The stair wound downward through red stone and echo. Each step hummed faintly under Yuj's boots, as if the mountain itself were listening.
Kaen walked ahead, the torch in his hand burning a calm, pale blue. It didn't hiss or spit like normal fire; it breathed. Shadows slid away from it as if they were afraid of being catalogued.
"Do you ever talk?" Yuj asked after a long silence.
"When necessary," Kaen said without turning.
"That explains a lot," Yuj muttered. The echo threw his voice back at him twice, the second time smaller.
The passage opened into a cavern ribbed with old supports—stone half-melted, metal grown black and glassy. Symbols glowed faintly along the walls: spirals, eyes, flame sigils half-erased by time.
Alaric's voice echoed in Yuj's head. Find your fuel before it finds you.
He tightened the ribbon on his wrist and looked at the others. Two more students trailed behind: a thin boy named Dren with fingers that twitched like they were counting spells, and a girl called Mira who carried a small lantern carved from dragon bone. Their nervousness filled the air like humidity.
"First trial chamber should be beyond that arch," Kaen said. His calm was the kind that made other people want to shout.
Yuj crouched, running his hand over the ground. The dust here wasn't just ash; it shimmered faintly green in the torchlight.
"Life residue," he murmured. "Old magic."
"Fire and life again," Kaen said. "Convenient theme."
Yuj almost smiled. "Maybe the gods ran out of ideas."
The archway ahead breathed out heat. It was a slow pulse, like the heart of something too large to be awake but not quite asleep. The runes around the frame flickered red, then gold, then settled into a steady glow as Kaen raised his torch.
"This is it," Mira whispered. "The Ember Ruins."
Dren swallowed loudly. "They say this place burned for a hundred years."
"They exaggerate," Kaen said. "Eighty at most."
Yuj looked at him. "That was a joke?"
Kaen ignored him, which was also an answer.
They stepped through.
The chamber inside was vast. Lava had once run through it like veins, leaving frozen waves of crimson glass. At the center stood a stone platform covered in symbols—the trial mark. The moment Yuj's boot touched it, the sigils lit like breathing coals.
"Trial of fuel," a voice boomed from nowhere and everywhere. "Feed the flame, or be forgotten."
Mira gasped. Dren raised his hands, murmuring a spell, but nothing happened. The air thickened. From the edges of the platform, sparks lifted—dozens, hundreds—forming figures of light and ash. Fire wraiths, thin as smoke, wearing faces that changed every heartbeat.
"They look like—people," Mira whispered.
"Memories," Yuj said, already feeling the heat under his skin answer them. "They burn what you carry."
Kaen drew a small knife. "Then carry less."
The first wraith lunged. Kaen moved like geometry, precise and ruthless, his blue flame slicing through the creature and leaving frost where fire should have been. The thing screamed soundlessly and shattered into sparks.
Yuj turned, palms open, calling heat without calling destruction. Fire gathered—reluctant at first, then eager, licking along his arms like dogs finding their master again. He swept his hands outward. The air bloomed with red light. The wraiths dissolved before they touched him.
The others joined in: Mira's lantern flared gold, Dren's runes formed cages of light. For a breath, the chamber blazed with four colors—red, blue, gold, white—dancing against the black.
Then silence.
The voice returned, softer this time. "Balance the fuel. Or the flame will choose for you."
The light dimmed. The wraiths were gone. Only the trial mark remained, pulsing faintly like a heart beneath the stone.
Kaen exhaled, a line of frost forming on the edge of his knife. "Lesson?"
Yuj wiped sweat from his brow. "Don't let fire pick the menu."
Dren laughed too loudly, half hysteria, half relief. Mira smiled just enough to prove she still could.
They started toward the far corridor when a tremor rolled through the ground—gentle first, then deep. The torchlight shook. Dust fell from the ceiling in thin threads.
Kaen froze. "That wasn't part of the test."
Yuj felt the mark on his chest burn again, a single pulse answering something below. Beneath the stone, a second heartbeat replied—slow, massive, alive.
He met Kaen's eyes. "We woke something."
"Then we catalogued wrong," Kaen said.
Another tremor. The tunnel ahead cracked, a slit of red light bleeding through.
"Move!" Yuj shouted.
They ran as the chamber behind them roared to life, the air turning liquid with heat. The walls glowed. Runes ignited. Something old was remembering its name.
They dove through the corridor as the entrance sealed behind them in a surge of molten glass.
Darkness. Breath. Heartbeats.
Kaen's torch guttered, then steadied, flame pale and furious.
Yuj looked back at the sealed wall, its surface cooling into a perfect mirror. For an instant he thought he saw petals moving inside it—green, faint, patient.
He pressed his hand to the stone. It was warm. It was alive.
Yun?
No answer—only a whisper that might have been the wind, or memory.
He turned. "We keep going."
Kaen nodded once. "Forward. Always forward."
The corridor breathed heat and promise ahead of them. The mountain waited.