The cold was the only thing Lyra had ever known.
In the city of Nareth, the sky was a curtain of ash, and the sun hadn't risen in seventeen years. People whispered about it once being warm—how fire used to dance in hearths and cook food and light up stories. But that was before the Dominion outlawed it. Before fire was declared forbidden.
Now, heat was a memory—and memories were no longer free.
Wrapped in a thin blanket, Lyra sat near the frost-covered window of the orphan dormitory, her breath forming little ghosts in the air. Snowflakes tapped against the glass like they were trying to escape the sky. The others were asleep, bundled in silence. But Lyra's heart was restless.
That evening in the market wouldn't leave her alone.
An old woman had collapsed near the bread stalls. Her memory token—a tiny black glass disc everyone carried—had fallen and shattered. People stepped around her like broken pottery. The Dominion guards didn't help; they simply confiscated the shards and moved on.
But Lyra had knelt to help the woman. She shouldn't have touched the token. She knew the rules. But something had drawn her to it.
The moment her fingers brushed the broken glass, a spark bloomed in her mind.
She saw a flame—red, wild, alive.
She heard a voice: "You are not forgotten."
And then, just like that, the vision vanished. But something stayed with her. A faint warmth in her chest, like the dying ember of a long-extinguished fire.
She opened her hand now and stared at her palm. Still no marks, no burns. Yet when she focused, she could feel something. A heat, small but steady, like a heartbeat beneath her skin.
Suddenly, the dormitory door creaked behind her.
She flinched, turning fast.
It was Kael.
He stepped into the moonlight slanting through the window, his coat heavy with patches of soot-stained leather and frost. His boots barely made a sound on the wooden floor. His silver eyes gleamed with something unreadable—half curiosity, half warning.
"What are you doing up?" he asked, voice low and smooth.
Lyra tensed. "Couldn't sleep."
Kael tilted his head. "You felt it, didn't you?"
She froze. "Felt what?"
He smiled faintly, like someone who already knew the answer. "The ember."
She stood. "I don't know what you're talking about."
He walked over slowly and opened his gloved hand. A shard of memory glass lay in his palm—this one pulsing faintly with red light. It wasn't like the cold, lifeless ones issued by the Dominion. This one… was warm.
Lyra's breath caught. "That's illegal."
"So is curiosity," Kael replied. "Doesn't stop people from asking questions."
"What is it?"
"Not what," he said. "Who. This shard holds a truth—a memory sealed in flame. Something the Dominion tried to erase."
He held it toward her.
Lyra hesitated. Every instinct screamed not to touch it. But the warmth in her chest flared. She reached out.
The moment her skin brushed the shard, her world exploded.
She was no longer in the dormitory.
She stood in a burning hall, pillars cracked, walls scorched. Fire curled along the ceiling like living serpents. In front of her stood a woman—tall, fierce, cloaked in crimson light—wielding a blade made of pure flame.
And Lyra saw her own reflection in the molten floor.
Then the voice returned: "You are the last Flamebearer."
She gasped and dropped the shard. The dormitory snapped back into focus, and she stumbled, her legs nearly giving out.
Kael caught her arm.
"It's real," she whispered. "That wasn't just a memory. That was… something else."
He nodded. "They've lied to you, Lyra. To all of us. Fire isn't dead. It was buried."
Her heart pounded like a war drum. "Why me? Why would I see that?"
"Because something in your blood remembers," he said. "Because the flame chose you."
She stared at him. The warmth in her chest had grown, spreading to her shoulders, her fingertips. She could feel it pulsing behind her ribs like a second heart.
"I don't want any of this," she said. "I just want to live a quiet life. Work, eat, survive."
"Then don't touch fire," Kael said quietly. "Because once it knows you, it never lets you go."
She sat down, mind spinning.
Kael knelt beside her, voice softer now. "There was once a group called the Ember Guardians. Warriors who could wield fire with their will. The Dominion hunted them down—erased their stories, burned their temples, sealed their memories in forbidden shards."
"And I'm one of them?"
"You might be the last."
Silence.
The snow kept falling outside. Somewhere, a Dominion siren wailed faintly in the distance.
Lyra closed her eyes.
She didn't know what was coming next. But one thing was certain.
The fire had awakened.
And nothing would ever be the same again.