The fires of the Hollow Awakening still smoldered in the bones of Virehall. Smoke curled through alleys and across shattered banners, a reminder that the old world had cracked—but not yet collapsed. What had begun as whispers of rebellion had grown into something vast and living. Now, the city stood between two heartbeats: the echo of what had been, and the thrum of what could come next.
Lira stood at the threshold of the new citadel—less a palace and more a sanctuary of emberglass and shadowsteel. It had risen quickly from the ruins of the old high temple, not as a seat of power but as a place to hold its absence. Windows were open to the wind. The walls hummed softly with heat. Runes etched into the foundation whispered not of conquest, but of memory.
She traced her fingers along one such rune. It glowed faintly beneath her touch, not with flame, but with something deeper. Familiar.
"It remembers me," she murmured.
Behind her, Arion stepped into the chamber. He carried a scroll, and a frown.
"The Accord is growing faster than we can teach," he said. "Some are slipping through the cracks. There was an incident near the Iron Market. A flare—two buildings scorched. No injuries, but the merchant guild is screaming for sanctions."
Lira sighed. "They fear what they can't tax."
"They fear what they can't control."
She looked out across the horizon. A storm brewed there, thick and silver, circling like a vulture. The Hollow Awakening had burned away illusions, but it had also lit a beacon. Others were coming. Not just the awakened, but the exiled, the broken, and the dangerous. And something else. Something that watched her in her sleep.
Kael arrived with a grim expression. His coat was charred at the edges, and his blade bore scorch marks not his own.
"Trouble?" she asked.
"Worse. They're organizing. Someone's stoking fear in the outer rings. Preaching purity. Obedience. Calling for the gods to return."
Arion muttered a curse. "Let me guess: black robes, bone tokens, too many teeth?"
"The Ash Choir," Kael confirmed.
Lira felt it then—a deep pulse in her bones, like an old drumbeat. The Choir was more than a cult. It was a wound with a voice, a hymn stitched together from forgotten rites and righteous cruelty. They didn't want to rebuild the old world. They wanted to burn everything that refused to bow.
"They'll come here," she said quietly.
"Yes."
She nodded once. "Then we meet them. Not with fear. Not with fire. But with truth."
That night, Lira sat by the Dreamspire's hearth, where the veil between sleep and magic grew thin. She closed her eyes and slipped into the in-between. There, the stars moved like thoughts. There, the gods lingered, wounded and watching.
She saw Aelira again. Not in flame. But in chains.
"Why do you still wear them?" Lira asked.
Aelira smiled sadly. "Because I forgot how to be free."
Lira stepped forward. The chains burned away.
And when she woke, her hands were glowing.
She didn't hide them.
She called a gathering.
The new court assembled at dawn. Not lords and nobles. Not priests and generals. But farmers. Merchants. Orphans. Firebearers. Windcallers. Shadowbinders. People who had nothing, and then woke.
Lira stood before them without crown or blade.
"This is not about me," she said. "This is about us. We were told we were broken. Cursed. Damned. We are not. We are the storm that survived. The fire that remembers. The truth that refuses to kneel."
Voices rose. Not in worship, but in agreement. In promise.
And from the highest tower of the Emberspire, flames rose into the sky—not wild, not wrathful, but steady. A signal.
The world was watching.
And now, it would listen.