The road beyond the rift led into lands untouched by time. Where once the terrain had been scarred by fire and magic, now the earth lay dormant, as if waiting. The sky overhead remained a dull amber hue, clouded by ash but tinged with flickers of starlight—evidence that the veil between worlds had not fully sealed.
Ember walked at the head of their small group, her eyes constantly drawn to the horizon. The flame within her had changed—no longer a wild torrent, but a steady, smoldering force, like a hearth fire kept alive through storms. It whispered now, not with chaos, but with purpose.
Orin broke the quiet. "The Hollow Fleet won't stop. You know that, right?"
"I know," Ember replied. "They'll come. They always do."
Eryssa walked beside them, fingers brushing the hilt of her twin blades. "The flame didn't destroy them. It just… warned them. They'll be back with something worse."
Ember paused at a rocky outcropping overlooking a valley. What had once been a city now lay in ruins—stone foundations swallowed by moss, broken towers tilted like leaning bones. But above it all, a strange glow pulsed at the heart of the valley. Not fire, not moonlight—something in between.
"That's not just decay," Ember murmured. "Something's alive down there."
Orin narrowed his eyes. "Could be a survivor."
"Or a trap," Eryssa added.
"No," Ember said. "It's a spark."
They descended into the valley with caution. As they moved deeper, the pulsing light grew brighter, and a warmth bloomed in the air—not hostile, but familiar. Like the breath of the Triad Flame had touched this place once, long ago.
In the center of the ruins, they found it.
A shard.
It floated above a broken altar, spinning slowly. It looked like glass, but inside it churned a swirl of light and heat, too vast for something so small. Ember stepped closer and the shard reacted—vibrating in midair, pulling faint trails of fire toward her.
"It's a Flameborn core," Eryssa whispered, awe-struck. "From before the Cataclysm. From before the flame broke."
Orin circled the altar, tense. "Someone protected it. Buried it beneath the ruins to keep it from the world."
Ember reached out a hand, and the shard drifted gently into her palm. It was warm—strangely comforting. The Triad Flame within her pulsed in resonance, not as a rival, but as a mirror.
Then the shard spoke—not in words, but in memories.
A battlefield. Skyships falling. The world aflame. A guardian's final breath as they sealed away the last fragment of untainted fire. A promise that it would rise again, when the world was ready to remember what it had forgotten.
Ember gasped, staggering back. The shard's light had dimmed, absorbed into her skin like water into dry earth. It was part of her now.
"What did you see?" Orin asked.
"Not see," Ember said, trembling. "Remembered. The flame wasn't always destruction. It wasn't meant to be."
Eryssa looked uneasy. "Then what changed?"
Ember looked skyward, where the fractured moon glowed in the haze. "Someone made it change. Twisted it. Broke it."
"And now?" Orin asked.
"Now," Ember said, standing taller, "we find the rest. Every shard. Every memory. Every truth. If we don't, someone else will—someone who wants to burn the world instead of heal it."
The shard's warmth lingered in her chest. The Triad Flame had not grown weaker. It had grown clearer. And now, with the shard's guidance, a new path had begun to take shape.
The path of remembrance.
The path of reckoning.