Chapter 95
The village was silent.
Not destroyed.
Preserved.
Time hung in mid-motion—raindrops frozen mid-fall, fire halted mid-burn.
The people couldn't move.Couldn't scream.Couldn't blink.
They were caught in the memory of a child the world refused to name.
At the center, the forgotten flame stood still, eyes wide, breathing slow.
This was not vengeance.
This was proof.
"Look at what I can do… without ever being chosen."
Far away, Kael's mount stumbled.The wind shifted—suddenly colder.
He could feel it now.
Not rage. Not pain.
But something far worse.
Loneliness.
Eliendara flipped through the last scroll in the forbidden tome.
Her eyes widened.
The final line, written in hurried ink and smudged ash:
If the Chosen Flame survives alone,the Forgotten Flame will awakenas its equal—and its opposite.
The cradle trembled.Hope whimpered in their sleep.
A dream spilled from their lips:
"The other one…never had someone hold their hand."
Kael stopped at the edge of a cliff, staring at the rising smoke in the east.
He collapsed to his knees.
Not because he was tired.
But because he finally remembered something that shouldn't exist.
A flicker. A face. A heartbeat.
A voice too soft to matter back then.
A boy crying in a fire…
And Kael turning away, thinking it was just a dream.
"You weren't a dream, were you?" he whispered into the wind.
"You were me…but left behind."
In the frozen village, the flame-child sat down among the halted people.
They leaned against a statue locked in terror.
And for the first time…
they cried.
Silver-black tears that turned to ash on their cheeks.
"I didn't want to destroy anything."
"I just wanted to be remembered."
🔮 Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 96: Before the World Chose
As Kael races toward the forgotten flame,Eliendara uncovers a forbidden memory sealed by the gods—
a moment before fate chose between two souls.
And the truth threatens to tear Kael's heart in two:
He was never the only one in the fire.