Chapter 28
The world had long believed in sevens.
Seven flames.Seven seals.Seven Lords who shaped the pact between gods and mortals.
But sevens were a lie.
A veil.
A containment strategy.
Because long before the first gate was carved into the fabric of reality—Before the Sealing War, before the Scorched Crown—
There was an eighth name.
A name not written.
A name not spoken.
A name buried alive in the bones of creation.
And now… it was waking.
Eliendara stood at the mouth of the Eldraen Wastes, body still hot with borrowed power, her thoughts no longer quiet.
They whispered to her.
Old voices.
"Breaker.""Unmaker.""Flame-born who turned backward."
Kael watched her carefully from a distance, unsure how much of the woman beside him was still herself.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
Eliendara turned.
Her eyes shimmered with gold-and-crimson. Her voice was layered—hers, and someone else's.
"I feel like I'm wearing myself," she said.
Kael stepped closer. "What does the crown want?"
She looked up at the sky, then down at her hands.
"It wants me to remember."
And just like that—
The ground cracked beneath her feet.
Dark-red symbols erupted around her—burning lines like ancient ink igniting for the first time in centuries.
Kael shouted her name, rushing forward—
But a pulse of heat pushed him back. Not aggressive. Just protective.
Eliendara wasn't falling.
She was descending.
Into herself.
A spiral of time.
She saw visions—
A woman with black flame for hair, laughing as gods bled from their eyes.A man with no face, writing runes into the sky itself.A child born inside a star, screaming before she breathed.
And then—herself.
Standing before the First Gate.
Alone.
Holding the eighth name in her mouth.
And choosing not to speak it.
"You chose silence," said a voice within her."But the world chose chains."
She stood in the center of the memory.
The eighth name—still unsaid—burned behind her teeth.
If she said it, the gates would fall.All of them.Forever.
Power. Chaos. Freedom. Ruin.
"Say it," the voice urged. "Say it and become what they feared."
But then—
Another voice whispered from the edges of her soul.
Kael's.
"Don't lose the part of you that bled to be free."
Her hand trembled.
Torn between godhood and girlhood.
Between vengeance and memory.
Between crown and soul.
And in that moment—
She spoke.
But not the eighth name.
Her own.
"Eliendara."
The name echoed through the visions, through the gates, through the cracks of fate.
The burning lines faded.
The voices silenced.
And she opened her eyes.
Kael was there, arms catching her as she stumbled.
"You're still you," he whispered.
She nodded once, weary, trembling, but intact.
"I remember it," she said. "I know the name. I know what it can do."
He looked at her carefully. "Are you going to say it?"
Eliendara looked at the horizon—where the sky had begun to bleed violet again.
"No," she said.
"Not yet."
🔮 Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 29: The Silent War
Though the eighth name sleeps again, others have sensed its stir.
Across the continent, secret orders awaken.A faction of unsealed mages begins to rise.And deep in the Vault of Hollow Ash—
Thorne opens his eyes.
Alive.Changed.And not alone.