The route to Solareth was not any the Circle had ever walked. It cut across fertile, ancient lands—ground unseen since the Sundering. The air bristled with pent-up force, as though the world remembered what was here before and now trembled with its return potential.
Kairo stood at the head of the trail, his mother's journal map folded tightly in his fists. In the morning sunlight, he could feel it again—that soft pull in his chest, as if his flame was being drawn to something buried beneath the earth.
"Still get it?" Sera asked, falling into step beside him.
He nodded. "It's stronger now."
"Good," she answered. "Because once we cross into the Emberreach, there is no return."
They went cautiously. The Emberreach was a legend—where flame walked and the ground was alive with magic. Yet no roads spoke of the way, only decay and ruin eaten by time and whispers in the air.
Elin faltered as they slanted round the wreckage of what had once been an imposing gate, its stone shattered and overgrown with vines. Her eyes lingered on carvings—flames, spirals, stars.
"This place," she breathed, "it feels… alive."
Virella crouched at the base of a stone pillar, brushing away dust to reveal a glyph glowing with a soft light under her fingers. "These runes are pre-Sundering. No one's handled them in centuries."
Kairo looked ahead, beyond the gate and into the woods beyond. "Then let's be the first."
Days went by, and the world became stranger.
They traveled through forests where the trees whispered in forgotten tongues and through valleys where the light of fire danced on the grass even when there was no fire. They saw things now and then in the sky—gigantic winged creatures soaring high above the clouds. One night, at dusk, they encountered a creature of stone and light, which bowed to Kairo before vanishing into mist.
"Y're wakin' the land awake," Tenn breathed. "The old world knows you."
Kairo didn't know what shook him more—that the old world remembered him. or that the old world waited for him.
The seventh day saw them come to the caldera.
A tremendous crater lay open before them, rimmed by jagged, angular bluffs. At its center: the rubble of a city smeared up to their shoulders in dirt and obsidian. Spires rose, broken fingers stretching towards the heavens. Fire cast flickering light below, like some fire gasping through rock.
Solareth.
Kairo reached the rim, her heart pounding.
He didn't know why, but tears touched the corners of his eyes. It felt like returning home… to a place he had never seen.
Virella was the first to break the silence.
"We'll need to go in through the east ridge," she said. "The main gate's collapsed."
"Let's move," Sera said.
But Kairo didn't move.
He could hear something—faint, far off.
A voice.
> "Kairo…"
He turned sharply, but no one else had heard it.
And then it came back—closer now, smoldering at the back of his mind.
> "Kairo… come home."
The city was shrouded in shadows as they descended, following the curved roads once trod by ancient scholars and guards. The deeper they went, the more the air heated up. Not with heat—but with power.
"It's alive down here," Elin whispered. "The whole city…"
Virella nodded. "The Flameheart must still burn."
They stepped into the central chamber—gigantic, domed, pillared with pillars whose carvings were fire-runes. There was a pedestal of obsidian in the center, and sitting atop it, a burning crystal pulsed like a heart.
Kairo proceeded with care.
And as he did, the fire in the crystal leaped higher, roaring in recognition.
Sera stepped forward, voice full of reverence. "It knows you."
The moment Kairo laid his hand on the crystal, the chamber exploded in light.
Flames burst from the walls, spirals blazed on the floor, and ghostly apparitions began to glow in the air—memories, remnants of what had been.
He saw cities burning under silver banners. Awakened to fight beside. His mother, young and wild, holding the flame aloft above her head.
And the Betrayal….
A man of fire-in his eyes and night-dark armor, standing before Solareth's gates. The man who had unlocked the door to the Order. The man who had shattered everything.
> "You must remember," the crystal whispered.
The
> "You must awaken all of you."
The
Then darkness.
When Kairo opened his eyes, he was alone.
But not in the ruins.
He was standing in a world of light—searing, pure gold and crimson.
A figure appeared before him. Tall. Blazing. Neither man nor woman. Incarnate flame.
> "You are the Flameborn," it said. "The first in many ages. But not the only."
> "More are waking. Scattered across the world. And you must bring them together. Or all will burn."
Kairo advanced. "What am I supposed to do?
"You are to fix what was broken. Reclaim what was stolen. The flame does not belong to an individual. It belongs to all."
"And the one who did the breaking returns."
Kairo's eyes opened wide. "Who?"
But the figure just waved behind him.
Kairo turned—
—and beheld an ash and bone throne.
Upon which sat a man in black armor, his face hidden behind a silver mask.
The very same one he saw in his dreams.
The same shadow of the memory of Solareth's fall.
> "The Ash King," the flame whispered.
"He was once one of us. He will return to finish what he began."
Kairo woke with a gasp, the Circle around him.
"You were out for hours," Sera said, concern in her voice. "The crystal lit up like a sun."
Kairo slowly sat up. "I saw him."
"Who?" Tenn asked.
The Ash King," Kairo said. "He is coming. And he will devour all."
Virella paled. "Then we depart. Now. We have lingered too long here."
"No," Kairo said, standing up. "We must go seek out the others."
"What others?"
He turned to him, shining eyes with golden hue. "The Awakened. Those who are like me. Those who are strong enough to resist what is about to come."
Sera nodded. "And we begin to gather.".
And below them, deep in the center of the earth, something stirred.
A great pulse. A rising breath.
As if the world itself had just. awakened.