this," Kaela growled, drawing her sword.
Lira closed her eyes. Her palm pulsed again — not pain. Recognition.
The mark on her flesh burned stronger, pulling her to the lowest shaft.
There, carved in perfect, impossible stone, was a pedestal. On it: one obsidian mask, cleaved in two.
Lira knelt.
"She shed pieces wherever she went," she whispered. "And some were never hers."
The voice spoke again, this time softly. "You are not she. But you carry her shadow."
Lira's hand swept across the mask.
Images crowded her mind — not of Takhisis, but of the woman standing in front of her. The child who stretched too far, who loved too much, who became a monstrosity trying to protect what she loved.
A sob formed in Lira's throat.
"I remember."
The pedestal trembled. The mask slumped into the stone.
And in its place, a flower — obsidian petals glimmering from within — pushed out of the crack.
"You are flame," the voice told her. "But you are also the one who builds anew what flame reduces to ash."
Lira rose from where she knelt.
The carvings faded.
The mine was just a mine again.
—
Outside, Kaela punched Ralik lightly in the arm. "Good instincts, kid."
Thalen dangled upside-down beside Lira. "So. ancient ghost of a long-forgotten flame goddess just gave you a rock flower?"
Lira smiled. "Something like that."
Kerris exhaled a slow breath. "I promise one day we'll just have a normal day. No ghosts. No burning artifacts."
Kaela laughed. "You'd be bored to death."
"I'd like being bored to death."
Lira looked back at the mine, the glowing bloom clutched in her hand.
"No more secrets," she said to him. "From her. From me. From any of it."
Kaela nudged her. "So, now?"
Lira faced the east, toward the rising sun.
"We listen to what the world has to say next."