The safe point Lira spoke of was nothing like a sanctuary in the way I had imagined. It was a shell of a place, a hollowed-out relic standing defiantly against the desolation around it. A derelict factory, once humming with purpose, now silent except for the low drone of distant machinery and the occasional drip of leaking fluids echoing through cavernous halls like a slow, cruel metronome.
We approached cautiously, the shadows long and cruel in the dying light. The entrance was blocked by twisted metal barricades, remnants of desperate attempts to hold something out—or perhaps, keep something in. The iron was bent and rusted, scarred by tools or weapons long forgotten. Lira reached into her worn leather pack and pulled out a small device, a tangled knot of wires and glass that hummed faintly with a blue light. She pressed it against the lock and after a tense moment of static hiss, the barricade shuddered and clattered to the ground with a hollow, echoing crash.
Inside, the air was colder, cleaner—almost unnatural compared to the scorched wasteland outside. The walls were lined with faded posters, torn and yellowed, relics from another time when people had dreams instead of merely surviving. Faint symbols, once bright with hope or propaganda, now peeled and cracked like skin left to rot. Flickering overhead lights cast ghostly shadows that seemed to shift and writhe in the corners of the enormous, crumbling space.
"This place," Lira said quietly, her voice low as if afraid of disturbing the ghosts in the walls, "is the last refuge of the Scorched. They are survivors and scholars, those who hold onto what fragments of knowledge they can salvage from the ashes of the world before. They believe the stars can return—but only if the breach is healed."
I let the ember pulse quietly in my pocket, its faint warmth comforting against the bruised skin of my chest. "And you believe them?"
Lira's eyes darkened, her usual sharpness tempered with a rare vulnerability. "I have to. If there's no hope for the stars, then what's left to fight for?"
We moved deeper inside, careful not to disturb the silence that draped the place like a shroud. Rows of rusted machinery stretched into the shadows—silent hulks of once-powerful engines, broken control panels with shattered glass and flickering screens, cables like dead veins snaking across the floor. Somewhere in the distance, a forgotten furnace rumbled faintly, like the world's last breath.
A large chamber opened ahead, its ceiling lost in darkness. There, a cluster of figures waited—men and women dressed in ragged clothes patched with scraps of technology, their faces etched with exhaustion and suspicion. They greeted us with wary eyes, whispers barely escaping cracked lips, the kind of quiet that hung heavy with fear and hope in equal measure.
An older man stepped forward, his face a map of scars, and eyes sharp as flint. His presence commanded attention, not by force but by a quiet authority that felt born from hard years and hard choices. "Lira," he said, nodding at her with a rough kindness, "you've brought the stolen one."
Their eyes shifted to me, heavy with suspicion and something darker—fear, maybe, or recognition. I felt their gaze like claws, the weight of suspicion almost as suffocating as the ash that clung to my skin. "I don't know what I am," I said quietly, "only that there's something inside me—something they want."
The old man studied me for a long moment, as if weighing my soul on scales only he could see. Then he spoke, slow and deliberate. "The stolen flame. The ember you carry is no ordinary light. It's a shard of the old sky, a spark of the world before the breach. It's dangerous—precious—and a beacon to those who hunt it."
One of the women, younger and wary, stepped forward holding out a small, cracked glass vial filled with swirling ash. Her hands trembled slightly. "The breach fractured reality," she said softly, "splintered the stars and scattered their light across the void. These fragments can heal… or destroy. But if they fall into the wrong hands—"
Lira's voice cut through, sharp and urgent. "They will burn the world down."
I looked down at the ember nestled in my palm. It pulsed once more, a tiny heartbeat in the dark. I did not know if I was the key to salvation or the harbinger of destruction, but one thing was certain: I could not run any longer.
The sanctuary offered a brief reprieve, a place to breathe and gather strength—but it was also a trap. The watchers outside prowled relentlessly, and trust here was fragile, as broken as the world we fought to save.
That night, I lay on a cold cot, the ember's glow soft and steady beneath my shirt. Sleep came in fits—fractured dreams of light piercing endless darkness, of hands reaching through voids, and the stars falling like ash.
When I woke, the room was empty except for the hum of the place settling into itself. I rose slowly, the embers of pain in my chest still smouldering. Lira was nowhere to be found, but a note lay folded on the cracked table beside me:
"They are coming. You cannot hide what you carry. The stars are watching, and so are the broken."
I folded it back and stared at the ceiling, the cracked paint and the flickering light above a cruel reminder that nothing was safe—not here, not anywhere.
Outside, the wind picked up, stirring the dust and ash, carrying with it the faint scent of smoke and something metallic—blood.
The Scorched prepared quietly for the coming storm, their whispers threading through the dark like a warning. The stolen flame was more than a light in the dark. It was a beacon, a curse, and a promise of war.
And I was at its centre.