They traveled at dawn, with little said and much weighing on their minds.
The road to the Ember Cradle was no road at all. It was a forgotten artery of the world, carved through mountain roots and buried lava tubes. The air thickened with sulfur. The ground grew brittle beneath their boots. With each mile, the sky dimmed, not from clouds, but from ash—ancient ash that never stopped falling.
Emberlyn led, guided by instinct rather than memory. Her dreams had become maps. Her breath synced with the rhythms of the land, as if something deep beneath recognized her soul and whispered, "This way."
Behind her, Mira kept pace. Arenya walked near the rear, eyes scanning the shadows. Luri ghosted the flanks, while Kael scouted ahead. Havren bore the heavy gear without complaint, and Tessar marked their passage with faint rune sigils only they could detect.
They were entering the Veins of Ashvein—the first true trial on the path to the Cradle.
"Stay off the black glass," Kael warned quietly as he reappeared from a narrow cleft. "There's movement underneath."
Emberlyn crouched and touched the darkened floor. It shimmered faintly—volcanic glass, sharp as razors, stretched across a collapsed tunnel. Beneath it, something writhed.
"Burrowbeasts," Arenya murmured. "Born of magic and fire. The Circle tried to bind them once. Failed."
Emberlyn stood. "We go around."
But the tunnel allowed no such grace.
They pressed on, stepping lightly across thin rock ledges and ancient scaffolding. The deeper they moved, the more the world seemed to bleed heat. Walls pulsated faintly. The stone was no longer dead—it was alive.
By nightfall, they reached the old mining site known in legend as the Ash Ducts, where the early Flamebearers once channeled raw energy from the mountains into runic wells. The place was a ruin now—half-collapsed and infested with creatures twisted by residual magic.
They made camp inside the shattered dome of what had once been a forge. Tessar examined the walls, shaking his head. "Runes are unstable. We stay too long, we'll start seeing things that aren't there."
"Noted," Arenya said.
As the others rested, Emberlyn walked to a broken archway. Her body thrummed with pressure. Each day, the flame inside her grew louder—not violent, but insistent, like a song she couldn't stop humming.
"Does it speak to you?" Mira asked, approaching.
"Yes," Emberlyn said. "It calls itself Arkanis. The First Spark. But it doesn't command me. It questions me. Tests me."
Mira looked uneasy. "I dreamed of the Cradle too. But in mine, you weren't alive when we reached it."
There was silence.
Then Emberlyn said, "I won't let that happen. I won't let the Circle take your future—or mine."
Mira looked at her. "You really believe we can break their ritual?"
"I believe we have to try."
---
That night, Emberlyn wandered deeper into the ruins. Alone.
She found a chamber untouched by collapse—a sanctum lined with black flame-burned statues. At its center stood a stone basin, filled with liquid fire.
Without understanding why, she stepped forward and looked into it.
Visions assaulted her: Seris standing atop a pyre, defying the Circle's priests. Elyra weeping as she touched the First Flame. A thousand other lives, all bound by fire, all failing.
Then a voice:
"You are not the first.
You will not be the last.
Will you burn for them… or let them burn for you?"
She gritted her teeth. "I won't be a weapon."
The flame laughed—softly, like crackling wood.
"Then wield yourself."
She opened her eyes. The basin was empty.
---
The next day, they resumed their journey.
The tunnel narrowed. The Veins gave way to the Throat of Smoke, a volcanic passage where air turned to poison. They wrapped their faces and pushed forward, relying on Tessar's smoke-charms and Luri's sense of direction.
At one point, Havren collapsed from inhalation shock. Emberlyn carried him until they emerged into a wind-torn canyon where steam vents hissed like dragons.
They were close now.
Kael returned from a high ridge, eyes sharp.
"I saw it," he said. "The spires of the Ember Cradle. They're lit. Red fire—Circle fire."
Mira's face paled.
Arenya cursed under her breath. "They're already beginning."
Emberlyn looked to the sky. The air had changed again—heavier, like it was waiting to fall.
"We go tonight," she said. "While they believe us still lost."
Mira nodded. "And if they see us coming?"
Emberlyn's eyes burned faintly.
"Then we show them what it means to face a flame that refuses to die."
---
Side Story: The Mirror Child
Before she had a name, she was called Subject 17.
She was born not of womb, but of ritual. In the lowest sanctum of the Circle's fortress—deep beneath the Tower of Emberglass—a vessel was created, shaped with blood magic, emberstone, and the charred bones of failed candidates.
The Keeper called her a necessary prototype.
She was designed to house flame without rebellion. A girl sculpted from obedience and power.
For years, Mira knew no sunlight. Her world was white corridors, steel restraints, and voices from behind runed glass. She was tested, dissected, reassembled. Her cells were infused with diluted spark-essence. Her emotions were filtered with mind runes. She was trained to mimic humanity, not to possess it.
She learned quickly.
By age ten, she could conjure flame spheres, walk through fire-blessed corridors barefoot, and recite the Circle's tenets without error. Other children were created alongside her—Subjects 14 through 20—but they withered. She survived.
No. She adapted.
But with every trial passed, she noticed something strange—something in her reflected differently.
In her dreams, she saw faces that weren't hers. A shepherd girl crowned in ash. A warrior with fire in her eyes. A voice whispering her name… Mira, not Subject 17.
Then came the day they told her the truth.
"You are the mirror," the Keeper said, voice smooth as frozen oil. "A vessel shaped in the image of the true Flamebearer. When she rises, you will be fused. Her will… your shell. Two halves. One sovereign."
"But what if she doesn't return?" Mira asked.
"Then you will become her. Or you will burn."
That night, she bled from the nose. Not from trauma—but from resistance. Something inside her refused the idea.
A fracture.
The first.
In the months that followed, Mira began to question. She moved through the halls like a ghost, watching the rituals, the sacrifices, the whispered prayers of broken captives. She met eyes with the tormented—prisoners who had once borne the Flame, now hollowed out by forced extraction.
She saw what the Circle truly did.
And she hated it.
So when Emberlyn was brought in—defiant, scarred, and still burning—Mira expected to feel disdain. Instead, she felt envy.
Here was someone real.
Here was someone free.
---
The day they put Emberlyn and Mira in the same chamber was the day everything changed.
They were meant to bond mentally, to allow Emberlyn's flame to drift into Mira's prepared vessel.
But it did not work.
Because Emberlyn did not submit.
Instead, something inside Mira cracked further—and the fire flickered to life within her, not as a weapon… but as a choice.
And when Emberlyn looked at her—not as a mirror, not as a tool, but as a person—Mira's soul ignited.
Not with flame.
With freedom.
---
Now, walking beside Emberlyn through the cursed paths of Ashvein, Mira remembers all of it.
The cages.
The masks.
The mirror.
She was made to become someone else.
But now… she chooses to become herself.
And if the Circle comes to reclaim her?
Let them try.
The mirror has shattered.
And what remains will burn brighter than they ever feared.
---
End of Side Story