Morning came with a strange stillness. The embers from the night before were cold, unnaturally so. No ash, no smoke — just silence.
Ash hadn't slept.
He kept replaying the Hollow Flame's message in his mind: One will burn. One will betray. One will choose.
And Elira had heard it too.
Now, as she stood at the edge of the ravine, her back to him, hair swept by the dawn wind, he knew she was doing the same.
"What do you think it meant?" she asked without turning.
Ash joined her, his voice low. "I think it meant exactly what it said."
Elira's fingers tightened around the edges of her cloak. "So… one of us is going to turn on the others?"
"Maybe not by choice," Ash offered. "Maybe not on purpose."
"Does that make it better?"
He didn't answer.
---
As they continued down the Ember Path, the landscape changed. The scorched ground gave way to veins of glowing crystal, humming with warmth beneath their feet. The path narrowed, funneled between jagged obsidian ridges.
That's when they saw it.
A black pillar, half-collapsed, inscribed with runes that pulsed faintly in the light. A shattered crest — a phoenix, wings torn.
Lira cursed under her breath. "We're too late."
Elira frowned. "Too late for what?"
Ash knelt by the rubble, brushing soot away from a symbol. "This was a Flameward post. A place where Keepers could rest and store relics of the Flame."
Kale added grimly, "If Moren's been here, he's after more than just you."
"He's collecting pieces," Ash said. "Preparing for something."
Elira looked toward the horizon. "Then we need to stop him before he lights whatever fire he's building."
---
That night, as the group made camp under the shelter of twisted stone, Elira found herself beside Ash again. The silence between them crackled with more than firelight.
"I saw something else," she said suddenly.
Ash looked at her.
"In my dream. On the tower… I think I kissed you."
His heart skipped.
Elira kept her eyes on the flames. "It wasn't a dream, was it?"
"No," Ash said softly. "It was a memory."
And before he could stop himself, he reached for her hand — slowly, carefully, giving her time to pull away.
She didn't.
They sat there in the glow of the Hollow Flame's last light, the memory between them still smoldering.
---
In the shadows beyond camp, someone watched.
A tall figure cloaked in scorched gray, his face marked with ash sigils. Moren.
And as he turned from the flickering campfire, a cruel smile curved across his lips.
"They're almost ready to remember," he murmured. "That's when they'll break."