In the ashes of old vows,A new flame is born.Not to destroy.But to remember.
—Excerpt from the Oath of Emberborn
✦ ✦ ✦
When I woke the next morning, the world hadn't ended.
No firestorms.No magical tribunals.No Headmistress breaking down my door with a suppression squad.
Just silence.And the faint scent of ash on my skin.
The sigils on my palms were still there—burned-in, permanent now.
And every time I blinked, I saw gold behind my eyelids.
Power, yes.
But something more, too.
Legacy.
Riven was already awake.
She handed me tea like it was medicine and sat cross-legged on my desk.
"So," she said flatly, "are we Queen of the Fire Cult now?"
I blinked. "…Kinda?"
"Define 'kinda.'"
"They made me the Arbiter of the Reforged Pact."
"Okay, but in normal-people language?"
"I think I'm the one who decides how the Emberborn's power gets used now."
She paused.
"Oh gods, they gave you jurisdiction. That's worse than a crown."
✦ ✦ ✦
Word spread fast.
No one said it aloud. But they felt it.
The change.
The professors gave me nervous glances.
The Headmistress summoned me but didn't question me.
Just… watched. Eyes unreadable. Words measured.
"Magic shifts sometimes, Miss Wren. Like tides. Like wildfires."
"The old tide just came back," I told her.
She didn't argue.
Just let me leave.
Later that day, someone slipped a scroll into my locker.
Old parchment. No name.
A single line:
"Fire doesn't just destroy. It reveals."
✦ ✦ ✦
At dusk, I returned to the Vault of Virel—the place this all began.
Alone, this time.
The doors opened for me without a spell.
Inside, the air shimmered with memory. The ashes of the old Emberborn's scroll still glowed faintly.
I walked to the center and spoke aloud:
"You were erased."
"But I remember you now."
I knelt, burned a strand of my hair into the brazier, and whispered the vow I hadn't known I'd been carrying in my bones:
"Let the flame burn not for war, but for truth. Let no child be broken to silence power. Let those who burn… burn bright and free."
The fire rose.
A new sigil etched itself into the Vault's floor.
And I knew—
This was no longer the place where the Emberborn ended.
This was where they began again.
✦ ✦ ✦
Back in the dorm, Riven handed me a sealed envelope.
"No return sigil," she said. "But you'll want to read it."
Inside was an old page.
Worn, folded at the edges. In the same hand as the note from the Masked One.
It read:
To the new Flamebearer—There are others. Hidden. Waiting. Some afraid. Some forgotten. You are the first, but not the last.They will need your fire to find their own.Be ready.
Signed only:
V.
And so it begins.