The night sky wept ash instead of stars.
Boots moved through the charred remains of Southwatch, but the rebellion did not crawl. It surged. Quiet rage, barely contained beneath cloaks and armor, echoed in every step. Elira led them, the sigil on her palm glowing with a steady pulse—as if the Flame itself guided her toward the heart of their reckoning.
Auren rode beside her, his expression unreadable beneath his hood. The wounds he carried were deeper than flesh. Like her, he had seen too many pyres in too little time.
They crossed the ruined fields at dawn. No banners. No horns. Only the weight of their silence and the fire in their eyes.
> "You should rest," Auren said quietly.
> "And dream of the ones I failed?" Elira answered, not unkindly. "No. I'd rather stay awake."
He nodded. There was no comfort left in words.
Behind them, hundreds followed—some limping, some bloodstained, all changed. The Embermoor scouts. The Blackroot bladesingers. Survivors of the Southwatch flames. And from the north, new banners joined—carrying the ancient mark of a phoenix wrapped in thorns.
> "The last sanctuary answered your call," Mira said, appearing at Elira's side like smoke.
> "Even after what happened here?" Elira asked.
Mira tilted her head. Her white eyes shone with quiet certainty.
> "Especially after."
They traveled through forgotten roads and shadowed woods. The land itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting. Elira felt it in her bones—a tension, an unraveling, as if something ancient stirred beneath the soil of Ilyras.
On the third night, the wind shifted. A cold, unnatural current that set the fire-sigil on her collarbone burning.
> "They know," Elira said. "The Crown. The Obsidian Order. They're waiting for us."
> "Then we let them wait in fear," Auren replied.
But fear was already reaching them.
Scouts began returning with strange reports—towns emptied without signs of struggle. Animals slaughtered and left untouched. Roads salted in silence. And in one village, they found a symbol carved into the stone: a broken crown wreathed in void.
The Obsidian Order was not idle.
They were watching. Preparing.
Waiting to strike where it hurt most.
Elira stood that night beside the fire, staring at the map laid across a stone altar. Her fingers hovered above the capital's mark: Solgard. The city where kings were made. Where queens were crowned. Where the fire was first betrayed.
> "We won't be able to sneak in," Auren said behind her. "They'll be expecting us."
> "Then we don't sneak," she whispered. "We blaze."
He frowned. "What are you thinking?"
> "A symbol," she said. "We strike at the outer gates by daylight. Let the whole kingdom see the fire return."
> "It'll cost us."
> "So did waiting."
She traced the sigil carved on her sword, her voice soft but unshaking.
> "Let them see what their silence has ignited."
As the army prepared to move, thunder rumbled in the distance—not from the sky, but from the gates of Solgard awakening.
The Crown was stirring.
And so was something else.
In the shadows between torchlight and dawn, a flicker moved—black and glistening, like obsidian come to life. A scout screamed, then fell silent. When Elira reached the body, no wound was visible—only a mark burned into the chest: a spiral of flame curled inward, as if trying to consume itself.
Mira stood over the body.
> "This is not magic," she said. "This is a curse that remembers its maker."
Elira clenched her jaw.
> "Then let's remind them of who we are."
---
They marched for Solgard by moonlight.
No more hiding. No more waiting.
The fire was no longer a whisper.
It was a war cry