The moment Ashwan stepped down from the Flame Throne, the floor beneath them shifted—not with tremors, but with a low harmonic hum. A section of the stone dais receded, revealing a glowing spiral staircase leading beneath the tower.
The tower hadn't revealed everything.
It was only beginning.
Ruvana looked down the stairs warily. "You sure you want to walk into a glowing pit after being crowned by a talking flame throne?"
Ashwan's voice was calm but sure. "The tower is alive with memory. And memory is buried."
---
The descent was long and quiet.
Yalini lit the way with a flame orb, but the staircase lit itself the farther they went—runes glowing golden on the walls, etching Tamil verses with every step they took. The deeper they went, the warmer the air became. Not uncomfortable—but sacred. Like entering the heart of a temple.
Finally, they reached the Heartchamber.
It was a vast underground vault, circular, lined with crystalline mirrors that shimmered with images—living memories of past Flamekeepers: warriors, monks, smiths, women crowned in fire, children wielding suns.
In the center of the chamber stood a massive forge—dormant, silent.
But beside it lay a sealed altar of flameglass, its contents covered in a molten lock. As Ashwan approached, the lock melted away. The altar opened.
Inside rested two relics:
1. The Mantle of the Flamekeeper – a cloak woven of prayer-threads and fire-resistant mythcloth, once worn by the original defenders of the Vel Covenant. Its seams glowed with living flame glyphs, responding to the wearer's breath and will.
2. A forgotten weapon – not the Vel spear, but something older.
A twin-bladed staff, carved from a phoenix bone core and tempered with the very flame of the First Epoch. Runes spiraled across its shaft, written in a dialect not spoken in Vayundhara for a thousand years.
Ashwan reached out and gripped the weapon.
A pulse surged through him—memories not his own flooding in: battlefields where fire met void, temples where silence bowed to sacrifice, chants in tongues lost to time.
He dropped to one knee, gasping.
Agniyan's voice echoed faintly in his soul:
> "The Throne does not gift weapons for war…
…but for balance."
---
When Ashwan rose, the team could feel the change.
Ruvana stepped back, her hand resting near her blade but not drawing it. "You don't feel like a man anymore," she muttered. "You feel like… a beacon."
Ashwan didn't reply immediately. He tested the weapon in his hands. The flames curled around it, not consuming it, but dancing with it.
"This is not meant to conquer," he said. "It's meant to remind.
Of what we were. And what we can be again."
Yalini bowed. Not ceremonially—but reverently.
"We should return to the Veil," she said. "With this… the people will know the stories were true. They'll believe again."
Thyrol snorted. "And the Clans will see us coming and start screaming."
Ashwan finally smiled.
"Let them scream."
---
That night, as the team camped at the threshold of the Mist Ring, Ashwan sat alone, meditating with the twin-bladed staff across his lap.
Above him, the clouds began to part.
For the first time in decades, a single star was visible in the night sky.
And somewhere far to the east, in the halls of the Clanscourge Dominion, a war priest tore open a blood scroll and cursed.
> "The last of the Thrones has reawakened.
The Keeper walks.
Begin the second incursion."