---
The Flameborn knelt in silence.
Its molten body shimmered with shifting runes, and every breath it took hissed like a forge roaring to life. The others behind it—lesser, more warped—hovered like shadows waiting to fall, but none moved.
None dared.
Riven stepped forward.
The pendant around his neck pulsed with warmth, steady now. Like it recognized this place. Like it recognized them.
"Your name," he said, voice even. "Say it again."
The giant's head lifted. Beneath the helmet of glowing iron, a furnace of orange flame blazed.
> "Igniveth," it rumbled.
The name vibrated through the stone beneath them.
Riven's fingers twitched near his sword hilt. "You served the flame my father bound."
> "I am that flame," Igniveth replied. "Fragmented. Bound. Forgotten. But still burning."
---
Kael muttered, "We sure he's not going to incinerate us?"
"Not yet," Liora answered without blinking. "He's listening."
Lyra stayed still, but her hand rested just above her throwing blade.
Riven ignored them all.
He took another step toward the towering figure. "You swore to protect me."
> "No," Igniveth corrected. "I swore to test you. To judge if you were worthy of the fire you carry."
The runes on its chest flared. The lesser Flameborn growled low.
Riven's brows narrowed. "So my father made a deal, and still you built a trial around it?"
> "Pacts do not guarantee worth. Only survival."
> "The blood kept you hidden. But fire demands forging."
---
The temperature rose.
The air shimmered with heat, yet Riven didn't step back. Sweat gathered at his brow, but his feet remained planted in the cracked marble of the ruined library chamber.
> "You seek answers," Igniveth continued. "But fire reveals nothing. It purifies. Memory is a shadow. Pain is a forge."
> "Step forward, heir of ash. And burn."
---
Riven didn't hesitate.
He walked through the rising flames.
The others shouted—Lyra's voice sharp, Kael swearing, Liora calling his name—but the fire didn't touch them. It only circled him, pulling inward like a storm collapsing into itself.
He stepped past the Flameborn.
Into a wall of heat.
And vanished.
---
What he saw wasn't a place.
It was a crucible.
A chamber of fire and memory where sound blurred and vision split. Echoes of the past flared like sparks across molten air.
> His mother's voice, gentle in lullaby.
His father's hand on his shoulder.
Seris whispering beneath moonlight.
A scream—his own—as something ancient entered his soul.
Then came the voice—not Igniveth's, but something deeper.
Older.
> "You carry the flame, but you do not yet own it."
> "You are shaped, not forged."
> "To wield the crown of shadows, you must accept the fire beneath it."
---
Riven fell to his knees.
The heat seared his thoughts.
Visions crashed through him. A city in ruin. A tower falling. His hands soaked in blood—not from battle, but betrayal.
He saw Lyra turning away.
Kael lying broken beneath a shattered Seal.
And Seris standing over him, hand outstretched.
> "All fire burns eventually, Riven. Even you."
---
He screamed.
But the fire did not stop.
---
Outside the chamber, the others waited. Lyra paced restlessly. "It's been too long."
Kael's knuckles were white. "He should've come back by now."
Liora was still kneeling, her hands pressed to the scorched floor, chanting under her breath.
"Stop that," Kael snapped.
She didn't.
But she opened her eyes.
"He's not in danger. He's being… unmade."
---
Inside, Riven rose.
His skin was scorched, but not broken.
His eyes burned—not with flame, but with clarity.
He saw now.
What the fire was.
Not a gift.
A test.
---
He stepped forward.
And emerged from the fire.
The runes faded. The heat vanished. And the library, for the first time in centuries, fell completely silent.
The Flameborn knelt again.
> "You did not burn."
Riven answered, voice hoarse. "No. I endured."
> "Then the Pact is fulfilled. The heir is forged."
Riven turned to the others.
"I'm ready."
---
Lyra reached for him, but stopped short.
His presence had changed.
Subtle—but unmistakable.
She saw it in the way his eyes held her gaze, steady and unblinking.
He wasn't harder.
He was clearer.
Like someone who had seen his own grave—and walked away.
---
That night, by the flickering campfire outside Valenhold, no one spoke for a long time.
Then Kael broke the silence. "So. You're part fire god now?"
Riven smirked faintly. "Just the part that refuses to die."
Kael raised his cup. "I'll drink to that."
Lyra didn't laugh.
She sat beside Riven quietly.
Then, softly: "I thought I lost you today."
"You didn't," he said.
"Feels like I did."
Riven looked at her, voice barely above the wind.
"I lost myself a long time ago, Lyra. I'm just starting to find the pieces again."
---
Far across the continent, in the Eclipse sanctum, Seris woke from a restless dream.
She walked to her mirror.
But this time, no image came.
Just smoke.
And for the first time in years—
She frowned.
> "The forge awakens…"
> "And the crown begins to resist."
---