The ruins still smoked.
The Reaper's broken frame lay in the clearing, limbs crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut. But its last words lingered in the night air, more haunting than the firestorm it had unleashed.
"He's waiting... with the Phoenix."
Amina stood unmoving, eyes still glowing faintly with golden fire. The burst of power she'd drawn on—Amariel's legacy—had nearly consumed her. She could feel the echo of it fading now, but it had left something behind: knowledge.
Not full memories. Not yet. But impressions. Sensations.
Fear. Flame. A winged shadow rising over ash.
Kai approached cautiously. "You saw it, didn't you? The Phoenix."
Amina nodded, still watching the dead Reaper. "It wasn't just a construct. It was a warning. A message from Var."
Valec spat to the side, blood trailing from a cut above his brow. "Then let him wait. We won't come quietly."
"No," Amina said. "We'll walk into the fire—and burn it from the inside."
---
The Next Day – The Frost Line
They moved north. The world changed with every step—heat giving way to brittle winds, forests replaced by jagged, wind-scoured rock. The Frost Line was where fire met its oldest enemy: stillness. Cold that devoured heat, time, and memory alike.
They rode in silence. Tarin, now fully awake and growing stronger, seemed less childlike. His eyes—once wide with wonder—were now sharp, shadowed. The Flame in him had begun to whisper. Not loudly, not yet—but enough that even Kai noticed.
"He doesn't sleep anymore," Kai murmured as they rode. "He just listens. Like something's speaking through the cracks in the world."
Valec scowled. "Then we need to reach the Cradle before the Phoenix does. Before Tarin becomes something else."
Amina didn't reply. But her fingers kept brushing the edge of the relic Amariel had left her—a shard of crystal flame that pulsed when they neared sacred ground. It was glowing now.
---
Nightfall – On the Cradle's Edge
The Cradle was not what they expected.
No soaring citadel. No ancient forge.
Just a circle of stones on a glacier, half-buried in ice, the sky rippling above it like torn cloth. But the moment Amina stepped onto the circle, the ice cracked open.
And it rose.
Not a tower. Not a weapon.
But a flame egg—golden, enormous, suspended in midair by beams of fire-forged metal that arced like ribs around it. Symbols glowed along each support, shifting languages—Flame, Old Tongue, and something older still.
Tarin fell to his knees. "It's alive…"
Valec stared. "The Phoenix. It hasn't been summoned—it's being born."
Kai's voice was dry with fear. "And if Var finishes the ritual, it will awaken as his."
---
A tremor raced through the ice.
Amina turned just in time to see the air split open in a gash of red flame.
Out stepped Ashen Var.
He looked unchanged—tall, calm, silver eyes gleaming like razors. But his aura… it crushed the world around him. Even the ice recoiled.
"Hello, Amina," he said softly. "I see you brought the boy. Good. The Phoenix requires a tether."
Valec stepped forward. "Over my dead—"
A gesture from Var sent him flying into the glacier wall.
Amina summoned her flame, stepping in front of Tarin. "You won't touch him."
Ashen Var smiled.
"I already have."
With a flick of his fingers, the phoenix egg cracked.
Fire poured out—not just heat, but sound, screams, history—the war of the First Flame, the sacrifice of Amariel, the death of the twin cities. Tarin clutched his head, screaming.
Kai threw knives of wind and shadow—but they turned to ash midair.
Amina lunged.
Their flames collided—hers blue and gold, his deep crimson. The Cradle trembled beneath the weight of it. But Var was no longer human. He was fire wrapped in form, old as the Seals themselves.
"You are strong," he said, gripping her wrist mid-strike. "But you are incomplete."
"I have Amariel's fire."
He leaned in, whispering: "Then why can't you remember the day you killed her?"
The world froze.
And Amina—burning, breathless—remembered.
---
Memoryflash – The Citadel of Ash
She stood over Amariel's broken body.
Flame writhing in her hands.
Ashen Var laughing behind her.
"You did this," she whispered.
But Amariel's voice echoed from the past: "No. You chose this path, Amina. You always did."
---
Back in the present, Amina staggered.
Tarin rose to his feet.
And his eyes were no longer his own.
They burned white.
He opened his mouth—and a voice older than time echoed from it.
"The Phoenix is born. The world must burn to begin anew."