Far beneath the ruins of Enies Lobby, where no sun had shone for centuries, a secret chamber stirred.
Ancient walls engraved in the forgotten tongue pulsed softly with heatless fire. In the center of the chamber stood a great obelisk—half crystal, half bone—known only in legend as the Flame Archive.
A figure emerged from the dark.
Veyron.
He approached the obelisk in silence.
"I need answers," he whispered.
Elsewhere — Aboard the Thousand Sunny
Night had fallen across the icy seas. The crew rested. Arkan stood watch beside the helm, eyes fixed on the stars.
Lyra sat near him, gazing upward. "There's something you haven't told them, isn't there?"
Arkan nodded. "About the Flameborne? Yes."
She didn't press. He spoke anyway.
"They were never meant to awaken this soon. Not all at once."
Lyra frowned. "The Serpent accelerated it?"
"No," he said quietly. "The world did."
Flashback — The First Flame
A scorched desert.
A single child stood before a meteor crater. Within the crater pulsed a heart of fire, beating once every thousand years.
The child touched it.
And screamed.
Not from pain. From knowing.
That child became the first Flameborne.
And the heart, the Flame Eternal, was shattered into twelve echoes.
One for each city. One for each soul strong enough to carry it.
Back in the Archive
Veyron touched the obelisk. It responded.
"The Flameborne were never soldiers. They were safeguards."
"The Flame exists not to burn, but to preserve truth through fire."
"They are the antithesis of the Serpent, whose breath is Forgetting."
Veyron growled. "Then why do they oppose me? I seek order!"
"You seek silence. They were born to sing."
A glyph ignited.
Veyron staggered back.
His hand bore a mark.
A thirteenth sigil.
He gasped. "That's not possible…"
Meanwhile — Robin's Revelation
Deep in study, Robin compared glyphs from Velmora, Ice Verge, and the Poneglyphs.
She froze.
"They're not fragments of different scripts," she whispered. "They're verses of the same song."
She summoned Arkan, Lyra, and Orren.
"These cities weren't just homes. They were notes in a melody. A message left by the first civilization. When all twelve awaken…"
Lyra finished her sentence: "The song will be complete."
Orren added softly, "And the Serpent will lose its grip on the world."
Final Scene — Unknown Location
A dark, floating island orbited above the world, unseen by any compass.
A child stood at its center. She wept, though no tears fell.
She whispered, "I dream in fire. But I wake in chains."
A voice echoed from behind her:
"Soon, Aetheria. Soon you'll be found."
And a new constellation blinked into existence.