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**Chapter Eight: Trial by Flame**
The flame called to me.
Not in words. Not in dreams. It thrummed inside my chest like a second heart, coaxing me toward the Emberwell's edge.
"She chose this path," the Watcher said behind me, his voice hushed with reverence. "But only you can finish it."
I nodded once. Then stepped into the fire.
It should've burned. It didn't.
The world folded around me. I was no longer in the sanctuary. No longer in my body. Just drifting in a realm of light and memory, heat and truth. The Emberwell had opened my blood like a book.
I saw my mother again, younger. Laughing. Then fighting—eyes blazing, sword in hand, a name on her lips I couldn't hear.
I saw my father's face… but only in shards. Eyes like eclipses. Power like a storm trapped in flesh. I reached for him—and the memory shattered.
The scene shifted.
I stood in a field of ash. Ruined towers in the distance. Wind whispering names I didn't know—some of them mine. Before me: three paths, glowing faintly beneath the soot.
**One paved with flame. One with shadow. One with blood.**
A voice pulsed through me—not Maama's. Not the Watcher's.
**"Choose what you are."**
I hesitated. The path of flame felt familiar—warm, steady. The path of shadow hummed with danger, yet beckoned with secrets. The path of blood… pulsed with raw, aching truth.
I stepped onto the path of flame.
At once, fire surged around me—not hurting, but testing. Images flickered in the blaze: moments of my life twisted by doubt.
Maama's stories—were they protection or lies?
My powers—gift or curse?
My father—villain or victim?
The flames pressed close.
"What if I'm not enough?" I whispered.
The fire paused, then whispered back:
**"Then become more."**
I felt it then—deep beneath my ribs. A coil of power I hadn't dared name. I reached inward and pulled.
Light burst from me.
The trial ended with a gasp.
I stumbled back into the sanctuary, smoke curling from my skin, but unburned. A new mark now shimmered down my right arm—runic, golden, alive.
The Watcher was waiting.
He bowed. *Bowed.*
"Flameborn no longer," he said softly. "You are now Flamewoken."
I didn't know what that meant yet. But I felt it in my marrow.
My journey had changed.
So had I.
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