The horn's echo rippled through the air like a physical force, shaking the shattered spires of Lithris. It wasn't just a sound—it was a summons, ancient and absolute. Every stone seemed to remember it. Every breath of wind carried its dread.
Kai was the first to speak.
"The Red March only sounds when the Old Flame stirs. The last time was during the Sundering War."
Valec's hand tightened on his sword. "And every nation lost something sacred in that war."
Amina stared toward the horizon, where the blood-colored clouds thickened and rolled like an approaching tide. She could feel it now—deep beneath her ribs—a slow, seismic shift in the world's balance. The seals had broken. Tarin's freedom had started something.
No, unleashed something.
Tarin stirred in her arms. His voice was small, barely more than a whisper. "It's waking up. The core flame. The thing under the roots."
Kai went pale. "The Deep Pyre."
Valec stepped forward, cloak snapping in the wind. "We have to move. Now. If the Deep Pyre has begun to rise, the other Flamebound relics will activate. And the Red Circle won't wait—they'll strike first."
Amina nodded. "Then we head north. To the Cradle."
They moved quickly, taking the hidden road through the emberwoods—a place where time itself seemed caught between decay and regrowth. Trees with silver bark and molten leaves leaned in as they passed. Whispers of Amariel's legacy drifted through the air.
Tarin, though weakened, was stronger than any of them expected. He walked beside Amina, eyes bright with questions. But she noticed the way his gaze would occasionally fix on a space no one else could see—his tether to the Flame hadn't broken. It had… evolved.
"What's the Cradle?" he asked as they paused for water.
Kai answered, rubbing soot from his sleeves. "It's the birthplace of the first Flamekeepers. Where the Flame was bound to mortal will. It's where Amariel made her last stand."
Tarin frowned. "Why go back there?"
Amina looked up at the blazing sky. "Because that's where the final Seal rests. And I think Ashen Var plans to break it."
Valec returned from scouting ahead, face grim. "He's not alone. I saw smoke on the ridgeline. Red banners."
Kai swore. "The Circle is already there."
Amina stood, fire pulsing beneath her skin. "Then we'll burn our way through."
That night, they camped at the edge of an old temple ruin. Amina kept watch, her eyes fixed on the crackling flames of their small fire. Tarin slept peacefully for the first time, curled beside Kai. Valec sat opposite her, sharpening his blade with slow, deliberate strokes.
"You felt it, didn't you?" he asked.
She nodded. "When the horn sounded, it wasn't just a call. It was… a signal. The Flame isn't just waking. It's choosing sides."
Valec stopped sharpening. "And which side do you think we're on?"
Amina met his eyes. "The one that doesn't want the world to burn."
He nodded slowly, the shadows playing across his scarred features. "You're different, Amina. Since Lithris."
"Tarin changed something in me. Or maybe he reminded me of what I was meant to be."
"And what's that?"
She looked back at the fire. "A bridge. Between the Flame and the flesh."
Before Valec could answer, the ground trembled. Not a quake—something else. Footsteps.
Massive ones.
A screech cut the night—a sound made of rust and fury. The trees bent away from it.
And then it emerged.
A titan.
Not of stone or steel, but of fire-bonded bone, draped in war-cloth stitched from ember-thread. Eyes like twin suns glared down at them. On its forehead, branded deep into the skull, was the mark of the Red Circle.
Kai stood slowly. "That's not just a construct…"
Valec drew his blade. "It's a Flame Reaper."
Amina rose, heat crackling off her skin. "And it's hunting us."
The Reaper lunged.
Flame exploded as Amina met its strike head-on, blue fire clashing with red in a thunderous collision that shook the ruins. Tarin awoke, screaming—not in fear, but in shared memory. He knew this thing. It had once stood over the bodies of hundreds.
Kai flung knives laced with wind, slicing through the Reaper's cloth armor. Valec leapt high, slashing at its knees with surgical precision.
But the Reaper healed too fast. Every strike they landed was met with another surge of flame-fed regeneration.
Amina clenched her fists and summoned her deeper power—not the raw blue fire, but something older. Wiser.
She stepped into the Reaper's strike and vanished in a burst of golden light—
—then reappeared above it, flame wings spreading from her back.
She was Amariel's echo. And she would not fall here.
With a cry, she dove down, driving her hand into the Reaper's skull.
A flare of memory burst outward—images, screams, fire, Ashen Var binding souls into war-frames.
And then, silence.
The Reaper crumpled.
But in the silence, a whisper remained:
"He knows you're coming. And he's waiting... with the Phoenix."