Lira stood on the shattered balcony of the Skyhold.
The sun was rising again—except it wasn't.
It hovered, hesitating, too still for nature.
And then it reversed.
Only for a moment.
But she saw it.
"The world is… glitching," Davin murmured beside her.
She didn't know what "glitching" meant. That was a word from Kaelen's tongue, from the old world of vaults and gears. But it was the right word.
Because something wasn't working.
Trees that had burned down a century ago were reappearing, half-formed, with leaves from different eras.
Birdsong echoed in the wrong order.
A child ran past them, speaking a dialect that hadn't been heard since the Third Age.
Worse still, the maps were changing.
One moment, the valley was below them.
The next, the sea.
Lira stumbled, clutching her chest.
The Flame pulsed violently within her.
Not with heat—but with disorientation.
And in her mind, she heard a single, terrifying realization:
The Flame is not an eternal light.
It is a record.
A memory.
And now that the world is remembering everything…
…it doesn't know what to believe.
The Flame showed her flashes.
Cities she'd never seen.
People who had died before she was born, now walking the streets again.
And in the heart of the chaos—
A mountain.
Not just any mountain.
The Mount of Origin.
The place where the Flame was first ignited.
Except… it wasn't supposed to exist anymore.
It had been erased by the Triune themselves.
And now?
It was back.
"Davin," she whispered, eyes wide, "if the past is rewriting itself—"
"Then so is the present."
"And the future?"
Davin didn't answer.
But the world did.
Because a moment later, the sky split.
Not with lightning.
With script.
Lines of ancient language unfurled across the clouds, forming symbols only the bearers could read.
They said:
THE WORLD REMEMBERS
WHAT IT WAS NOT MEANT TO KNOW
RESTORE BALANCE OR BE UNDONE
Then came the sound.
Not thunder.
Not war horns.
But a heartbeat.
Louder than stone.
Heavier than time.
And in the center of the heartbeat…
A figure descended the air above the Mount of Origin.
Tall. Dark-robed. Face obscured in flame.
Not one of the Triune.
Not a god.
Not even human.
Just Presence.
And the Flame inside Lira recoiled.
"That is the first fire," she whispered.
"No," said Davin. "That is what came before it."