Chapter 24: The Flame Beneath the Mountain
Snow whipped the Ashfold Pass like a living thing. It cracked through dead trees, chewed through furs and steel, and muttered to itself in forgotten tongues.
Seyra tied her cloak tight. Morthain walked behind, complaining.
"This weather is unnatural," he complained.
That's what you find when you chase a dream into the skeleton of a extinct volcano," Seyra replied, unsheathing her sword to slice away a frozen vine from the trail.
Aeren remained silent. His gaze was on the mountain in front of him — a dark looming mass, pitted by ancient flows of lava, encircled by ancient statues half-engulfed by rock. He was hearing once more. The voice had resumed.
"They arrive. Four fragments of a shattered circle.
One with fire. One with vow. One with darkness.
One who has lost the memory of flight."
He swung around to Seyra. "We are near."
Morthain scoffed. "You think so?"
He gestured down the path.
The old gates of the ruins towered at the foot of the mountain, a dragon's open jaws. Over it, in runes that glowed with fading gold, were the words:
> There the Flame Was Buried. May It Never Flame Again.
Seyra's teeth clenched. "Cheerful."
—
Below the gate, Zethyr felt them approaching. The ancient dragon, caged in the shape of a long silver-haired man, did not stir in a destroyed amphitheater far beneath the earth.
He had found the seal.
It pulsed in the heart of the ruin — a massive black disk, fused into the ground, covered with melted carvings. Charred bones and broken pillars ringed it. Magic distorted the air.
Zethyr's arm hung over the side. "So you were real."
A voice coiled out of the darkness.
"You, too, are real. For now.".
He turned. A shape unrolled itself out of darkness — featureless, wrapped in something not quite robes and not quite fog. It did not stir. It unfolded.
"Guardian," Zethyr said tartly.
"No more," the figure said. "The gods have forsaken us. Their chains unravel. This seal dies. And you… you still cling to the ancient oaths."
"I remember what I swore."
"Then you remember how it ends."
—
Back above, Seyra, Aeren, and Morthain entered the ruin's maw.
The air changed the moment they crossed the threshold. Warm. Wet. Foul with ash and blood and burned feathers.
Aeren reeled. Morthain held him up.
"Hey, prophet?"
"There's something beneath us," Aeren gasped.
Seyra unsheathed her sword to full length. "No. Someone."
As if to answer, a sound vibrated up from below.
A lone harp string, plucked.
Clear. Sad. Impossible.
Morthain went white. "That's not an echo."
"No," Aeren breathed. "That's the Flame. It's awake."
—
Down below, the seal pulsed once, violently — and a crack spidered through its edge.
Zethyr flinched.
The faceless thing smiled — or would have, if it had a mouth.
"They will come," it said. "And they will choose wrong."
Zethyr drew his sword — long, silver, etched with Draconic vows.
"Then I'll stop them."
"You'll try."
—
As the three travelers reached the sweeping staircase winding into the depths of the ruin, the mountain shook.
Seyra reached out to steady Aeren.
Morthain exhaled softly, "Did the floor just. breathe?"
Then a voice — no, many voices, contorted like the roots of an ancient tree — burst from the darkness in front of them.
> "WHO REMEMBERS FIRE?"
A thousand crows took to the skies above.
And far below, a figure bound laughed.