Emberlynn didn't sleep that night.
Not because of the fire still humming beneath her skin, or the memory of a past life wrapped in black flame—but because of the way Malphas looked at her after the training.
Like he knew something she didn't.
Like the memory had awakened more than just a glimpse of her past.
She sat near the fire, her eyes unfocused, mind spiraling. Every flicker of the flame echoed that moment—the battlefield, the kneeling demon king, the woman with her face but not her name.
Why had Malphas sworn fealty?
And why did it feel like history was repeating itself?
"Still awake?" His voice broke the silence.
She turned. Malphas stepped out from behind a crooked pine tree, cloak fluttering like a shadow with purpose. The moonlight caught on the edges of his cheekbones, making him look more myth than man.
"You're not exactly the best lullaby," she said dryly.
A smirk. "Yet you stayed."
"I didn't have much choice."
"There's always a choice," he said, kneeling beside her. "You're free to walk away. But the Key won't let you forget."
She watched the flames. "You knew I'd see that memory. You wanted me to."
"I needed you to," he admitted. "There's a cost to awakening the Key. Memories resurface. Power follows. And so do the enemies that once hunted it."
Emberlynn narrowed her eyes. "Like the Watchers?"
"They were just pawns. There are worse things than cloaked fanatics."
He pulled something from beneath his coat—a long scroll bound in dark leather and sealed with red wax.
"This is the Pact," he said. "The old one. The one I swore on… long ago. When the Key was flesh and soul, not just a whisper in a girl's blood."
He unrolled it, revealing a faded script glowing faintly with crimson light. Emberlynn felt her heart squeeze. The symbols on the page twisted like they were alive—almost breathing.
"It's written in Infernal," Malphas said. "But it speaks to the Key inside you. Read it."
Emberlynn leaned forward, her fingers brushing the parchment. The letters shimmered.
By fire, flesh, and fury, the demon king bows.
To the Key Eternal, bearer of realms.
Bound in blood, broken in battle,
Let he who knelt rise only by her will.
A shudder passed through her. Her hand trembled.
"That… that was a vow."
"A binding one," Malphas said. "To her. To you. It's why I can't hurt you. Why I trained you. Why I need you."
"But it's not why you're using me," Emberlynn whispered, voice tight.
Malphas paused. "No. That's… a separate truth."
Her chest tightened. "You need my power. To fully return to what you were."
"Yes," he admitted, calm as still water. "I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I am a demon, Ember. I don't lie. But I won't take your power by force. I don't want to."
"You used to," she said bitterly.
His gaze met hers. "And I paid for it."
For a heartbeat, silence lingered.
Then Emberlynn stood. "So what now? More fire training? More near-death exercises?"
"No," Malphas said. "Something else. Something riskier."
He stood, sealing the scroll and sliding it back beneath his cloak. "There's a vault beneath the roots of this forest. Sealed with blood magic. Inside is something you need—something the past Key used to wield. A weapon that remembers her."
Emberlynn raised an eyebrow. "A sword?"
"No. Something far more dangerous."
The forest path twisted like a serpent, narrowing until the trees leaned close enough to whisper secrets. Malphas led her to a gnarled oak with roots as thick as Emberlynn's waist. At its base sat a hollow sealed with a slab of obsidian, veined with blood-red cracks.
"Stand here," he instructed.
She obeyed. Malphas stepped beside her, slicing his palm with a jagged silver dagger. The blood fell onto the stone.
It didn't drip.
It crawled.
The slab pulsed. Then it split with a hiss.
Dark stairs spiraled downward into the earth, into choking blackness.
"No torches?" she asked.
"The Key won't need light," he said cryptically.
Emberlynn's skin crawled, but she followed.
The vault was older than words.
Its walls were carved with shifting runes—living stories frozen mid-motion. Emberlynn's breath caught in her throat as she felt the room react to her. The temperature rose. Her fingertips tingled.
A pedestal stood at the center. Upon it sat a gauntlet.
Black steel.
Veined with fire.
Alive.
"What is it?" she asked.
Malphas stared at it like one might a wound that never healed.
"The Emberclaw," he said. "Forged from the bones of the first dragon and the blood of the first Key. It's not a weapon. It's a piece of you."
The moment she stepped forward, it snapped to life.
The gauntlet rose into the air and flew onto her hand, fusing with her skin like molten glass. Emberlynn cried out—but not in pain.
In power.
The fire within her screamed with joy.
Memories not hers surged forward—battles in the skies, firestorms over cities, laughter in the face of gods.
Malphas steadied her.
"You're not ready," he whispered. "But the Emberclaw doesn't care. It remembers you."
She looked at him, eyes burning like twin suns.
"And now the world will, too."
They emerged hours later. Emberlynn's arm still shimmered faintly under the fabric she wrapped around it. Every step felt heavier now—not from fatigue, but from weight. Responsibility. Power.
"You said this would draw enemies," she said.
"It will."
"Good," she whispered.
That night, as Emberlynn drifted off, a new figure watched her from the trees.
A woman draped in silver threads, with eyes like broken stars.
She whispered to the wind, and the flames in Emberlynn's camp flared.
"So the Key breathes again," the woman murmured. "Let the hunt begin."
Far above the forest, the stars shifted.
And something ancient stirred.