The grove did not say goodbye.
As Elira stepped beyond the ring of glowing stones, the ember's warmth withdrew like a tide receding from the shore. The trees behind her returned to blackened stillness, no longer singing with fire-veins or whispering memory. The air chilled. Her breath came in visible clouds.
Only the faint imprint on her palm, a mark like a flame had once rested there, remained to remind her that the ember had chosen her.
The Kyren walked beside her in silence.
They climbed out of the ashlands, following a broken trail through frost-bitten roots and frost-laced ferns. The wind was sharp and real again. No longer filtered through emberdreams or memory-light. Here, the world resumed its slow, grinding rhythm. No glowing stones. No fire-shaped trees. Just rocks and snow and a sky the color of hammered steel.
"You'll feel it now," the Kyren said eventually.
Elira glanced at it. "Feel what?"
"The pull. The ember remembers its own. And those who've touched it, those who crave it will feel you. You are no longer hidden, Elira. You are a flare on the wind."
She shivered, not from the cold, but from understanding. "So that's it? Light the ember, and suddenly the world turns its eyes on me?"
"Yes," said the Kyren. "And not all of them will be eyes."
The trail narrowed. It dipped along a ridgeline with a view of the valley below. Distant forest stretched in waves of pine and frost. To the far west, beyond a range of frost-tipped hills, smoke drifted in the air. Faint, but real.
She stepped to the edge of the path. "A village?"
"Or a trap," the Kyren murmured.
Elira's fingers itched. The ember inside her was quiet for now, like an ember under ash but she could feel it pulse faintly, in rhythm with her heartbeat. A silent drumbeat.
"How do I stop drawing them?" she asked.
"You don't."
She turned sharply. "Then how do I fight them?"
The Kyren said nothing. Its silence was answer enough.
They made camp in a shallow cave before nightfall. Elira collected dry pine needles and old moss, and the Kyren offered no protest when she summoned a flame with her fingers. It flickered blue for a moment, emberlight, before she willed it orange and ordinary.
As the fire crackled, Elira stared into it.
"Why me?" she said, voice low. "Why not someone trained? Someone willing?"
The Kyren looked up from where it sat at the cave's mouth. "Because the ember does not choose the obedient. It chooses the possible."
She didn't respond. Somewhere far in the distance, an owl cried.
Then the wind shifted.
The Kyren's ears twitched.
And the boy stepped out of the forest.
He didn't make a sound. One moment the trees were empty. The next, he was there half-shadow, half-flame, his cloak dyed the red of fresh-cooled coals. His eyes were pale and strange, a soft gray veined with gold.
He didn't smile. He just watched her with the calm of someone who had waited a very long time to arrive.
"Elira of Emberwake," he said.
She rose to her feet, heart hammering. "Who are you?"
"My name is Kaelen. I felt you light the ember."
"You felt me?" she echoed.
He nodded. "We all did. Those of us touched by it. You sang to it in a forgotten place. That song traveled."
The Kyren stepped between them, fur bristling. "Be careful with your words, Kaelen. She has only just begun to learn."
Kaelen met the fox's gaze evenly. "So did we all. Once."
Elira studied him. He was older than her, but not by much. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. A scar curved just under his right eye, faint but deliberate, as if carved there as part of a rite. His boots were worn, and a crystal blade hung from his belt, sheathed in foxhide.
"What are you?" she asked.
Kaelen tilted his head slightly. "An emberdrawn. Like you."
"I'm not like you," she said. "I didn't ask for this."
"Neither did I." His voice held no anger, just a cold, quiet clarity. "But the fire doesn't wait for permission."
She hesitated. "Are you with the Sanctum?"
"No." The word was almost a laugh. "They would see me in chains."
The Kyren padded closer to Elira. "He speaks truth. But his truth is not yours. Yet."
Kaelen stepped back, letting the shadows gather around him again. "There are more of us. Across the world. Awakened by the ember's hunger. Some want peace. Some want power. Some want to watch it all burn."
"And you?" Elira asked.
"I want to know why it chose us," he said. "And what it will ask of us next."
He turned to leave.
"Wait," she called. "Where are you going?"
"To the Shardspire," he said without looking back. "There's someone there who remembers the ember before the Oaths. Before the Sanctum's cages."
"Why tell me?"
Kaelen paused, gaze sliding back toward her.
"Because you're louder than the rest of us. And if you don't learn to control that flame, the wrong people will follow it."
His words hung heavy.
Then he was gone, vanishing into the forest like smoke curling into stars.
That night, Elira dreamed of fire with wings, of great black birds streaking across the sky, their feathers trailing ash. Riders sat astride them, tall and silent, cloaked in flame-marked armor. Their eyes glowed behind silver masks.
In the dream, they did not speak. They hunted.
She awoke with a jolt, the ember pulsing wild beneath her ribs.
The Kyren sat beside the fire, eyes reflecting gold. "The pyre-birds are in flight."
She swallowed. "How long until they find me?"
The Kyren didn't blink. "Two nights. Maybe less."
Elira stared at the flame, and knew the chase had truly begun.