## CHAPTER 84: _"The Heart of the First Flame"_
Arien stood at the edge of the glass cliffs of Isalven, where the sky churned like black oil and the stars blinked like dying embers. The wind howled with voices not his own—old kings, ancient mages, forgotten lovers. He didn't flinch. Not anymore.
Beside him, Lysia knelt. Her hands were bloody, not from battle—but from truth. She'd seen what lay beyond the veil. She'd faced the Mirror of Never.
"It's here," she whispered. "The place where the curse was born."
Before them stood a tower made of bones and obsidian, buried in the mountain's core. Fire spiraled around it, not as flame but as memory. Each flicker carried a name, a face, a regret.
"Are you ready?" Arien asked.
Lysia looked up, tears burning her cheeks. "If we open the gate, we can't close it again."
He took her hand. "Then we walk through together."
They stepped inside.
The first chamber was the Hall of Echoes. Voices from their pasts screamed—mother's lullabies turned into war cries, childhood laughter twisted into sobs. Arien staggered as his father's voice called him a coward. Lysia covered her ears as her dead sister begged her to let go.
The second chamber bled time. They walked through versions of themselves—young, old, broken, victorious, dead. One version of Arien lay on the floor, crown shattered, heart in hand. One Lysia was dressed in black scales, eyes glowing with godhood.
"We've lived this a thousand times," Arien said.
"But this is the last one," she replied.
The final chamber held the flame.
It was not fire. It was alive.
A heart, suspended in the air, beating slowly.
"The First Flame," Lysia breathed. "This is the source."
She stepped forward, but the flame recoiled. A voice thundered: "Only the broken may touch me."
Arien stepped forward. "Then we both qualify."
The heart pulsed. A trial began.
The floor split, and each was thrown into their own trial.
Arien faced his guilt—his mother's death, his exile, the lives lost because he loved. Shadows of those he failed surrounded him.
"You are not fit to be king," one shadow said.
"I never wanted to be," Arien replied. "I only wanted to save her."
He raised his sword—not to fight, but to lay it down.
The shadows vanished.
Lysia faced her fear.
A mirror rose before her. In it, she was the curse—her eyes wild, hands dripping with death.
"You ruin what you love," the mirror spat.
"I do," she whispered. "But I still choose to love."
The mirror cracked.
And the flame called them both.
Together, they approached it.
"You must give something," the voice said.
Arien offered his crown.
Lysia offered her name.
"From this moment forward," she said, "we are not what they made us."
The flame accepted.
It consumed the tower.
Outside, the skies shifted.
In Elira, the Widow Queen screamed as her blade of sorrow shattered.
The Bonescribes caught fire.
And the curse began to break.
But deep below, something stirred.
The gods were waking.
And they were starving.