Wren fell.
Not downward. Not toward a floor or a death. He fell inward, the Rootspire peeling him away from time and space and reshaping memory into a corridor of flame.
There was no sound. Only heat, dry and absolute, that sucked the moisture from his throat before he could cry out. The walls around him were neither stone nor wood. They were flesh, scorched to black, veins of molten thought glowing through them like cracked glass.
[SYSTEM INTERVENTION]
Subject: WREN
Designation: Heir of the Ember Accord
Trial Type: Dormant Covenant Awakening
Objective: Endure the Echo of Flame
Modifiers Active: Memory Suppression (Post-Trial), Cognitive Distortion, Burn Pattern Reintegration
Wren blinked slowly, his lashes brittle with ash.
He remembered this smell. It was not fire. Not truly. It was the aftermath. The burn of betrayal. The rot of sacred oaths turned to kindling.
A voice slithered into the space behind his eyes.
"You returned. I wondered if you would."
Wren turned.
The corridor had shifted. He now stood at the threshold of a great hall. Not grand in size, but in silence. Black banners hung from cracked pillars, their symbols burned away. At the center of the room stood a man, or something that had once been a man, shrouded in layered crimson robes. His face was hidden beneath a mask of bronze. Flames danced along his fingertips in measured pulses.
Wren's breath hitched. Not from fear. From memory.
"You are not supposed to be here," he said.
The flame mage tilted his head. His mask caught the ambient light like molten gold.
"And yet, here you are. Again."
The System whispered again.
[Connection Reestablished: Prime Ember Construct - Subject: Wren]
Bloodline Linkage: Confirmed
Covenant Thread: 87 Percent Recovered
Initiating Trial Protocol Override
The floor erupted with glyphs, each one a twisting symbol Wren could not read but somehow understood. The temperature surged. His skin blistered, healed, then blistered again in rhythm with each breath.
"You left us," the flame mage said. "You abandoned the Accord. Let the embers die."
Wren clenched his jaw. His voice came out rough and low.
"I was a child. You made me a weapon."
"You were chosen," the flame mage corrected. "The fire does not pick at random."
The hall transformed. Fire ate the walls. Pillars crumbled into ash mid-fall. And still the mage stood, untouched, watching Wren as if waiting for him to break.
Flames erupted around Wren's feet. The heat did not sear. It judged. A status screen flickered before his vision.
[STATUS UPDATE: SUBSUMED CLASS MEMORY REACTIVATED]
Title: Scorchbound Initiate (Severed)
Perk Reinstated: Ashward Flame (Locked)
Passive Triggered: Kindling Resilience
System Error: Memory Seal Detected. Suppression Incomplete
The words stung more than the heat.
He remembered none of this. And yet it knew his name.
"Show me," Wren said.
The flames obeyed.
The world bent inward. Images burst from the heat like spirits from a broken seal. Children, robed in red, stood in a circle around a stone altar. A blade of ember-glass rested atop it. Wren saw himself, younger, thinner, eyes wild with wonder and fear. He remembered this day.
The Binding.
One of the children screamed. Another fell. Wren's younger self remained standing as the flame mage approached, fingers slick with ritual ash.
"You accepted the mark before you understood its price," the mage said from beside him.
"I didn't have a choice."
"Choice is a fire. You either control it or it devours you."
The illusion shattered. Wren stood alone once more.
The flame mage raised a hand.
"Trial Two," he intoned.
A wave of fire surged from all directions, crashing over Wren like a tidal scream. His body locked. Skin peeled. Eyes burned dry. But the System caught him before death.
[Trial Commencing: Reconciliation of the Severed Flame]
Secondary Objective: Accept the Forgotten Name
The room transformed into a throne chamber.
At its center, a blackened chair sat empty. Etched along its arms were names, some long dead, others struck through. The top name, unburned, was his.
Wren did not move toward it.
"You've always belonged here," the flame mage said, appearing behind him.
"I don't want this."
"But it wants you."
Something stirred behind the throne.
A figure emerged, not made of flesh or shadow, but of raw System code. Living flame shaped into humanoid form. It spoke without lips.
"You are a splinter."
"I left for a reason."
"Then why do you burn?"
The voice felt like Wren's own. But twisted. Deeper. It laughed without sound.
"Because I was made to."
The System surged.
[INTEGRATION HALTED]
Memory Seal Maintained per Subject Directive
Trial Threshold Reached: 98 Percent
User Override Initiated
The flame mage turned away.
"You came close this time. Perhaps next you will remember."
Wren staggered.
"Why show me any of this if I'm going to forget it?"
The fire flickered around the mage's hands.
"So you know what you fear. Even if you don't know why."
The floor cracked.
[TRIAL COMPLETE]
System Memory Repression Active
Status Effects: Burned, Disoriented, Fractured Recall
Skill Unlocked: Cinder Reflex (Passive)
Flame Affinity: Reignited
The trial unraveled. The throne turned to ash. The corridor stretched backward, swallowing all light. The flame mage remained, a silhouette wrapped in knowing.
Wren fell again.
This time, he landed on stone.
His hands trembled. His eyes scanned the chamber, no longer firelit but shadowed and quiet. He could not remember how he got there.
Footsteps echoed.
Riven emerged from the dark, one hand braced against the wall, the other gripping his blade. Kaelen appeared behind him, frost clinging faintly to their shoulders. All three were worn, ash-covered, and silent.
None spoke of what they had seen.
Wren leaned back against the Rootspire's inner wall. He tried to remember the fire. He knew it had burned. He knew something had been said. Something important.
It was gone.
"You held," Kaelen said softly, though whether it was to Riven or Wren was unclear.
"Barely," Riven muttered. "It showed me the ones I failed."
Kaelen did not respond.
Wren just closed his eyes.
Far above, the flame mage watched.
The molten pool rippled. Wren's face flickered and vanished. Riven's trial had already passed through the fire's lens. Kaelen's frostlight was dimming.
"He forgets more cleanly each time," the mage said.
His companion crouched beside the pool, layered in bone and cloth.
"Is that what you want?"
The mage did not answer.
The pool went still.
And the next floor began to form.