he sky split with light as Adrien and Elira soared above the wreckage—two figures wreathed in golden fire, carving across the night like new constellations.
Below them, the Obsidian Sanctum collapsed in on itself, devoured not by destruction, but by liberation. The tower's spells ruptured, unraveling like thread as their magic—borrowed, stolen, corrupted—was rejected by the soulflame now blazing in open defiance.
But even as the tower died…
Something beneath it lived.
Far below, buried under obsidian strata and centuries of binding, the chains trembled.
The last seal—a circle of scorched bone and language too old for human mouths—began to crack.
It had taken five centuries, seven assassinations, thirteen Blood Pacts, and the full fall of Draconis to bury the First Flame.
But now Adrien and Elira had touched it. Woken it. Their souls were born of the same breath.
And that breath had just been exhaled.
The flame stirred.
The world shivered.
Elsewhere—deep in the Thorne Archive, Serai stepped through the vault's shifting wards, relic satchel slung over one shoulder. The Archive was carved into the base of a mountain, surrounded by glyph-carved walls and lanterns lit with dragonlight. But even here, among loyalist bloodlines and ancient keepers, she felt it.
A ripple.
A pull.
Something impossible.
She staggered, catching herself on a stone pillar. One of the scrolls in her bag lit up—unbidden—its wax seal melting.
She unrolled it quickly.
Her eyes widened.
"Oh gods," she whispered.
The prophecy wasn't complete.
Not just scattered in bloodlines and soul-gems.
The Flame hadn't been extinguished.
It had been waiting.
And now, it was waking up.
Above the northern coast, Adrien and Elira landed hard on a cliff's edge, the fire wings fading from their backs in sputtering embers. They hit the stone, rolling and laughing and gasping for breath.
It felt unreal. After all the silence. All the loss. All the waiting.
But they were together.
Adrien turned, grinning. "Not bad for someone who's been in a cage."
Elira smirked. "Not bad for someone who thought he was an only child."
Kaelen popped into view, coughing up smoke and wiping soot from his face. "I missed the part where either of you said thank you for the helpful ghost doing recon."
Adrien just leaned back on the stone and stared at the stars.
"I thought finding the other Gems was the hardest part," he said.
"It's not," Elira said softly, her face darkening. "They're hunting us. Not just the Obsidian Hand."
Adrien glanced at her. "Who else?"
Elira didn't speak at first.
Then: "They called themselves the Ashborn. Shadows that used to be dragons. Twisted by soul corruption. They serve something beneath the Hand. Not Virelith."
Kaelen floated closer. "Beneath Virelith? That woman's the literal villain in a thousand-year prophecy. What could she possibly serve?"
Adrien already knew.
He could feel it.
The presence.
The heat rising from the earth.
The memory he hadn't earned yet—but which still belonged to him.
"The First Flame," he whispered. "It's not just waking."
He stood, staring down at his fractured Gem, glowing once more.
"It's calling us."
Back in the Obsidian Wastes, Virelith stood at the edge of a deep chasm, staring into a rift in the world—a wound that had never healed.
The air shimmered with power. With breath.
Her warlocks knelt behind her, trembling. Even the bravest among them could barely stand near the heat.
But Virelith? She was smiling.
"It's moving," she said.
One of her generals swallowed. "What is, my lady?"
She turned to him slowly, her eyes twin blades of moonlit red.
"The fire that came before. The one Aurenis feared. The one even Nytherra couldn't control."
She knelt, placing her palm to the obsidian.
A spark rose.
Not gold. Not crimson.
White.
Pure, endless, terrible.
"Soon," she said, "it will need a vessel."
And she looked toward the stars—toward Adrien.
"And I know just the one."
That night, Adrien dreamt again.
But this time, it wasn't Aurenis's memory.
It wasn't fire or war.
It was a voice.
Not male or female. Not old or young.
Just vast.
A whisper shaped like a universe.
"You are born of my breath.You are flame remembered.Come find me.Come finish what was started."
He saw a mountain wreathed in stars.
A temple of ash.
And a throne—empty, but burning.
He awoke with his sister at his side, the Gem in his hand, and a map now burned into his mind.
A new destination.
A place erased from every archive.
Ashspire.
Where the First Flame waited.
Where dragons were born.
And where destinies burned clean.