Thanks for waiting—Chapter 5 of Ashes of Sovereignty is now complete.
Chapter 5: The Flames That Remember
The sky above Vyreflare was dim with smoke—not from fire, but from pressure.
Soul pressure.
Something had shifted when Damian Cromwell returned with Aeyra Varnhilde after their field assignment. Not a breakthrough. Not a failure.
Something older.
And in a world built on law and flame, "old" was far more dangerous than "strong."
Damian sat with his hands folded, posture neutral, in the stonewood chair of the interim review hall. Flameglass glimmered behind him in vertical ridges, pulsing softly with his heartbeat.
Across from him sat three figures:
Instructor Rhess, cool and silent.
Flamekeeper Irios, eyes heavy with implication.
A junior archivist with shaking hands and too many scrolls.
"You encountered an unregistered spirit echo," Irios said. "Describe it."
"Fragmented. Pain-driven. Incomplete. Almost self-aware."
"Did it speak?"
"No," Damian replied. "But it listened."
Rhess raised an eyebrow.
"That's not in the report."
"I didn't think it needed to be."
"It does now."
A moment passed.
"And the second presence?" Irios asked.
Damian's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Gone before we arrived."
"But not unnoticed."
"I'm not in the habit of chasing shadows I haven't named."
"Wise," Rhess said, before glancing at the archivist. "That'll be all."
The door shut behind him.
"You kept your flame hidden again," Irios noted.
"That's the idea."
"Some would call that caution. Others, deception."
"And you?"
Irios didn't answer. But Rhess smiled—barely.
"We call it survival."
Meanwhile: Aeyra and the Veil of Thread
Aeyra didn't like being studied.
She especially didn't like being studied by people who didn't understand what she was hiding.
She sat in the threadweave solarium, twirling a spindle of dream-thread between her fingers. Her spirit, Noctaris, shimmered nearby like a half-formed fog.
"You like him," Noctaris said.
"You're imagining things."
"I don't imagine. I remember."
"Then remember to shut up."
Noctaris only smirked.
Aeyra's vision thread trembled in her hand.
She pulled it tight, looped it once, and held it to her eye.
The vision came quickly.
Not fire.
Not ruin.
But laughter.
Her own. Damian's. Together.
It startled her more than any nightmare.
"That's not how this ends," she whispered.
But Noctaris only murmured:
"What if it is?"
Two nights later, Seren Vosari stood beneath Vyreflare's soul gate.
He wasn't a student.
He wasn't sanctioned.
He was just… here.
The guards eyed him warily.
"State your name and affiliation."
"Seren Vosari. Aerthis Skyreach. Bronze Realm. Wind and Lightning."
"Purpose of visit?"
"Curiosity. And maybe a bad idea."
One of the guards raised a brow.
"You're not on the lists."
"I never am."
Seren grinned.
Then pulled a feather-token from his sleeve.
Virelya's seal.
Even the flames paused.
Back in Emberthrone, Sylas Cromwell was throwing punches at a training post until his knuckles bled.
"He's out there alone," he muttered. "And no one's watching his back."
"He's stronger than you think," said a voice from the shadows.
It was Tyran, arms folded, gaze unreadable.
"But strength without connection? That's how you burn from the inside."
Sylas turned, panting.
"You're worried."
"No," Tyran replied. "I'm remembering."
They sat on the rooftop of the academy's northern dorm wing, feet dangling off the edge like neither cared if they fell.
"So," Aeyra said, "they tried to scare you into behaving?"
"I think they were just trying to see if I blinked."
"Did you?"
"No."
"You always this stubborn?"
"Only when I'm interested."
She glanced at him sideways.
"Interested in what?"
"Dangerous questions."
"That's practically flirting."
"Only if you answer."
She didn't.
Instead, she leaned back on her hands and let the wind brush her hair back from her face.
"You're not what I expected," she said.
"Neither are you."
They didn't touch.
But the space between them buzzed like heat before lightning.
In Damian's soulspace, Veyzara stirred from stillness.
Tonight, she whispered.
And he listened.
"Six rise. But one remembers first."
"Me?"
"No. One you will meet soon. She will look at you, and see something you haven't chosen yet."
"Friend?"
"Judge."
Damian exhaled.
"That doesn't narrow it down."
"She has thorns. But she bleeds for soil."
In Khar'Zuun, Nyelle Thorne stood beneath moonlight for the first time in years.
Her skin flinched at the touch of starlight.
The shadow in her bones did not.
Umbravine glided behind her, half-root, half-ghost.
"You are not bound to dirt."
"No," Nyelle whispered. "But I never stopped being part of it."
She walked toward the east, where the flame had pulsed.
Toward something she didn't yet understand.
But it had remembered her name.
And that was enough.