Prologue: The Flamebound and the Ash King
"In the beginning, there was only flame.It burned across the heavens, shaping worlds.But when flame forgot its purpose, it consumed without end.And so, the Flamebound vanished.Or so the world believed…"
They call it the "Night of Crimson Skies."
I call it the night I stopped pretending to be normal.
I stood atop the shattered spires of Emberthorn Academy, my school robes scorched and flapping in the wind, holding back a creature made of nothing but soot, teeth, and screams.
The Ash King.
He floated, cloaked in shadows that bled into the sky, his voice like crumbling stone.
"You are but a child playing with ancient fire, Elira Wren."
Maybe I was.
But I wasn't alone.
Behind me stood the friends I'd nearly lost, the headmistress who finally trusted me, and the burning memory of every trial I'd faced.
I raised my hand. The flame obeyed.
White and blue. The Everburn Flame.
Not a fire of destruction… but of rebirth.
"I'm not a child playing with fire," I said. "I am the fire."
And when the light erupted, brighter than stars, the Ash King screamed.
I thought it was the end.
It was only the beginning.