The gate closed behind them with a shudder like a mountain sighing.
Duncan stepped into the Ironwild mountain, where no torch had burned in over a century. The air was thick with heat—not the wild, lashing kind of battlefire, but the slow, relentless warmth of something ancient and waiting.
The passage ahead sloped down in winding spirals, the walls black but veined with faintly glowing threads of emberlight. Each step echoed—not in sound, but in memory. Duncan could feel it pulsing against his skin, whispering in his blood.
They weren't alone in here.
The First Beast walked beside him, low and silent. Mora Vale followed, blades sheathed but her gaze sharp. Kaurn the Warden remained at the rear, his massive bulk brushing against the stone roof.
The silence grew thicker the deeper they went.
And then they saw it.
The Cradle of Fire
The corridor opened into a chamber vast enough to hold a fortress.
At its center lay a lake of molten ember—suspended in a crater of obsidian glass. Around its rim stood broken statues: beast, man, and something between. Many were headless. Others wept molten tears.
On the far side of the chamber, an altar of stone still stood, uncracked by time. A blade rested upon it, glowing softly.
Duncan's heart twisted.
It was the twin to his Emberblade.
Older.
Rawer.
And waiting.
The First Beast paused, ears flat. >"This is where the fire was first bound. This is where it lied."
"Lied?" Duncan asked.
"The fire never chose sides. Man did."
The Sentinel Speaks
Before Duncan could move closer, the ember lake churned.
A figure rose.
Not flesh. Not beast. Not even spirit.
It was memory, given form—woven of smoke, fire, and voice.
Tall. Robed in flame. Its face was Duncan's… but older, wearier, cracked with ash and age.
"I knew you'd come," it said.
Mora Vale reached for her blade, but Duncan raised a hand. "What are you?"
"I am what your blood forgot," the figure said. "What your grandfather tried to bury. What the Dominion tried to burn."
It gestured toward the altar. "That blade was forged from truth. Yours from loyalty. Only one can rule fire."
Duncan stepped forward. "I don't want to rule it."
The figure tilted its head. "Then you might be the first."
Trial of the Flameborn
The lake pulsed, and the chamber dimmed.
Duncan was flung backward—not physically, but inward.
He stood again in memory, this time beside his grandfather, Aldric Voss, as flames roared around them. Aldric held the twin blades—one in each hand—facing down a council of beastlords and human kings.
"I will unite them," Aldric declared. "Through flame. Through discipline."
"You will enslave them," a beastlord snarled.
"I will protect them."
"You will rule them."
And then Aldric made his choice.
He cast one blade into the lake.
And bound the fire to only one side.
The Forgotten Blade
Duncan awoke with a gasp, back in the chamber.
The glowing blade on the altar seemed heavier now—not in weight, but in meaning.
He reached out and touched it.
Pain lanced through him—not from the steel, but from the memories etched into it.
He saw the beast kings betrayed. The councils shattered. The treaties ignored. He saw his own bloodline rise on a tide of stolen power.
And still… he lifted the blade.
He did not burn.
Two Flames, One Oath
The new blade flared to life in Duncan's hand—its flame white, not orange.
It did not hunger.
It remembered.
He turned to the ember-forged figure.
"I'll carry both blades," Duncan said. "The one that remembers loyalty, and the one that remembers betrayal. Not as weapons… but as warnings."
The figure smiled faintly.
"Then you are ready."
The lake calmed. The fire no longer burned in rage—but in purpose.
Behind him, Mora Vale and the others stepped forward.
"What did you find?" she asked.
Duncan looked back at the altar, at the statues, at the ancient weight now etched into his soul.
"Not just the heart of flame," he said.
"The heart of why it all broke."