Chapter 60: The Sleeping God
Three days after the Council bowed, the capital city began to breathe again.
Markets reopened. The people gathered in light instead of hiding from it.
Everywhere Echo went, she saw torches relit not by fear, but by joy.
And yet—
Her flame never settled.
Kael found her at dawn, perched atop the Sky Haven's outer spire, watching the horizon like it might bite back.
"You're thinking again," he said.
She smirked faintly. "I'm always thinking."
"Is it the Council? The people?"
"No."
She turned to him, voice low.
"It's the earth."
Kael's brow furrowed. "The what?"
Echo pressed her hand to the spire's metal rail. "It's… humming. The flame is touching something deeper than I've ever felt. Older."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Seraphine said the seeds were protection. But protection from what?"
That night, the Flamekeeper brought them an artifact recovered from beneath the ruins of Seraphine's sanctum — a monolith made of dark, obsidian stone etched with script none could read.
Echo didn't need to.
The Tri-Flame reacted instantly.
The writing lit up in violet fire.
And a name carved itself in her mind.
Torrash.
A word that felt like thunder cracking bone.
Lumen stared at the stone in awe.
"Torrash… the Sleeping God. The old stories called him 'The Flame-Eater.' Said Seraphine sealed him in the earth with her own life."
Kael paced. "If the Tri-Flame woke him…"
"Then we're not finished," Echo whispered. "We've only just started."
Elsewhere, far below the crust, a pulse throbbed in darkness.
A flame twisted in reverse — consuming light instead of giving it.
Chains of molten silver trembled.
And eyes — ancient, endless, and furious — opened for the first time in a thousand years.
Echo stood before the city's High Beacon when it happened.
The flame atop it flickered.
Then extinguished.
Gasps rippled across the plaza.
No wind. No storm. Just absence.
As if something had breathed in… and taken the flame with it.
Echo's knees buckled.
The Tri-Flame screamed inside her.
Kael rushed to her side, catching her before she hit the stone.
"What is it?" he asked.
She looked up, eyes burning with terror.
"He's awake."
The Flamekeeper gathered every elder, mage, and archivist that same night. They pored through fragments, legends, sealed records — anything Seraphine might have left behind.
A single conclusion emerged.
Torrash had not been destroyed.
He had been locked beneath the flame.
And with the seeds fused and the flame balanced again…
That lock was broken.
In the war chamber, Echo stared at the old continental maps.
"Torrash draws flame inward. Consumes it. Thrives on imbalance."
Kael nodded. "The more we burn, the stronger he becomes."
"And the Tri-Flame?" Lumen asked.
Echo shook her head. "He's coming for it. It's the last piece."
Outside, tremors shook the ground.
Not an earthquake.
Footsteps.
But no one had moved.
The next morning, the Eastern Sky Range shattered.
Mount Vortel — the tallest peak in the realm — cracked in half.
Out of it rose a shape like a serpent made of black sunstone and living hunger.
Torrash had no face. Only a gaping void wrapped in heatless fire.
And as he rose, entire rivers boiled.
Trees turned to ash.
And the world remembered why Seraphine feared her own flame.
Echo stepped onto the highest tower, the Tri-Flame now flaring like a beacon behind her.
She could feel him. Calling to her.
Wanting her.
And through their thin, flickering bond, she felt one word coil around her mind.
"Daughter."
She recoiled.
"No," she whispered. "I am not yours."
"But you bear the key. You opened the door. You wear the light she stole from me."
Kael stood behind her, hand steady on her shoulder.
"You're not alone this time," he said.
Lumen added, "We face him together. As Seraphine never could."
The Flamekeeper approached, kneeling.
"Say the word," he said, "and every blade still loyal to the Flame will follow."
Echo looked toward the horizon, where the sky burned black.
"No more sealing," she whispered.
"No more silence."
Then louder:
"This time, we fight."