Not peaceful—never that.
But still. The kind of stillness that comes after a storm, when everything broken is finally visible in the wreckage. Kaelira stood at the mouth of the old temple ruin. The wind stirred her hair, but the fire inside her didn't flicker. It burned steady now. Behind her, Elarin was drawing sigils in the dirt—ancient, looping symbols that bled power into the air like invisible smoke.
"You're preparing a ritual," Kaelira said.
Elarin didn't look up. "I'm preparing answers."
---
Later, in the ruin's heart, they lit the twin fires—one red as blood, the other silver as starlight. They sat opposite each other, knees nearly touching, flame between them.
"What now?" Kaelira asked.
Elarin's eyes shimmered with moonlight and memory. "Now we ask the Hollow what it remembers."
---
The ritual began.
Elarin cut her palm again, and Kaelira mirrored her.
Blood to flame.
Flame to ash.
The Hollow trembled.
The stones beneath them groaned. And then, the vision came again—but not as before. This time, they shared it.
---
They stood in the Temple of the Sixfold Flame. Anira and Elarin as they once were. There was a third figure now—hooded, faceless, but towering and cruel.
"The line must not be broken," the figure intoned. "Only one bride may carry the fire. The other must fade."
Kaelira reached out. "No. That's not how it happened. I remember… I didn't want this."
"I know," Elarin whispered.
But the vision continued.
"If you choose love," the figure warned, "you will burn. If you choose duty, you will forget. But if you choose each other—you will become the end of empires."
The vision shattered.
They were back in the Hollow.
But the words echoed.
"You will become the end of empires."
----
Kaelira's voice trembled. "That prophecy… that was the true curse."
Elarin nodded. "They were afraid of what we could be. So they split us. Lied to us. Used us."
Kaelira met her sister's eyes.
"But now we remember."
---
The wind picked up, fierce and wild. The Hollow roared like it was awakening from centuries of slumber. Magic pulsed in the earth. The stones glowed faintly beneath their feet.
Elarin rose first. "This place was built to silence us."
Kaelira stood beside her. "Then let's make it sing again."
They raised their joined hands. The twin fires roared into one—white-hot and furious.
And the Hollow… answered. The air split with voices—thousands of echoes, all the women burned, buried, betrayed. They wept and sang and screamed.
Kaelira and Elarin stood at the center of it all. Sisters once broken, now unbroken.
The flames did not consume them.
They crowned them.
---
That night, they did not sleep. They watched the stars realign. And when morning came, the path out of the Hollow opened. The world waited. And it would not be ready.