Chapter 25 : What Fire Remembers
The stairs groaned under their feet — not age, but hunger.
Morthain put his hand on the wall and recoiled. "It's warm."
"That's not warmth," Seyra said. "That's breath."
Aeren froze in mid-step, staring down at the shaking journal in his hand. The ink had begun to change — the lines curling around like vines, re-shaping the prophecy before his eyes.
He read, shaking voice:
> "When the seal breathes, it dreams.
When it dreams, it calls.
And when it calls, the last flame will remember who lit it."
Something howled beneath them. It wasn't a noise — it was a memory, exploding from stone.
Then the stairway collapsed.
One instant, they walked down side by side. The next, the stones beneath their feet exploded outward in every direction like ash struck by an anvil.
Seyra fell back, sword flying from her hand.
Aeren crashed forward, journal opening pages on their own.
Morthain vanished in a flash of purple light, his arcane instincts making him teleport mid-fall.
When it came into view, they were not standing side by side anymore.
—
Aeren fell onto a circular platform lit by sconces without flames. In the middle: a black pedestal. Upon it, a crown of fire — but the fire did not burn. It sang.
He wobbled up, attracted to it.
> "You are the Scribe," the flame said. "You remember what others forget.".
You write what even gods dare not speak.
His fingers jerked toward the flames. "Am I to. wear it?"
> "Only if you desire to recall what fire was before it reduced everything to ash."
Aeren's hesitation — and the contact with the crown.
His mind shattered open.
He saw dragons born of stars, gods bowing to powers they couldn't define, a war waged not on the earth, but in memory. The First Flame, held not by steel, but by oaths long forgotten even to time.
And he screamed.
—
Seyra awoke in a flooded hallway, lost sword, candle burning. Statues lined the walls — warriors, kings, priests. But all faces had been stripped.
At the end: a shadow.
She staggered towards him.
"Who are you?" she growled.
The man did not reply. He moved forward — tall, graceful, silver hair glinting.
"Zethyr," she said warily.
"I believed you were mythical."
"I am," he replied, and drew his sword. "And I intend to stay that way.".
Morthain came upon a library. Not one stacked with books — one filled with echoes. Ghosts walked among shelves, murmuring silent secrets. The scrolls were white. The shelves burned — but the fire was cold.
He turned and came face to face with… himself.
Or, at least, an older version. Chars on robes. Hollow eyes.
"I warned you," it said. "But you never had to know more."
Morthain raised a trembling hand. "What is this?"
"A memory the Flame didn't forget."
And all of the lights extinguished.
—
Down through it all, the chained figure laughed.
"You send your pieces like pawns. But the board is older than you recall."
A shaking hand spat onto the bonds.
The flame above the seal glowed once — then bled.
—
In the chamber filled with water, Seyra and Zethyr danced around each other.
"I know what you are," she said.
"Then you know why you have to go."
"I don't run from darkness."
"No," Zethyr sneered. "You burn it."
He struck.
She parried his sword on a shattered shield she pulled from a drowned statue, sparks lighting the hall like fireflies.
They clashed again — steel ringing like a bell that called gods who no longer listened.
—
Above, Aeren knelt.
He saw Seyra — the fight, the old dragon fury burning beneath Zethyr's skin.
He saw Morthain, gazing into a future thick with ash and shame.
And he saw the figure in chains — no longer entirely in chains.
He screamed again.
—
Then spoke the Flame — not vision, but voice.
> "ENOUGH."
---
All was still.
Aeren alone in the darkness, Seyra frozen mid-blow, Morthain frozen mid-charge.
And the Flame said:
> "You recall me now.
But do you recall yourselves?"