The first thing Aria noticed was the silence.
Not the calm kind, but the kind that pressed too tightly against her ears, as if the world itself was holding its breath. The sanctum's torches no longer flickered. Their flames burned steady and pale, drained of warmth.
That alone told Kael something was wrong.
"Stay close," he said quietly, already moving.
Aria followed, her senses sharpened in a way that frightened her. Since Selene's test, the embers no longer slept quietly inside her. They stirred constantly, reacting to shifts in the air, to shadows that lingered too long, to silence that felt unnatural.
"Where did she go?" Aria asked.
"She won't strike here," Kael replied. "Not yet. Selene never fights where she doesn't control the outcome."
That was not comforting.
They passed through a narrow archway that opened into a vast subterranean passage. Ancient stone bridges crossed a chasm so deep Aria couldn't see the bottom. Far below, faint red light pulsed, slow, rhythmic, like a massive heart beating beneath the world.
Aria slowed.
"That light…" she whispered.
"The Veil," Kael said grimly. "Thin here. Too thin."
The embers flared painfully.
Aria doubled over with a gasp, clutching her chest as heat surged violently through her veins.
"Kael!"
He spun toward her just as the air tore open.
It wasn't a portal.
It was a wound.
Reality split with a shriek of tearing metal, and something stepped through, tall, humanoid, its body half-formed of shadow and flame. Chains of molten iron wrapped around its arms, dragging sparks across the stone as it moved.
Its face was wrong.
Too many eyes. Too many mouths.
The embers screamed.
"Veil Reaver," Kael snarled. "Aria, move!"
The creature lunged.
Aria reacted on instinct, fire exploding outward in a defensive wave. The blast hurled the Reaver back, slamming it into the bridge's stone railing. Cracks spiderwebbed instantly.
But the fire burned hotter than before.
Too hot.
Pain ripped through her skull.
Something inside her snapped.
Memories rushed forward uncontrollably, faces, voices, fragments of a childhood that suddenly felt fragile, thin, as if made of ash. The fire clawed at them, greedy, desperate.
"No, no, stop!" Aria cried, trying to pull the embers back.
The Reaver roared, rising again, chains whipping forward.
Kael drew his blade, silver light igniting along its edge. "Aria, listen to me! Don't fight the fire—guide it!"
"I can't!" she screamed. "It's taking too much!"
The Reaver's chains wrapped around her ankle, burning through cloth and flesh alike. Agony exploded up her leg. She screamed, collapsing to one knee as the creature dragged her closer to the chasm's edge.
Kael struck, severing the chain in a flash of light, but the damage was done.
The embers surged violently in response.
Fire burst from Aria's eyes, mouth, hands, uncontrolled, wild, incandescent. The Reaver shrieked as golden flames engulfed it completely, melting shadow and chain alike into nothingness.
The creature dissolved.
Silence crashed down.
Aria collapsed onto the stone, gasping, her body shaking uncontrollably.
Kael was at her side instantly.
"It's over," he said urgently. "Aria, look at me. Breathe."
She tried.
But something was missing.
A hollow space echoed inside her mind, too clean, too sudden.
Her chest tightened painfully.
"Kael…" she whispered. "I can't… I can't remember…"
His expression froze.
"Remember what?" he asked carefully.
She searched her thoughts desperately.
"My village," she said, panic rising. "The name, Kael, I don't know the name of my village."
The words tasted wrong in her mouth.
Kael closed his eyes.
The fire crackled softly around her, dying down at last.
"It took a core memory," he said quietly. "A place tied to who you were."
Tears streamed down her face.
"I lived there," she sobbed. "I grew up there. How can it just be… gone?"
Kael pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly as she shook.
"The fire doesn't understand meaning," he said softly. "Only power."
She clutched his cloak desperately. "What if it takes more? What if one day it takes something I need to stay me?"
Kael didn't answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was heavy.
"That's why Ember Bearers either master the fire… or disappear into it."
Aria pulled back slowly, wiping her tears.
Her expression changed.
The grief was still there, but beneath it, something harder began to form.
Resolve.
"Then I'll master it," she said hoarsely. "I won't let it decide who I am."
Kael searched her face, then nodded once. "Then we leave this place. The sanctum is no longer safe."
"Where do we go?" she asked.
Kael looked toward the chasm, where the Veil pulsed brighter now, responding to the fire's release.
"To the High Crossroads," he said. "Where Ember Bearers are judged… or killed."
Aria stood slowly, ignoring the pain in her leg, the ache in her chest.
"Good," she said. "Let them come."
Far above them, beyond realms and ruin, Selene stood watching through a fractured mirror of fire.
"She lost something," Selene murmured. "I felt it."
Another presence shifted beside her taller, darker, wrapped in scorched armor etched with ancient sigils.
"She will lose more," the figure said coldly. "Or she will become something far worse."
Selene's lips curved into a slow smile.
"Either way," she said, "the embers have never burned brighter."
The Hunt had begun.
And Aria Vale was already paying the price.