The Shrouded Fen loomed like a half-forgotten nightmare.
By midday, the sky had faded into a dim, perpetual dusk. Mist coiled between twisted willows, and the ground beneath Ember's boots sank with every step. The silence was not peaceful—it was watching.
No birds. No insects. Only the squelch of boots and the hiss of breath.
Lysra broke the silence. "I've seen cursed places. This one feels like it chose to forget itself."
Kaelen nodded grimly. "That's what makes it dangerous. Places that forget themselves don't play by the world's rules anymore."
Ember felt the First Flame inside her dim slightly, as if shielding itself. But another sensation curled beneath that—tugging. A resonance. One of the sparks was close, hiding somewhere in the thick of the Fen.
They crossed fallen bridges, passed through groves of glass-leafed trees that reflected faces not their own, and crossed paths with illusions that tried to whisper old regrets into their ears. Ember's voice cut through the lies every time, grounded by the Flame.
By nightfall, they found it: a ruin, barely standing, cloaked in thorns and overgrown with dark moss. At its center, a stone altar hummed faintly, etched with flame runes that shimmered at Ember's presence.
But they weren't alone.
A figure stepped from the mists beyond the altar. Cloaked in blackened bark and bone, his eyes burned with the twisted echo of Flame.
Kaelen drew his blade. "An Echo-born."
The creature's voice dripped like oil. "You should not have come. The spark here does not seek reunion. It chose freedom. And it chose me."
Ember stepped forward, letting her flame rise. "It was stolen. Just like everything else the Circle broke."
"You think you're here to mend the world?" The Echo-born sneered. "You carry the same flame that shattered it. You carry the same lie."
And with that, he raised his hand, and the ground split open, revealing tendrils of rot-bound flame—twisted, corrupted. A false ember, pulsing like a diseased heart.
The spark had been poisoned.
But Ember didn't flinch.
"I don't just carry the flame," she said. "I choose how it burns."