By morning, the Lanternspire had shed its silence.
Not with sound, but with motion. The wind that once circled in patient spirals now moved in restless bursts, carrying flecks of ash across the stone plains, whispering through broken archways like a language meant for no living ear. The ash didn't fall anymore—it climbed, twisting upward, forming shapes that never quite finished becoming anything at all.
Kael stood at the edge of their makeshift camp, cloak wrapped around his shoulders as he watched the horizon smolder. The earth was cracked where yesterday there had been a smooth slope, and the light—what little the Spire ever gave—now filtered down in beams far too precise to be natural. Like someone—or something—was aiming it.
Behind him, the others stirred slowly. Liora was still asleep, though not peacefully. Her brow furrowed, lips parting in whispers that never formed words. Her hand curled around the edge of her blanket like she was holding onto something precious—or bracing for something awful.
Wren had remained eerily still throughout the night. He hadn't slept, not really. He sat near the dying embers of the fire, chin resting on clasped fingers, eyes staring into the ash like he was trying to count each speck.
Kael finally turned from the horizon.
"We need to move," he said.
Wren didn't blink. "They're already here."
Kael froze. "What?"
Wren nodded toward the northern ridge—an ancient wall, half-buried in blackened vines and frost-slick stone. At first glance, it looked empty.
Then the ash shifted.
Figures emerged—not walking, not flying. Just arriving, as if their outlines had always been there, waiting to be noticed. They wore robes of deep rust and ivory, their faces hidden behind carved masks shaped like cracked porcelain. No eyes showed, only painted runes—spirals, sigils, sunbursts shattered down the center.
Seran rose swiftly, already at Kael's side. "Cindervigil," he said, voice low.
Kael's hand went to his blade. "Who?"
"Watchers of the Flame," Seran muttered. "Or what's left of them. They serve the old fires, the ones buried when the world split."
Liora stirred behind them. One of the figures turned toward her instantly, tilting its masked face slightly—like a hound catching scent of blood on wind.
"They've come for her," Kael growled.
"No," Seran said. "They've come to witness."
The lead figure raised a hand. Not in aggression. In invitation.
Kael stepped forward, sword still sheathed but ready. "State your purpose."
The figure didn't respond. Instead, it reached into its cloak and withdrew something small and radiant—an ember, no larger than a coin, burning with a silver light that pulsed in time with Kael's heartbeat.
It tossed the ember forward. It arced through the air, slow as snow, and landed in the ground between them.
The earth drank it.
Where it landed, a ring of runes erupted in flame, forming a perfect circle large enough to stand within. And then… the figure spoke—not with sound, but with a pressure in the air that bled straight into Kael's skull.
"She passed through the fire. The first in a hundred cycles. The oath must be remembered."
Liora stood now, barefoot and pale, but steady. "What oath?"
Another figure stepped forward. A taller one—feminine, maybe, or perhaps just more graceful. Her mask bore the sun shattered into three pieces, with one eye-shaped rune missing entirely.
She knelt in the dust and placed a hand on the ash. "That when the Cinderborn awakens, she shall speak with the heart of flame, and silence the fire that forgot its name."
The words rang with weight, but no one, not even Seran, seemed to understand them.
Kael's fingers twitched toward his hilt. "You think she's your prophecy?"
The first figure turned to him.
"We think nothing. We remember."
Liora stepped forward before Kael could stop her. Her eyes met the figure's mask, and though nothing visible shifted, the air around them softened slightly.
"I don't know what I am," she said quietly. "But I won't let anyone decide for me."
The robed figures remained still, unreadable.
And then—just as they had arrived—they turned and walked backward into the ashstorm, disappearing without a sound. The flame-circle remained, burning silently in the dust.
Seran stepped closer to it, studying the runes.
"They left a path," he said grimly. "Old trial. Not part of the Spire's normal route."
Kael frowned. "They want us to follow it?"
"They want her to follow it."
Liora stood beside the circle now. She didn't step in. She simply stared.
"I think I've seen this place before," she murmured. "In my dreams."
They made camp that night beside the burning ring. The wind shifted direction once again, now coming from the east. It carried scents of oil and lightning, and sounds like far-off whispers, half-submerged under the rustle of ashfall.
Kael couldn't sleep.
He walked the edge of their firelight, tracing the ridges of the Spire with his eyes. Every night here chipped away at something inside him—not just strength, but certainty. The land was old—older than war, older than prophecy, and it watched them with the quiet intensity of a god dreaming beneath a sea of sand.
Wren approached, silent as always.
"She's changing," he said.
Kael didn't look at him. "You mean Liora?"
"No. The Spire."
Kael turned now. "What do you mean?"
Wren tilted his head. "It's reacting. Not just to her power, but her choices. The Lanternspire was once a prison. Then a temple. Now? It's becoming something else. Something waiting for a name."
Kael exhaled slowly. "And what happens when it finds that name?"
Wren looked toward Liora's sleeping form. "Then the gods will wake up. And the sky will change."
The next morning, Liora stepped into the ring of fire.
No one stopped her.
The flame rose gently around her, not burning, but enclosing—a soft furnace of memory and light. Kael watched with clenched fists as the fire bent inward, swallowing her whole.
When it cleared, she was gone.
No trace. No sound. No scent.
Seran knelt, brushing the ash. "She's in the Ashdream."
Kael froze. "The what?"
"A place between thought and sky," Seran said. "Where the old bloodlines were tested. Where flame and mind separate, and what's left is either the heir… or the ashes."
Kael cursed under his breath. "How long?"
Wren answered this time. "A day. A year. Or the time it takes to make a choice."
Kael's voice dropped to a whisper. "What choice?"
Wren met his gaze, and—for the first time—Kael saw fear in the man's eyes.
"Whether she'll burn alone… or light the world."