The smoke had settled.
The bodies were cleared.
The Sanctuary still stood — scarred, broken, but alive. For now.
Elliot stood at the edge of a scorched balcony overlooking the mountain pass. The wind was cold. Too cold for summer. The sky overhead, pale and gray, felt… wrong.
He could still feel the aftermath of the battle humming in his bones.
Kaelith limped over beside him, wrapped in a blood-stained cloak. "You should rest," she said quietly. "No one would blame you."
"I can't," Elliot muttered, watching the horizon. "Something's changed."
She nodded slowly. "Yes. Something woke up last night. And I don't think it was just Mal'kar."
---
That night, Elliot dreamed again.
But this time, there was no fire.
Just silence.
He stood in a vast desert made of ash, under a pitch-black sky without stars. His bare feet sank into the dust of forgotten kingdoms. In the distance, a lone tree burned — but it gave off no light. No heat.
Just darkness.
A figure stood beneath it.
Hooded. Pale. Watching him.
> "You carry the Hollow Flame now," it said. "Do you know what that means?"
Elliot frowned. "Who are you?"
The figure didn't answer. Instead, it raised a hand — and in the air appeared the image of a chained god, hollow eyes bleeding golden tears.
> "The Vaelion fire is not yours. It was never meant to survive. You are a thief, Elliot Finn. And you've drawn the gaze of those who burn brighter than you."
Suddenly, images struck him:
A divine war, fought in heaven.
The gods falling, screaming.
A gate, sealed in gold and bone.
His own face… cracking apart into flame.
> "The gods slumber still," the figure whispered.
"But if your flame burns too brightly… they will wake.
And if they wake… they will erase you."
---
Elliot snapped awake — heart pounding, skin cold despite the warmth of his room.
Across the chamber, the Flame Scroll hovered in the air again — unrolled, glowing, pulsing like a heartbeat.
A new passage had appeared, written in golden fire:
> "The Hollow Flame is not destruction.
It is emptiness made power.
When the gods burned, they left behind not light…
but hunger."
Elliot stared at the words.
Kaelith burst into the room moments later, sword in hand. "Are you okay? I felt something—"
Elliot looked at her, eyes hollow.
> "I think we've been preparing to fight men.
But what's coming next… isn't human."
---
Far beyond Eldraya, beyond time and realm, a celestial temple trembled.
A god opened one eye for the first time in a thousand years — and whispered a name it should not have remembered:
> "Elliot…"
---