The land beyond Ash Canyon stretched wide and unforgiving.
The Ember Plains were nothing like the jagged ravines behind them. Here, the ground rolled gently, cracked earth glowing faintly beneath layers of blackened soil. Heat rose in slow waves, and pillars of steam drifted from hidden vents like the breath of some sleeping giant.
Jack squinted at the horizon. "So this is what passes for 'open land' in Varkon."
Talon nodded. "The plains sit directly above the Fire Vein's shallow currents. Too unstable for cities. Too valuable to abandon."
Kael adjusted his shield. "Which makes it the perfect place to hide something no one wants found."
Lyra walked beside Jack, quieter than usual. The light around her was steady today, but subdued—carefully restrained, as if she were conserving every spark.
They walked for hours, following faint signs Talon recognized: scorched stone markers, warped metal posts half-buried in ash, and paths where the earth had been reinforced with old runic plates.
"This used to be a transit route," Talon said. "Long before Emberhold expanded. Traders, scholars, Vein-watchers."
Jack slowed. "Vein-watchers?"
Talon glanced at him. "People who studied the Veins before kings decided they belonged to crowns."
By midday, the plains gave way to a depression in the earth—a wide basin where the heat lessened just enough to breathe.
At its center stood ruins.
Stone pillars jutted from the ground at odd angles, their surfaces scorched smooth by centuries of heat. Faded runes spiraled along their bases—neither fully Fire nor fully Light, but something in between.
Lyra stopped abruptly.
"This place…" she whispered.
Jack felt it too. The air hummed—not violently like Ash Canyon, but deep and resonant. His mark tingled, warm and alert.
Talon frowned. "This wasn't here last time I passed through."
Kael unsheathed his sword halfway. "Ruins don't usually appear overnight."
Lyra stepped forward, placing her palm against one of the pillars. The stone glowed faintly gold—then dimmed.
"These aren't Fire Kingdom ruins," she said. "They predate the Twelve Kingdoms."
Jack blinked. "As in… before the map was finished?"
"As in," Lyra said softly, "before the Veins were divided."
Silence settled over them.
A voice broke the stillness.
"Careful, Princess of Light. Those stones remember more than they forgive."
They turned.
An old man sat beneath a slanted slab of stone, wrapped in layered robes stitched with heat-resistant thread. His beard was streaked white and ash-gray, his eyes sharp despite his age. A staff rested across his knees—its tip glowing faintly, not with flame, but with embers that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Talon stiffened. "You."
The old man smiled. "Still alive, forge-boy? I see Varkon hasn't finished testing you."
Lyra inclined her head politely. "Who are you?"
"Once?" he said. "A scholar of the Veins. Now? A man who listens when the world groans."
His gaze slid to Jack—and lingered.
The embers on his staff flared.
"…And you," he murmured, rising slowly, "are not supposed to exist."
Jack straightened. "I get that a lot."
The old man approached, circling him slowly. "Fire Vein within you. Light Vein echoing alongside it. Not fused. Not fractured. Harmonized."
Lyra's breath caught. "You can sense it?"
"I've spent sixty years listening to the Veins scream," the scholar replied. "Your presence… quiets them."
Kael frowned. "That doesn't sound safe."
"No," the scholar agreed. "It sounds dangerous."
The scholar introduced himself as Edrin of the Cinder Archives—one of the last keepers of pre-kingdom Vein knowledge.
"These plains," Edrin said, gesturing with his staff, "are where the Twelve Veins were anchored to the world. Before kings, before crowns. When balance mattered more than borders."
Lyra looked around slowly. "Then the Seals—"
"—are imitations," Edrin finished. "Crude ones. Necessary, perhaps. But flawed."
Jack's mark pulsed. "So what happens if the balance breaks?"
Edrin met his gaze. "Then the Veins seek a convergence point."
Talon stiffened. "A living vessel."
The scholar nodded.
All eyes turned to Jack.
"I didn't ask for this," Jack said quietly.
"No one ever does," Edrin replied. "But the world asks anyway."
Lyra stepped closer to Jack, her voice firm despite the tremor beneath it. "If the Veins are destabilizing… then the forged sigils, the shadowed magic—"
"—are symptoms," Edrin said. "Not causes."
Kael cursed under his breath.
As the sun dipped low, Edrin pressed his staff into the earth. The ruins glowed faintly, lines of power tracing old pathways beneath the plains.
"The Ember Plains are awakening," he said. "And not just here. Other kingdoms will feel it soon."
Jack swallowed. "So what do we do?"
Edrin looked at him—at Lyra—then at the horizon, where heat shimmered unnaturally.
"You keep moving," he said. "You learn. You survive."
His eyes hardened.
"And whatever you do… do not let the Veins decide your fate for you."
A deep tremor rolled through the plains, subtle but unmistakable.
Jack's fire flared—then settled.
Lyra's light pulsed in answer.
Somewhere beneath their feet, something ancient stirred.