The Emberspire loomed like a monument to forgotten gods—an obsidian tower rising from the heart of a scorched crater, its spires aflame with unnatural light. The closer they drew, the more the land bent toward it, as though all things were being pulled into its orbit. The very air trembled, thick with anticipation and old power.
They made camp on a jagged ridge overlooking the valley below. The crater that housed the Spire had no natural formation. It was a scar—left by something ancient and terrible. Fire still bled from fissures in the ground, whispering secrets in tongues Ember almost recognized.
"This place was once the heart of the Flame," Niall murmured, kneeling by a smoking glyph etched into black stone. "Before the Circle. Before the Wars. Before the lies."
Orin scanned the crater with narrowed eyes. "And now it's their fortress."
"No," Ember said quietly. "It's their prison. They think they hold the Flame's truth locked away. But the truth is… it's been waiting for someone to set it free."
As night fell, torchlight flickered at the Spire's base—figures in ceremonial ash-grey emerged. But they didn't approach in force. Instead, they formed a circle around the Spire, chanting low and slow, like a heartbeat.
Lysra frowned. "They're summoning something."
"No," Ember replied, her eyes locked on the tower. "They're preparing. They believe I'm the one who will light the world's final flame."
Orin's hand went to his sword. "Then we prove them wrong."
Before they could descend, a figure stepped from the darkness behind them—robed in ember-red, eyes glowing with a familiar fire. Ember turned sharply, hand raised—
But the figure bowed.
"I bring no threat," he said. "Only a warning. I am Kaelen, last of the original Flameborn. I walked the path before you. And I failed."
The firelight danced across his scarred face as he met Ember's eyes.
"The Spire feeds on your certainty. It will offer you the world. The power to heal… or to burn everything clean. You'll be tempted. And if you're not ready, you won't walk out whole."
Ember's flame flared at her shoulders, steady but quiet.
"Then it's time I find out if I truly am what they fear… or what they hoped."