Obsidian Hall was a place whispered about in corridors and scoffed at in daylight—a storage wing turned detention ground, long abandoned, long sealed. Yet today, under a sky choked with stormclouds, we walked its twisted corridor.
Riven held the flame, guiding us between splintered doorframes and cracked stone walls.
"You sure this is the right place?" she asked.
"It's where the Chronicle said they'd meet." My fingers tightened around the book.
We reached the chamber. Burned candles lined a circle on the floor—fresh. Someone had been here recently.
Then, voices.
Out from the shadows stepped a girl with copper-braided hair and burn scars coiling like vines up her left arm. Elina Flamewood. She said nothing—just looked at me, then at the ring.
Behind her, a tall boy with ash-gray skin and ember-colored eyes. Asher. He nodded.
"The Flame has chosen again," Elina said. "Welcome, Elira of Hollowhearth."
Riven blinked. "You know her?"
"We know of her," Asher corrected. "The ring calls to all who once bore its fire. You woke it. Now we answer."
One by one, they emerged. Tara and Felix, twins with opposite-colored eyes. Sabine, older than the rest of us, draped in potion-soaked robes. Dorian, his face half-hidden behind conjured shadow.
We stood in silence until I stepped into the circle.
"I don't know what I'm doing," I admitted. "But something's coming. I saw it. Felt it."
Sabine raised a brow. "Then we teach you. Before the flame dies again."
The circle sealed itself in crimson light. And for the first time in centuries, the Hidden Emberborn stood united.