The storm had passed, but the echoes of battle still rang through the broken halls of Duskwatch.
Smoke drifted from scorched stone. Bodies—both enemy and ally—lay strewn across bloodied floors. The once-impenetrable fortress now stood fractured, its bones bared to the sky.
Elyra stood at the heart of it all, the Emberheart pulsing faintly beneath her ribs.
The fused flame was quiet now—too quiet.
Kael stirred beside her, leaning heavily on his spear. The silver fire that struck him had left more than just a burn; it had left a mark. One Elyra couldn't yet understand.
"We need to get out," he said, voice low.
She nodded, but her eyes lingered on the spot where Velcrin had vanished.
Silver embers still glowed faintly on the floor, flickering like dying stars.
A single thought echoed in her mind:
He wasn't lying.
They returned to Astralis as dusk painted the sky.
The city welcomed them with cheers, weeping, and war horns—but Elyra felt none of it.
She stood before the Council of Flame later that night, flanked by Kael and Captain Thorne, her armor still singed, her expression unreadable.
"So," Grand Seer Malric said, fingers steepled. "Velcrin is dead?"
Elyra hesitated.
"No," she said. "We struck him. But he… vanished."
The chamber shifted with murmurs.
"He claimed to be the first Flamekeeper," she continued. "That the Flame was once whole. And that our Seers divided it out of fear."
Malric's expression darkened. "Lies. Velcrin was a usurper. A tyrant."
"Are you sure?" Elyra asked. "He wielded silver fire. Something older than any of us."
The Seers exchanged glances.
"Silver flame is a myth," one scoffed. "A symbol, not a power."
But Elyra said nothing more. She'd seen it. Felt it. And deep inside her chest, the Emberheart agreed.
Later, in the privacy of Kael's chambers, Elyra stared into the fire.
"Do you believe it?" Kael asked.
"I don't know what to believe," she murmured. "But something changed when I fought him. The fused flame… it's restless. It's showing me things."
"Visions?"
"Memories," she whispered. "Of another time. Another war."
She looked up at him. "I think the Flame remembers what we've forgotten."
Kael was silent for a long moment, then reached beneath his tunic.
He pulled out a shard of crystal, faintly glowing silver—the remnant of Velcrin's last strike.
"It stayed with me," he said. "I… I think it wants me to see something too."
Elyra reached for it.
The moment her fingers touched the shard, the world shifted.
She stood not in Kael's chamber, but in a vast chamber of stone and starlight.
Before her, a figure in silver robes raised a flame that was both fire and memory.
Velcrin, younger, unscarred.
Behind him stood two others—a woman crowned in gold, and a man wreathed in darkness.
They stood in unity. In balance.
And then—splintering. Fire clashing with silence. Light breaking into fragments.
The Flame shattered.
Elyra gasped and fell backward.
Kael caught her.
"What did you see?"
"Truth," she whispered. "Velcrin was the Flamekeeper. But he wasn't alone. There were others."
She met his eyes. "The Flame wasn't meant to be a weapon. It was meant to balance."
Over the next few days, Astralis celebrated victory—but cracks had formed beneath the surface.
The Council denied Velcrin's claims publicly, yet in private, Elyra found herself watched more closely. Her bond with the fused Flame, once revered, now stirred unease.
She began training alone, testing its limits.
Some nights, the fire turned silver. Other nights, it whispered names she didn't know.
And each time, she saw the same image:
Three thrones. One missing.
One… calling to her.
---
Kael trained with her often, though he too had changed. The silver shard he kept glowed brighter each day. And once, in a sparring match, it flared—and Kael disappeared for a heartbeat, only to reappear behind her.
"You blinked," Elyra said, stunned.
"I didn't mean to."
"You moved through the Flame."
He looked shaken. "What's happening to us?"
"I think," she said slowly, "we're becoming what the Flame remembers."
---
Then, late one night, a message arrived.
An outpost near the Shrouded Vale had fallen.
But there were no signs of attackers.
Only a symbol burned into the ground—a serpent and a phoenix, entwined.
Velcrin's legacy had not ended.
It had begun again.