The air inside the Temple of Echoes pulsed with ancient fire. Walls trembled, not from battle—but from memory. The moment Amina stepped across the final seal, the past rushed in like floodwater breaching a dam.
She wasn't alone.
Rael, the Flamekeeper of the First Pyre, stood before her. His robes shimmered with ember-threads, and in his eyes burned knowledge too old for words.
"You've come far," he said, his voice both proud and solemn.
Amina looked past him, to the column of fire rising at the heart of the chamber. "That's the Heartflame?"
"It's the last true memory of the world before the Sundering. Before Valec fell. Before Amariel burned."
Amina stepped closer. "Will it show me everything?"
Rael hesitated. "Only what you're ready to bear."
She nodded and stepped into the light.
---
Flames of Yesterday
Images erupted around her—visions etched in smoke and fire.
A battlefield—Amariel cradling a dying Valec, her hands glowing with desperate light.
A throne room—Kai kneeling before an ancient council, being exiled for knowledge he refused to renounce.
A child—Ashar, staring at the ashes of his village, the only survivor.
The flames twisted again—and Amina saw herself. Not as she was now, but countless versions: laughing, screaming, dying. Some wore crowns. Others wielded swords made of blood and sorrow.
She was every spark Amariel had left behind.
Every life lived trying to undo the cost of one decision.
---
The One Flame
The chamber shuddered as a new image emerged—one so powerful it shook her breath away.
Valec, before his fall.
He stood not as a tyrant or fallen prince, but as a man trembling at Amariel's feet.
"I can't protect them all," he whispered.
"You're not meant to," Amariel replied. "You're meant to guide them."
"But what if I fail?"
"Then you rise. And rise again."
He touched her cheek.
And as the fire consumed them both, Valec screamed—not from pain, but from loss.
Amina collapsed to her knees.
She finally understood.
Valec hadn't wanted power.
He'd wanted to stop time from stealing Amariel.
---
Echoes of the Present
When Amina opened her eyes, Rael was watching her quietly.
"You see now," he said.
"Yes," she whispered. "But knowing the truth doesn't fix the fire inside him."
"No. But it gives you the key."
Rael held out a blade forged of flame and starlight. "This is the Emberbrand. Not a weapon—but a choice."
Amina took it, and the flame accepted her touch.
From outside the temple, a roar shattered the sky.
Ashar's voice echoed through the chamber.
"Amina! He's here!"
---
The Storm Arrives
A shadow fell over the Heartflame.
Valec descended from the sky, no longer hiding in darkness.
But behind him…
The Pale King followed.
A being older than war, forged in the ash of forgotten gods. His eyes were voids, and every step he took unraveled the weave of the world.
Rael turned to Amina. "You must choose, now. Save Valec—or destroy him before the Pale King takes what's left."
Amina looked at the Emberbrand in her hand.
She looked at the boy she'd once loved, now breaking under the weight of a thousand lives.
And then she stepped forward—
Not as a warrior.
Not as a girl.
But as Flamebearer.