The Vale was lost.
Lysara still smoldered behind them, towers toppling like gods who had been knocked to their knees. The air smelled of charred crystal and ancient magic.
Yuuto did not glance back. He could not—not after abandoning what remained of the Seeker's Guild, not after seeing the sky shatter open over Lysara and spill starlight down like falling judgment. Kaela had said nothing since they'd escaped the crashing bridge.
But even here, far away, with ash staining the sky to a bruised grey and their cloaks laden with soot, he could feel it.
The Brand on his back throbbed. Not hurting. Not warning.
Calling.
They took the tug northeast, through killing woods and ridges covered in war-battered bones. It wasn't a side trip. It was destiny, pulled like a string through his heart. Kaela trailed behind without complaint. Maybe she felt it too.
At last, the Citadel appeared.
What was left of it.
The Flameforge Citadel—once the pinnacle of divine smithing—was now an empty tomb of seared scars and shattered iron. Where the gods used to whisper secrets to flame, only silence lingered. Its blackened spires slouched like shattered ribs. The winds wailed through burnt arches. Magic hung in the air like the aftertaste of a forgotten prayer.
Yuuto's knees buckled as they stepped through the shattered gates.
The Brand surged like a drumbeat, each step echoing through his spine.
"You sure this is the right place?" he asked.
Kaela's response was soft but sharp. "It's the only place left."
They walked through halls smelted by starfire, walls inscribed with ancient runes now twisted and glimmering. The terrain slanted towards the forge-chamber at the Citadel's core—a great bowl of slag and remembrance.
And upon it, hung like a tear in the universe—a mirror.
Not of glass. Of something else.
Memory. Light. Flame.
Yuuto stepped, and the mirror rippled.
"Child of starlight," a voice said. Not in sound—but in weight. As if a thousand dead gods exhaled together.
Kaela unsheathed her sword halfway but did not attack. The air was heavy. Sacred. Frightening.
The mirror altered.
Yuuto perceived visions—not dreams, but reality:
The Starborn—the original ones—roamed among mortals with swords of galaxies and hearts hewn from suns. They didn't fall to monsters. They fell to one another.
Star against Star.
Brand against Brand.
Fire that ought to have lit had consumed the skies instead.
Yuuto's Brand howled against his back. It was hot enough to melt metal.
He stumbled. Kneeled out. Kaela grabbed his shoulder, keeping him stable.
"They killed one another," he breathed. "They—"
"No," Kaela replied. "They were unmade."
The mirror flashed. And from it, out of it—Sari came out.
Not from light. From ashes.
A woman tall, silver-haired, dressed in storm-gray armor fouled with soot. A sword lay across her back, bound in black cloth. Her eyes glowed like coals long buried.
Kaela stood stock-still. The color drained from her face.
"…Valessia," she breathed.
Yuuto spun around. "You know her?"
"She was my instructor." Kaela's voice broke. "Before the Ember Rebellion. Before she was killed."
Valessia moved closer. Her eyes fixed on Yuuto.
You carry the First Flame," she said. "You hold what was never intended to be carried again."
"Then take it," Yuuto snarled, the pain getting the better of reason. "Remove it from me!"
Valessia shook her head. "The Brand does not belong to us or to me. It belongs to purpose. You are its flame now. You decide if it burns. or leads."
She gazed at Kaela.
"You carried him far.
Kaela nodded once. "Further than I'd have thought he'd go."
Valessia smiled—not kind, not cruel. Sad.
"You'll have to excuse yourself even further. The others are waking. The flame has roused them."
Yuuto gazed, chest rising and falling like a bellows. "What others?"
Valessia drew away. Her silhouette dulled into the heat of the forge.
"Those who would want to re-ignite the war."
The ground shook. The chamber thundered.
"Wait!" Yuuto bellowed. "What am I to do with this?"
Valessia glanced back once.
"Live long enough to choose."
Then—
Shatter.
The mirror disintegrated in stardust and flame. The Citadel howled like a wounded monster. Fire erupted from the walls.
Yuuto was snatched up by Kaela, pulled towards the exit as molten light brought down the chamber. They emerged from the rubble just as the forge behind them blew itself inside out in a deafening crack.
They fell into the ground.
Yuuto was there, panting, the Brand chilling like metal after a blow from a hammer.
Next to him, Kaela did not stir. Merely stared at the radiating ruins.
Then, after several moments of silence:
"If I get out of hand," Yuuto whispered, "will you prevent it?"
Kaela hesitated not at all.
"Yes."
Yuuto chuckled—a clipped, stammered one. "Good. I'd do the same."
She did not reply.
But she did not withdraw.".
And somewhere, far to the north, in a tower cut into an ancient mountain, Ceyrion spread his hand.
In his palm—one shard of the mirror. Warm yet. Whispering yet.
He smiled.
"The flame remembers."
Over the continent, the stars began to fall.