The sky tore like paper.
Amina could do nothing but stare as the Gates Beyond Flame fully opened. They weren't doors in the traditional sense—no hinges, no stone or metal—but rips in the very fabric of reality. Through them spilled something that defied name and shape: shifting voids draped in echoes, stars that bled backwards, creatures made of memory and bone-fire.
The Nameless Voice had called them.
And now, they came.
"Seal them," Ashar roared, already chanting ancient spells that lit the sky with gold runes. "We must seal them before they pass through!"
But even his power trembled. The protective lattice of sigils Lumeah had drawn weeks ago cracked and dimmed. She was unconscious now, collapsed at the edge of the battlefield. Only a faint shimmer of light flickered around her, her lifeforce dangerously faint.
Amina turned to Valec. "You've fought something like this before."
Valec's face was grim. "I've survived it before. There's a difference."
Kai staggered upright, the last threads of Hollow Flame energy still simmering under his skin. "We can't just stop it from the outside. The gates opened from within. We have to go inside."
Amina hesitated. "Inside that?"
Beyond the gates, time twisted and screamed. Worlds blinked into being only to vanish a second later. Shadows walked on oceans of stars.
But she knew he was right.
Amariel's flame had always spoken of balance—of cycles. If something had been invited in, something from their side had to be offered in return.
"I'll go," she said.
"No," Kai and Valec said together.
Amina glanced between them, surprised.
"I should go," Kai insisted. "It started in me. The corruption, the invitation—it's mine to undo."
Valec stepped between them. "You just got free. You throw yourself back into that, and we might lose you for good."
Amina exhaled slowly, then reached for both their hands. "Then we go together. If this is the end, then we meet it side by side."
The three of them stood united.
And stepped through.
It wasn't falling.
It wasn't flying.
It was becoming.
Passing through the Gates Beyond Flame was like being peeled open, soul first. Their thoughts became color, their memories became sound. Amina's childhood—running barefoot through sun-warmed grass—echoed through stars shaped like her mother's eyes. Kai's laughter became a storm. Valec's guilt stretched across galaxies.
But they held each other, and so they stayed whole.
The landscape shifted. They landed—not gently—in a chamber that seemed to exist inside a dream of fire. Infinite mirrors floated around them, reflecting versions of themselves that never were:
Amina as a tyrant, her fire black and cruel.
Kai fully consumed, the Hollow Flame reigning supreme.
Valec... kneeling before a throne of bones, Amariel at his feet, dead by his hand.
They didn't speak.
They understood.
"This is the Source," Kai whispered.
The Nameless Voice's presence emerged behind them, vast and coiled like a serpent made of sorrow. "You came willingly. Good. It makes the weaving cleaner."
Amina turned. "We're not here to be woven. We're here to stop you."
The Voice's laughter echoed like cracked glass. "You misunderstand. I am not your enemy. I am your future. All flame burns out. All light dies. I merely offer what comes after."
Valec stepped forward, drawing his blade again. "Then we refuse."
The Voice paused.
Then the mirrors shattered.
And they were no longer in the Source.
They stood in the remnants of Amariel's original sanctum—the one destroyed in the First Sundering. Her echoes hung in the walls like faded murals. And in the center, a throne of seared glass and soulstone.
Amina gasped.
Sitting on it—eyes closed, arms folded—was Amariel.
Not a memory.
Not a vision.
The real Amariel.
Her body was cracked with flame-lines. Her breathing was shallow.
"Impossible," Valec whispered. "You… you died."
Her eyes opened slowly.
And when she spoke, it was with three voices: Hers. Amina's. And something deeper.
"I am the Flame Eternal. And I've been waiting."
The Nameless Voice howled.
The chamber shook.
And Amariel stood.
Flames burst outward from her back like wings reborn. The throne behind her cracked. Her body pulsed with unbearable light.
"You let them in," she said, looking directly at the Voice. "Now we cast them out."
But before she could raise her hand—
The Nameless Voice struck.
A bolt of dark energy impaled her through the chest.
Amina screamed. "No!"
But Amariel only smiled, even as blood and fire ran down her robe.
"This time," she whispered, "I won't fall alone."