The Mourning Fields were burning again.
Not with real fire yet but with the memory of flame, awakened by ritual. Red smoke curled unnaturally through the air, thickening into shapes, whispering voices that did not belong to the living. At the center of it all, the Hierophant of the Red Circle stood unmoving, staff buried in the earth, arms raised to the sky as if summoning judgment.
Eren stepped forward from the ridge.
Elira hissed behind him. "What are you doing?"
"They already know I'm here," he said. "And this ends one way or another."
He descended the slope slowly, deliberately, letting them see him. The red-robed figures parted like water around stone. None of them raised a weapon. They only bowed their heads as he passed, murmuring in unison:
"Ash to ash. Flame to flame. The bearer comes."
The Hierophant turned at last.
Up close, the mask was worse. It wasn't just featureless it was smooth, like molten glass frozen mid-pour, and the single black tear down the cheek looked wet, though it never moved. His voice, when he spoke, was low and melodic more like a song than speech.
"Eren of the Black Flame," he intoned. "You have walked the memory. You have awakened the wound. And now, you come to the threshold."
Eren stopped a dozen paces away. "You know my name."
"We know more than that," the Hierophant said. "We have watched your flame since it flickered to life. We have dreamed your pain. We have seen what lies beyond your eyes."
The wind shifted. The smoke spiraled tighter around the two of them, blocking out the rest of the world.
"You've killed for that blade," the Hierophant continued. "You've bled for it. But you have not yet embraced it."
Eren narrowed his eyes. "And you want to help me do that?"
The Hierophant nodded solemnly. "Yes. Not for control. Not for conquest. But for completion."
Eren glanced back briefly toward Elira, who remained hidden. Then he focused again on the robed figure before him.
"And what happens if I refuse?"
The red robes rustled softly as the Hierophant extended one hand.
"Then you remain incomplete. The blade will stay chained. The Threshold will continue to bleed. And when the world ends again it will not be fire that saves us. It will be silence."
He stepped forward, slower than any human had the right to move. Each footfall felt ritualistic.
"There is no salvation without surrender," the Hierophant said. "Only those who let the flame devour their fear become truly free."
"I don't want to be free," Eren replied. "I want to end this."
The Hierophant tilted his head. "Then let us baptize you in flame. Let the sword see your soul."
Without warning, he slammed the staff into the earth.
A ring of red fire erupted around them.
Eren stepped back as the heat rose instantly, choking and alive.
The circle burned in silence, and from it rose shadows not solid, not smoke, but something in between. Silhouettes of people from Eren's life. Lyria. Cael. The first bearer. Himself.
All of them burned.
All of them stared at him.
He reached for Akreth.
The blade pulsed violently. Its runes blazed with crimson light not from rage but resonance. This was not a fight.
This was a choice.
The Hierophant's voice was now everywhere, echoing from the flame itself.
"Offer the blade. Let it see your truth. Let it judge you again."
Eren held the sword before him. His reflection in the flame looked… wrong. Eyes glowing. Flesh cracked with light.
Then he heard her voice.
Lyria's.
"This isn't you."
The vision wavered.
He remembered her hand in his.
Her laughter.
The way she died.
"No," he said, clutching the hilt tighter. "I am the flame. But I'm not your vessel."
He turned the blade downward and plunged it into the ground.
The circle shattered.
The fire spiraled outward, breaking the illusion. The red smoke fled into the sky like screams lost to wind.
The Hierophant staggered.
His mask cracked.
Beneath it, only fire.
"You deny salvation," he said.
"I choose my path," Eren growled. "Not yours. Not Akreth's. Mine."
A pulse of force exploded from the sword, throwing the Hierophant and several followers backward. The ground split. The pyre at the center of the Mourning Fields collapsed in a rain of ash.
Elira was at Eren's side in seconds.
"You idiot," she said breathlessly. "That was suicide."
"I'm still here, aren't I?" he replied.
Behind them, the Circle began to retreat.
Not in chaos.
In reverence.
The Hierophant, wounded but upright, bowed his head.
"Then so be it," he said. "The bearer has spoken."
And with that, the Red Circle vanished into the ash.