She didn't remember her name.
Not fully.
Fragments only—like sparks drifting on wind.
A laugh in a storm. A cradle made of embers. A lullaby sung in a tongue no one remembered.
Eryssa stood between her and the cliff's edge, blade lowered but ready. Orin remained at her side, eyes never leaving the girl.
"I'm not your enemy," the girl said, though her voice trembled. "I didn't mean to be born."
That chilled Orin more than any cold fire ever could.
She looked barely fifteen—pale, with hair like smoke and skin that shimmered faintly, as if the world hadn't finished forming her. Her eyes were strange: not glowing, not human, but filled with flame-patterns—like galaxies caught in motion.
"What are you?" Orin asked quietly.
The girl tilted her head, confused. "I think… I am a remembering."
"A what?"
The wind answered before she did.
It carried not sound—but echoes. Distant laughter. Screams. Music. The thunder of collapsing cities. And woven into it, a voice that did not belong to the girl at all:
"The Flameborn rise when memory burns bright enough to reshape the world."
Eryssa stiffened. "Flameborn… that's not myth?"
"It was always prophecy disguised as legend," she murmured.
The girl flinched. "They're coming. The ones who want me back."
Orin looked to the sea. The column of flame had vanished—but something darker stirred beneath the waves now. Shapes. Ships? No. Hollows. Carved forms made of shadow and regret.
"They're not Outliers," Orin whispered.
"No," said the girl. "They're worse. They still remember who they were. And they want me unmade."
Eryssa narrowed her eyes. "What do we call you, child?"
The girl looked down at her hands, then back at them.
"I don't know what I was," she said, voice steadier now. "But I know what I am."
She raised one hand, and a single spark danced across her palm.
"Call me Ember."