The darkness wasn't just an absence of light.
It was complete. Tangible. As if the world had folded inward and breath itself could no longer escape. Kael held his blade forward, but even its sheen had vanished, swallowed by the weight pressing in from all sides. There was no floor beneath his boots, no sound to follow. Only silence—and the whisper of something ancient breathing just beyond recognition.
He reached instinctively for Liora's arm. The moment his fingers found her sleeve, the darkness pulsed—not in fear, but recognition.
Then a single voice returned, soft and dry, like pages turning in a book that had never been read.
"You carry her name like a chain."
Kael stiffened. "Who are you?"
The voice ignored the question.
"You stand where fire forgets, where memory bleeds into stone. You think to protect her, but you do not know her name—not truly. Nor the weight of what she will awaken."
He felt Liora shift beside him, her body tense but calm, almost drawn toward the voice.
"Don't," he said quietly. "Stay here."
But she didn't step away.
Instead, her voice came steady in the dark. "I was abandoned. I was named by him. If I had another name before, it died in that forest."
"Names do not die," the voice answered, not unkindly. "They sleep, and wait to be called again."
A faint glimmer lit the chamber—no fire, no torch, just a slow rising glow from beneath their feet, revealing a circle of cracked glass now etched with symbols Kael didn't recognize. Liora stood at the center, framed by spiraling patterns that twisted toward her like roots drawn to a hidden seed.
Seran and Wren appeared at the edge of the light, silent, uncertain.
The figure known as the Remembered stepped from the shadow.
It was not monstrous. Not grotesque. But its presence unsettled everything around it. Its robe looked sewn from bark, moss, and bone, yet it moved like cloth in windless air. Its face was featureless save for two burning green eyes and a mark that pulsed faintly across its chest—the sigil Liora had seen in the dream of ash.
"I remember your kind," Seran said slowly. "They weren't demons. They weren't spirits. They were the ones the flamebearers exiled when they refused to burn."
The Remembered did not deny it.
"We did not refuse. We resisted. The fire cleansed too much. It took not only the rot but the roots. In purifying the world, they silenced it."
Kael stepped forward. "Why drag us here?"
"Because you brought her." The figure turned its gaze back to Liora. "She is a root the fire could not burn. And now the forest remembers her."
Kael raised his sword, the edge gleaming now in the rising glow. "She's not yours. She never was."
The voice grew quieter. "No... she was never ours. That is why she survived."
Liora looked up, her eyes no longer afraid. "Then what do you want from me?"
"To remember."
The chamber shifted.
The cracked glass beneath them rippled like disturbed water, and the world twisted once more.
They were no longer in the hollow tree.
They stood in an open glade, sunlight breaking through silver branches, grass soft beneath their feet. But the sky above was not blue—it was ash-colored, flecked with embers, as if a firestorm had once torn through and left the world paused in its final breath.
Figures walked through the trees—silent, stately, draped in woven robes and masks of wood and bone. They bore no weapons, only staves inscribed with runes glowing faintly with red and green.
The ashborn of the past.
Liora stood among them, her body unchanged, yet none of the figures reacted to her presence. She moved between them unseen, as if watching a memory not her own.
"This is a vision," Seran said. "Not illusion. Memory, stored in the bark. Old trees remember everything."
They watched as one of the ashborn—taller, more finely adorned—raised his hand toward the forest's edge, where a fire spread unchecked.
And then came the flamebearers.
Draped in crimson, faces hidden behind metal visors, their presence stark against the natural harmony of the ashborn. They moved with purpose—regal, absolute. And behind them came flame, roaring like a beast loosed from chains.
No warning. No negotiation. Just fire.
Liora gasped as the scene turned to chaos. Trees screamed. The grass blackened. The masked ashborn raised their arms not to fight, but to shield something—someone.
A small child. Unmarked. Untouched. Hidden in roots.
Kael's breath caught. The child looked like Liora. Not identical—but too close to dismiss. Hair blackened by ash, skin pale, and eyes wide with silent understanding.
The taller ashborn shielded her with his body until the flames consumed him.
The child did not cry.
She simply stared at the fire, unblinking.
And then everything faded.
They returned to the stone chamber, the vision gone, but its mark lingering like soot in the lungs.
Liora's expression was unreadable. Her hands trembled slightly, but her eyes were dry.
"That was real," she whispered.
Kael stepped toward her. "I don't care what blood you have. You're still—"
"I know," she said gently. "I know who I am. But that... was me."
The Remembered nodded once.
"You were left where fire could not follow. That is why you are alive."
Kael turned sharply toward the figure. "So what now? You've shown us what you wanted. What do you expect her to do?"
"Survive," the Remembered replied. "The flame is stirring again. Old orders are reawakening. The name she carries will be called by others soon—less kind than we. The world must choose whether it burns or forgets."
Seran stepped forward, frowning. "What does that mean? What orders? The old flamebearers haven't moved in centuries."
"Then watch the sky," the voice murmured. "Watch for the iron wings and the crimson light."
With that, the figure stepped backward into the smoke, fading without drama or finality.
The chamber remained silent.
Kael turned to Seran. "What the hell is an iron wing?"
"An omen," the priest said darkly. "A flying fortress. It means the Firehold is preparing for war."
Liora looked up at Kael, not with fear—but with decision.
"We need to leave this forest," she said.
He nodded. "We will."
"And then?" Wren asked.
Kael sheathed his blade. "Then we find who tried to erase her. And remind them she's not so easy to forget."