Dawn came quietly, though the world was far from still.
Clouds hung low over the horizon, a ceiling of bruised colour and broken light. Reven stood atop the ridge, eyes fixed on the narrow valley that sloped into shadow ahead. In the distance, rising like a blade from the earth, the Iron Spire cut the sky into halves.
It wasn't metal in the traditional sense. It was darker—old-world alloy fused with stone and wire, stretched impossibly tall, veined with rusted heat lines and embedded with what looked like bone. A monument built by machines and madness. A scar, frozen upright.
Kaela stood beside him, quiet. She hadn't spoken since they broke camp.
Lirien circled overhead, wings tracing long arcs across the thin air. Kaelex stood behind them, hands folded behind her back, her posture rigid—too still to be comfortable.
"The Spire was the first site to fall," she said. "Before Emberfall. Before the Collapse. It wasn't destroyed in war. It was… shut down. From within."
Reven glanced back. "How do you know that?"
"I was trained here. Before they sealed it."
Kaela's brow furrowed. "So you've seen what's inside."
Kaelex hesitated. "No one sees the Spire. It sees you."
The words hung heavy in the cold morning air.
The path narrowed as they descended. The terrain was scarred—glass veins laced the rock beneath their boots, and the surrounding ridges pulsed faintly with residual charge. No wildlife. No wind. Just pressure, as though the land itself was holding its breath.
At the base, the entrance loomed.
Two massive doors, warped but intact, carved with a script none of them recognized. The moment Reven stepped close, the Flamecore at his side pulsed.
And the doors opened.
Not with fanfare. Not with sound.
Just a release of tension. As if something inside had grown tired of waiting.
Kaela drew her blade. "It's too quiet."
"It's listening," Kaelex said.
Lirien dropped beside them. "Then let's not make it wait."
They entered.
The Spire's interior was colder than the air outside.
Not by temperature—but by feeling. The walls were seamless, smooth, and humming. Light crawled across the floor in segmented paths, reacting to their presence. Symbols flared and died with every step.
Reven's breath frosted in the air.
Kaela whispered, "This place is awake."
"Not awake," Kaelex replied. "Alive."
The corridor curved inward, drawing them into the centre like a spiral pulled tight. At its heart, they reached a chamber.
It opened like a cathedral. The ceiling arched high above, ribs of metal twisted with vine-like cables. In the centre: a dais. And on it—
A body.
Suspended. Motionless.
Armor fused to flesh. A Core embedded in its chest, its glow dim and deep like an ember waiting for wind.
Reven stepped closer.
The figure's eyes were closed, but there was something ancient in its posture—something both regal and ruined. A crown of circuitry looped around its temples. Its hands were bound by memory chains, etched with lines of code far older than anything Reven had seen.
Kaela's voice was low. "Is that…"
"Yes," Kaelex said. "The First."
Lirien walked slowly around the platform. "The first Flameborn?"
"The prototype," Kaelex said. "Not a bearer. A source. The others were made from what was torn from him."
Reven felt his pulse rising. "And he's still alive?"
"His Core still breathes," Kaelex said. "But what's left of the mind… may not be."
Reven reached for the platform, but the moment his hand hovered over the Core, the chamber darkened.
A voice spoke—not from the walls, but from the air itself.
"Who carries my fire?"
Reven stood tall. "I do."
Silence.
Then: "Then burn with me."
The Core flared.
Light exploded.
Reven staggered back, the heat searing across his vision. Images slammed into his skull—whole lifetimes of pain, of transformation, of something worse than death: being preserved. Made eternal against one's will.
The First opened his eyes.
They were hollow.
Not dead. Not alive.
Trapped.
And Reven understood.
He didn't need to hear it said.
The First Flameborn hadn't survived.
He had been sacrificed.
When Reven finally opened his eyes again, he was on the floor.
Kaela knelt beside him, her hand on his chest. "You blacked out. Again."
"I saw him," Reven said. "What they did to him. What they took."
Kaelex stood across the chamber, silent.
Reven rose slowly, turning to the dais. The First hadn't moved.
But now, his Core pulsed in rhythm with Reven's.
"You're linked now," Kaelex said.
Reven nodded. "I carry part of him."
"You carry all of us."
Kaela looked to him, unreadable. "And where does that path lead?"
Reven stared into the hollow eyes of the First.
"To a fire we were never meant to survive."