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Chapter 97 - The Mission Beyond Flame

Chapter Summary:

The revelation that Alara Vayne may still be alive and that someone within the Frostbound possesses Echo's father's ring shakes the very foundation of Ember's leadership. Echo now faces an impossible decision: remain the pillar holding Ember together or risk everything to retrieve the one person who might hold the key to ending the war for good.

Chapter 96: The Mission Beyond Flame

The ring sat in Echo's palm, still warm despite its long absence.

Obsidian black, carved with the royal glyph of House Vayne — and in its center, a living emberstone, pulsing softly like a sleeping heart.

Kael watched her silently from across the chamber.

"She said your mother's lullaby."

Echo nodded once, the words playing in her head like a half-forgotten dream.

"Beneath the ash, the ember sleeps…

Awaiting breath, the flame it keeps…"

The lullaby her mother used to hum when the palace fell quiet. Something private. Not recorded in any scroll or songbook.

Only someone who knew them could have said it.

Alara was alive.

Tarrek stormed into the strategy room half an hour later, flanked by two councilors.

"You want to walk into Frostbound territory? You, Echo? The Queen of Ember?"

Echo didn't flinch. "I want to go beyond our borders to retrieve our only surviving double agent."

"Alara Vayne is dead!"

Kael held up the ring. "This says otherwise."

"She could be compromised. Used against you."

"She could also be the only one with direct knowledge of what the Frostbound is really planning," Echo said firmly. "And if what she says is true — if they feed off more than just cold — then we're fighting a kind of war we don't understand."

Tarrek slammed a hand down. "Then send Dima. Or me. Anyone but you."

Echo's voice was steel. "I will not ask someone else to risk what I won't."

By nightfall, the decision was made.

She would not go as a Queen, but as the girl she once was — cloaked in shadow, hidden in smoke. Echo Vayne, daughter of rebels. Trained in the art of flame and silence.

Only Kael would accompany her.

"If we're doing this," he muttered as they prepared, "we're doing it my way."

"No arguments," she replied, strapping on her hidden blade.

"You follow every order."

"Unless it gets you killed."

Kael smirked. "Still stubborn."

"You married me for it."

He paused, a rare flicker of warmth in his eyes. "I didn't marry you for your politics, Echo."

She glanced at him, a half-smile playing at her lips. "No. You married me to keep me alive."

Their path was forbidden — through the ruins of Ashspire, the city scorched in the first Frostfall war.

Legend claimed it was haunted, that the dead whispered through the broken stone. Some said even fire dared not burn there.

But they moved fast, cloaked in smokeweave and silent shoes, every step calculated.

Kael lit a beacon-flame once they passed the final Ember marker — a silent signal to the Citadel.

"We are out of range. Hold the line."

Meanwhile, Dima and the Emberguard remained stationed at Frost Hollow, guarding the border with grim precision.

Cairn watched the ice.

"She'll come again," he said, not entirely sure if it was hope or dread.

"She will," Dima agreed, gripping the dagger Echo had gifted her. "And this time, I'll have questions."

The journey into Frostbound territory was treacherous. The cold wasn't just a temperature — it was alive.

Kael coughed as they crossed a ridge coated in a thick, unnatural frost. "I've never seen flame dull like this before."

Echo touched her corestone. It was pulsing slower.

"They're siphoning," she said, realization dawning. "The frost feeds on living flame."

"Not just fire… life."

She nodded grimly. "Alara said that. We didn't believe her."

They camped in the hollow of a mountain's shadow, lighting only a flicker of ember to keep their blood from slowing.

That night, Echo dreamed.

Of her mother.

Of a burning cradle.

Of a woman cloaked in silver and black whispering her name from across a frozen chasm.

"You must not stay long. He knows you've come."

At dawn, Kael woke her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Movement. North pass."

They climbed to the edge, crouching low.

A caravan of figures — pale-robed, masks of ice over their faces — walked silently across the snow, flanking a tall man in crimson armor.

But Echo wasn't watching him.

She was watching the woman behind him.

Black robes. One gloved hand. A scar across her temple.

Alara.

Her head turned — and she looked directly at them.

No surprise. No fear.

Just a faint nod.

Then she reached beneath her cloak and dropped something into the snow.

Kael swore softly. "It's a marker."

They waited until the Frostbound had passed and then retrieved it.

A smooth shard of ember-glass with words carved inside:

"Don't follow.

Wait until dusk.

Bring only truth."

Echo clenched it tight.

"She knows we're here."

As dusk fell, the sky turned to ash and ice.

And Echo Vayne stepped into enemy territory…

Not as Queen.

Not as spy.

But as the last ember of a fire the Frostbound thought they had extinguished long ago.

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