The wind howled through the broken spires of Emberthorn Academy.
I stood at the edge of the collapsed battlement, cloak flaring behind me, the ring pulsing faintly against my skin. Below, the shattered courtyard glowed with the remnants of the Circle's spell—a weave of fire, shadow, and memory that had just barely held back the Ashborn assault.
Behind me, the others regrouped. Riven, her braid undone and bleeding from her brow, barked orders while Felix traced new runes with trembling hands. Dorian stood still as a statue, his conjured barrier flickering around the wounded. The price had been high—but we were still breathing.
The sky crackled with distant thunder. Not natural. A summoning storm. The kind conjured by something ancient waking up.
"We don't have long," Sabine muttered, stepping beside me. Her robes were torn, singed black. "The wards won't hold through another wave."
I nodded, but my eyes stayed on the courtyard below.
They weren't just attacking randomly anymore. They were looking for something.
Or someone.
Me.
My hand hovered over the Chronicle of the Emberborn, now bound to me like a second heart. The moment I touched its charred cover, warmth flared up my arm—familiar now, almost comforting. I had read it enough to know what came next.
"The Flame remembers," I whispered.
Sabine glanced at me, her expression unreadable. "Then let it speak."
In the shadow of the Tower Wing, we gathered. The Circle. Bruised, burned, but still whole.
I opened the Chronicle and turned to the page that had appeared just that morning—one that hadn't existed until I dreamed of it.
The Last Trial comes when the Emberborn stops running.
When the flame stops fearing what it once consumed.
Only then will it reveal its true shape.
I looked at each of them in turn.
Elina, her eyes steady as embers in snow.
Asher, silent, but resolute.
Riven, angry at everything and ready to fight again.
Tara and Felix, shoulder to shoulder, afraid but standing.
Sabine. Dorian. Myself.
"I know what the Echo of Ash is trying to do now," I said, voice low. "It's not just here to destroy. It's trying to rewrite the fire."
Asher frowned. "Rewrite?"
"It's using broken memories. Warped fragments. It's burning away truth and replacing it with fear." I looked down at my ring. "It wants to erase what the flame used to be."
Sabine exhaled slowly. "So what do we do?"
I lifted the Chronicle.
"We give the flame its memories back."
We lit the fire at the center of Obsidian Hall, where it all began.
A memory flame, fueled not by magic—but by story.
Each of us stepped forward, and with trembling voices, we spoke the truths the flame had lost.
Riven told of her first casting—how her mother wept not with pride, but with fear.
Asher remembered his brother, consumed in a conjured blaze he couldn't control.
Sabine spoke of betrayal—of a friend who turned away when her power grew too wild.
Felix confessed his nightmares, where he saw the twins burn in place of the world.
And I—
I spoke of Hollowhearth.
Of the firestorm.
Of standing alone in a crater of ash, not remembering how I survived.
Of believing, for years, that I had killed them all.
The flame swelled.
The walls glowed with sigils I'd never seen before—old magic, ancient as bone.
And then—
The Chronicle burned.
Not into ash, but into light.
From its center, a figure rose.
Not human. Not quite spirit.
A woman wreathed in robes of fire and smoke, her face half-remembered from dreams.
She looked like me.
Or maybe who I'd become.
Flamebearer, she said, her voice echoing in our chests, you have remembered what the world forgot.
Now, it will remember you.
When the vision faded, the fire had changed. It no longer burned red-gold, but deep, soul-lit violet. Something sacred. Something whole.
The Circle stood in silence.
I turned to them, the new flame dancing in my palm.
"No more hiding," I said.
"No more forgetting."
The war wasn't over.
But for the first time since the fire chose me—
I didn't feel afraid.
I felt ready.