The wind howled across the plains like a warning. Dust danced in violent spirals, and the horizon rippled with heat and ash. Amina moved swiftly, her golden robes stained with the journey's grime, her mind a battlefield of questions with no clear answers.
Each step closer to Valec felt like stepping deeper into a storm that wasn't just weather—it was prophecy, pain, power, and fate all colliding.
Suddenly, the ground trembled beneath her feet—not the kind that came from within the tomb, but from something far more massive. The mountain beyond the valley split slightly, its peak shuddering.
And from its dark hollow mouth…
A voice.
Low. Drawn. Almost broken.
"Amina…"
She froze.
Her name was whispered, but it carried like a scream across dimensions. She wasn't imagining it. Something—or someone—was calling her. Not just Valec. Not just the darkness. Something older. Something buried.
A burst of flame erupted in the sky ahead, spiraling downward like a meteor. When it hit the earth, a shockwave rippled through her bones. A crater smoldered in the distance, and from its heart rose a figure cloaked in living fire.
Not Valec.
Not a beast.
But a Throne Warden—one of the long-lost celestial guardians sworn to protect the balance between light and flame.
Its voice echoed without lips.
"You carry Amariel's flame. Yet the balance has fractured. Why?"
Amina gritted her teeth. "Because Valec broke it. Because you all abandoned us."
The Warden's flames flared.
"You misunderstand. We were bound—sealed by Amariel herself. She feared what would come if we acted too soon."
Amina took a step forward. "Then you know where Valec is?"
The Warden's burning eyes met hers.
"He approaches the Hollow Throne. If he reclaims it, all realms will burn. Not just this one."
Amina's heart thundered. The Hollow Throne… the seat of unrestrained flame. If Valec sat upon it with rage in his soul, not even the sky would survive.
"Then stop him!" she cried.
But the Warden shook his head.
"Only the Flameborn may challenge him now. You. You must go. Alone."
A gust of heat and light slammed into her, searing her skin but feeding her power. A mark—Amariel's ancient crest—burned across her collarbone, illuminating the truth of what she was becoming.
She wasn't just her own self anymore. She was a convergence. A culmination. A reckoning.
And then, with one final blaze, the Warden vanished.
Amina stood in the crater alone.
Then a voice—Valec's voice—soft and unrecognizable, brushed her ear like wind:
"I never wanted to be your enemy…"
Her breath caught.
He knew she was coming.
She looked toward the east, where the Hollow Throne rose like a jagged crown in the distance, and whispered to herself:
"Then why are you still choosing to be?"
She turned her back to the crater and ran—toward the throne, toward the flame, toward whatever end was meant for them.
But in the shadows behind her, something stirred—something neither flame nor shadow, but both.
Watching.
Waiting.
And smiling.