The final stronghold wasn't a fortress.
It was a garden.
Hidden within a chasm etched by ancient tears, it bloomed with white blossoms that bore the names of every flamekeeper who'd fallen in silence—twice remembered, twice mourned.
They called it Toren's Grove, though none remembered who Toren had been.
At its center stood the Last Lantern, a tree wrought from silver bones and molten gold. Its branches burned without fuel, and its roots hummed with the names of the still-unfound.
But the garden trembled now.
And Amira felt the tremor in her bones as she approached—crown reforged, flame kindled in both light and sorrow.
Taru met her at the gate. His face was gaunt, streaked with dried ash and memory.
"You brought it," he said. Not as a question.
Amira nodded.
"The crown must burn," he continued. "Before they come."
She looked beyond him—toward the hill where the Last Lantern stood—and saw Elias, sitting in its shadow. Silent. Still.
Alive.
But not unchanged.
She rushed forward, falling to her knees beside him.
"Elias?"
He opened his eyes.
They blazed blue-white, and behind them danced a thousand names—some she knew. Some that would never be spoken aloud again.
"I held it too long," he whispered. "It doesn't want to be let go."
"What does?"
"The Hollow Light."
He raised his palm. Floating above it, flickering weakly, was the last remnant of the temple's core. "It's not flame," he said. "It's memory… unforgiven."
Behind them, the sky cracked.
A horn sounded—deep and hollow—like it had echoed across centuries to reach them.
Taru drew his blade. "They've come."
The Masked Flame descended like a storm.
No army. Just seven.
Seven figures wrapped in tattered robes, faces covered in pure white masks with no eyeholes. They did not walk—they glided, their feet never touching the names beneath the blossoms.
And at their center stood the Architect.
No longer masked.
His face was smooth as marble. Ageless. Inhuman.
And his voice—when it came—was gentle, almost kind.
"We are the forgotten.
You left us in the dark.
So we bring the dark… to bloom again."
He raised one hand—and the blossoms of the garden burst into blue flame.
Names screamed.
Taru charged. The seven surged to meet him.
Amira turned to Elias.
"You know what we have to do."
He nodded.
Together, they rose.
Amira lifted the reforged crown—the last union of hollow light and ancient flame—and placed it over her lantern.
The moment it clicked into place, a wind surged outward. Blossoms extinguished mid-burn.
The Architect staggered.
And Elias—his eyes now full of memory and flame—raised his voice:
"The forgotten are not yours to command.
They are ours to honor."
And from the roots of the Last Lantern, names rose—thousands of them.
Ghosts, yes. But not lost.
Not broken.
Lanternbearers.
They surged forward—not as wraiths, but as guardians, bearing blades of light and memory.
The Masked Flame faltered.
And for the first time, the Architect looked… uncertain.
Amira raised her hand.
"Let the forgotten speak."
And the Garden of Names Burned Twice erupted in song.