Kael stood alone beneath the fractured sky of Emberpath Temple, a quiet wind stirring the torn banners and ember-leaves that lined the outer courtyard. The recent battle with the Syndicate assassins still echoed in his bones, but it wasn't pain that weighed on him now.
It was something deeper, a flicker of memory, just out of reach, burning at the edge of his thoughts.
He touched his chest, over the faintly glowing Ember Core embedded beneath his skin. It pulsed softly in rhythm with his heartbeat — not violent like before, not volatile. Now it hummed like it was waiting.
Zira leaned against a stone pillar nearby, arms crossed, watching him in silence.
"You've been standing there for nearly an hour," she said. "Planning to say something dramatic or just waiting for the wind to push you off?"
Kael gave a faint smirk but didn't answer.
"I can feel something inside the Ember," he said at last. "It's… calling me."
Zira straightened slightly, eyes narrowing. "Calling how?"
"Not in words. More like… pressure. Heat. Like it's trying to show me something."
She stepped closer. "You sure it's not another overload? You almost torched your own bones two nights ago."
"No," Kael replied. "This is different."
He closed his eyes. His breathing slowed, and the world around him seemed to slip away, swallowed in flame.
_____
*Within the Ember Core*
There was no gravity only drifting light and coiling flame. Kael floated in an infinite space of ember-hued mist and swirling memory. Shapes moved in the distance, not quite voices, not quite echoes, fragments of a forgotten life.
Then a shard of light surged forward and pierced his mind.
*_A memory._*
Kael was a child again, maybe twelve, knees scraped, clothes dusty. He stood at the edge of a broken ridge, looking down into a churning Rift. Purple lightning sparked within it, crackling against a shattered sky.
Someone held his hand.
He turned and saw her, a young girl, barely eight. Auburn hair tied back in uneven knots, big eyes glowing with mischief and fear.
"Kael, we shouldn't be here…" she whispered.
Lira. His sister.
He remembered her laughter now, how she used to mimic the birds they saw from the rooftops, how she drew stars on his arm with charcoal during blackout nights.
In the memory, a sudden screech ripped through the air and Riftspawn burst through the breach in reality.
Kael screamed her name. He tried to reach her but light erupted from the Rift, searing everything into a blur of fire and shadows.
Then,
Darkness.
_____
*Back in the present*
Kael gasped as he staggered back to the real world, collapsing to one knee. Fire swirled briefly around him before fading into dim heat.
Zira was beside him in an instant, her blade half-drawn. "What was that?"
He looked up, eyes wide. "I saw her. My sister, Lira. She was there, right before the Rift opened."
"You remember her?"
He nodded slowly. "Not everything. Just that moment. The Ember showed me."
Zira let her hand fall from her weapon. "That's not something it's supposed to do."
Kael exhaled, still trembling. "Then it's doing what it's not supposed to."
He looked down at his hand, flame crackling harmlessly between his fingers. "There's more in here. More memories. I think they're locked inside the Ember. Shards of who I was before the accident… before the seal."
Zira looked away, her jaw tense. "Memory shards like that? You'll find them in Rift zones, the deep ones. Places where time bends and the veil thins. Not exactly vacation spots."
"I need to find them," Kael said. "If my sister is still out there or if the Ember knows where she is, I have to keep going."
Zira gave him a long look. Then she nodded once. "Alright. We do this together. But next time, no solo fire-trips into memory space without telling me."
He managed a faint smile. "Deal."
_____
*Elsewhere, Deep Chambers of Emberpath Temple*
Shao Jinzhen knelt in meditation, the incense burner glowing with blue light in front of him. He felt the shift in Kael's Ember the moment it happened, like a door unlocking within a burning library.
"The boy has awakened a shard," Jinzhen murmured.
He opened his eyes slowly, gazing toward the higher chambers.
"The Ember is not a weapon. It is a key. And now that it has started unlocking what was hidden…"
He rose, voice solemn.
"…the past will burn its way forward."