The world outside the fracture was quiet.
Too quiet.
Sid opened his eyes to the faint hum of containment wards — the smell of disinfectant and old stone filled his lungs. The air tasted sterile, like something scraped clean of life.
For a moment, he didn't move. He could feel the weight on his wrists and chest — the cold bite of runic metal, pulsing faintly with molten light. Chains.
He was lying on a reinforced slab of obsidian, its surface carved with containment sigils. Above him, a circular mirror spun slowly, reflecting not his face but a haze of flickering shadows.
Each one looked like him. Each one burned.
"Welcome back," a familiar voice said, quiet but firm.
Sid turned his head.
Commander Yara stood beside the observation glass, arms crossed, her armor scorched and cracked from the last battle. There were new scars along her neck, faintly glowing red. Her eyes — usually cold and sharp — looked tired. Haunted.
"You've been unconscious for three days," she said. "We pulled you from a temporal collapse. Nox stabilized the fragments of your mind before they folded in."
Sid's throat felt like sandpaper. "Where am I?"
"In the southern base. Sector Twelve." She hesitated. "You're under containment order Alpha-Black."
He didn't answer. He didn't need to. The tension between them said everything — she didn't trust him.
Not anymore.
A hiss of hydraulic pressure filled the air as the observation door opened. Lucien entered, robes slightly torn, the scent of incense following him. He carried a staff of crystalized rune metal, the head glowing faintly blue.
He looked at Sid not as a prisoner — but as someone about to be executed and revived in the same breath.
"We didn't have a choice," Lucien said softly. "Your power destabilized the temporal field. If we hadn't pulled you out, reality around you would have eaten itself."
Sid's voice was cold. "And now you've caged me."
"It's not a cage," Lucien said. "It's protection... for you, and for everyone else."
Yara scoffed quietly. "Protection? You call that mercy? You saw what happened at the Ninth Seal. He almost tore the leyline apart."
Sid's jaw tightened. "I didn't choose what happened."
"Didn't you?" Yara shot back. Her tone was like a knife — sharp, deliberate. "You're the one carrying a demon's mark. You're the one the flames answer to. Every time you fight, we lose people."
"Enough," Lucien said, stepping between them. His voice cracked with authority — but even he couldn't hide the tremor in his hands.
He looked down at Sid.
"The ritual begins in one hour."
They moved him to a circular chamber deep beneath the base. Walls lined with obsidian glass, engraved with symbols older than the divine pantheon itself. The air thrummed with power.
Sid stood in the center, stripped of armor, surrounded by twelve mages forming a runic ring.
Lucien began chanting in Old Elaric, his voice merging with the hum of the chamber.
Yara stood at the perimeter, hand on her sword, eyes never leaving Sid.
Chains of molten gold began to weave from the air — not metal, but flame given shape, the same energy that once consumed gods. It wrapped around Sid's body slowly, carefully, each link burning brighter than the last.
Lucien's voice trembled as he invoked the final phrase:
"By the law of opposing flames, by the name of the Bound Star, I seal the Black Flame within its vessel... chained but unbroken."
Sid's back arched as pain seared through every nerve.
The flames inside him roared, fighting the constraint.
Black and gold fire spiraled around him — divine and demonic energy clashing violently.
He screamed.
The sound made even Yara flinch.
For a heartbeat, Elira's voice echoed in his mind — soft, like wind brushing through leaves:
"Don't let it end with hate."
Then the pain subsided, replaced by stillness.
The chains settled into his skin, glowing faintly beneath the surface like molten tattoos. His breath came ragged and shallow. The Black Flame — his curse, his power — was silent for the first time in years.
Lucien stepped closer. "It's done."
Yara's tone was cold. "Then we keep him under watch. No missions. No contact."
Lucien didn't reply. He only looked at Sid — pity and worry mixing in his expression.
Hours passed. The others left.
Sid sat alone in the containment cell, wrists bound in faintly glowing cuffs. The world beyond the glass was silent, shadows moving in the dim light of the ward lamps.
He stared at the floor, at the faint shimmer of the chains pulsing with his heartbeat. Each pulse felt like an echo — not of his heart, but of hers.
He closed his eyes.
Elira's laughter drifted faintly through his thoughts — not haunting, not painful, but warm.
The warmth that once grounded him when the fire tried to consume everything.
Now, it was the only warmth left.
"I don't know if you can still hear me," he whispered. "But if this is what I have to become to keep my promise… then I'll bear it."
A faint spark lit one of the runes on the wall. For a brief second, the flame inside flickered in response — softer, gentler, as if something in it remembered her.
Then it went still again.
Later that night, Sid dreamt.
He stood in a vast field of ash, a sky of black glass above him.
And there — in the distance — the shadow of Ravh'Zereth, bound in chains as massive as mountains.
The demon's voice rumbled like the world's heartbeat.
"You think you've caged me, Vessel?"
The chains around the demon shimmered — identical to the ones now in Sid's body. But with every word the creature spoke, one link loosened, glowing faintly red.
"You forget. Chains bind us both."
Sid tried to move, but his own restraints flared in response, dragging him down to his knees.
The demon's laughter shook the ground.
"You will call me again... not because I whisper, but because you need me. The boy who fears the flame will always become it."
Sid looked up, eyes burning gold and black.
"Then I'll change the fire itself."
Ravh'Zereth grinned — a terrible, amused smile.
"Try."
The chains around the demon clanked once more — and then silence swallowed everything.
Sid woke with a start, sweat dripping down his neck, the air thick with residual heat. The runes around his chamber glowed faintly, reacting to his nightmare.
He exhaled slowly, looking at the faint shimmer beneath his skin.
The Chains of Binding Flame pulsed once, as though alive.
He closed his eyes, whispering to himself:
"Whatever burns next… it won't be me."