Chapter 8 – When the Sky Burns Twice
Ash drifted through the ruined air like dying snow. I could still taste lightning on my tongue.
Liora's hand was warm against mine. "You're awake," she whispered, her voice half-lost under the rumble above. The sky was split open—two suns bleeding light through the cracks of a shattered firmament.
"I shouldn't be," I said. "That blast should've—"
"—killed us both." She gave a wry smile. "But it didn't. Guess we're too stubborn for death."
A gust of heat rolled down from the wound in the heavens. Shadows twisted where light should have been. My body still glowed faintly with that golden hue; every heartbeat hummed like a forge.
Then a figure stepped from the glare.
At first, I thought it was a mirage—a man formed of flame, edges flickering between red and blue. His eyes were the color of dawn through smoke.
Liora tensed. "Another echo?"
"No," I breathed. "He's different."
The stranger looked straight at me. "So you're the one who stole my fire."
The ground cracked beneath our feet. His voice carried weight, the kind that made the air bend. I felt the same resonance that had thrummed through Raven—the Sovereign's taint—but twisted with something purer.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I was called Erevan once," he said, stepping closer. "The First Flame. The one you were meant to succeed… or replace."
Liora shifted in front of me. "You serve the Sovereign?"
Erevan smiled, faint and sad. "Serve? No. Contain. But the seal failed when the world forgot my name. When your flame awoke, mine burned again."
Before I could answer, the sky screamed. A column of black fire fell between us, splitting the ruins like a sword. From its heart rose a silhouette so vast it dwarfed the broken pillars—the Shadow Sovereign, no longer a whisper but a shape: wings of void, eyes like eclipsed suns.
> "Two flames. One body. The cycle begins anew."
The words crawled inside my skull. I clutched my head, and memories—foreign and mine—tore through me: the first war of dawn, a thousand dying worlds, the moment I'd chained this being with my own heart as lock.
Liora's shout snapped me back. "Gautam! Focus!"
Erevan raised his hand, flame blooming into a blade. "We end this before it feeds."
He moved faster than thought, striking at the Sovereign's shadow form. I joined him, my sword bursting with gold fire. Light and dark collided, tearing the air apart. The ruins became a storm of stone and ember.
"Left flank!" Liora cried, hurling a barrier of frost sigils. The blast diverted a sweep of the Sovereign's wing, buying us seconds.
"Now!" I roared, leaping through the haze. Our blades met the creature's chest. For an instant the world went silent.
Then—detonation. A ring of blinding radiance swept outward. I felt myself lifted, hurled, weightless in a sea of light.
When sound returned, I was on my knees. The Sovereign was gone. So was Erevan.
Liora limped toward me, coughing. "Did… we do it?"
I wanted to say yes. But the air still vibrated. The fissure in the sky remained, two suns bleeding against each other—one gold, one black.
A voice whispered behind the wind. "You can't kill what is half of you."
Erevan's form flickered back into view, translucent now, his eyes dim. "He's inside the flame, Gautam. In you. The seal merged when our fires touched."
My chest burned—literal fire beneath skin. Liora reached for me, but I staggered back. "If he's inside me, then—"
"—you're both savior and threat," Erevan said. "If you lose control, he takes everything."
The ruins groaned; stones began to lift, orbiting around us. Power poured from the fracture above like a river reversed.
Erevan looked at Liora. "Get him out of here."
"I'm not leaving him!" she snapped.
He smiled faintly. "Then you'll burn together."
He thrust his hand outward. The world folded. For a moment I saw him standing between the two suns, arms spread, holding them apart. Then he was gone.
Liora and I crashed into sand—a desert of glass under a bruised horizon.
I tried to rise, but my strength faltered. "He… sacrificed himself?"
"Maybe," Liora said softly. "Or maybe he just delayed it."
I opened my palm. Inside it flickered two flames: one gold, one black, swirling in uneasy balance.
Before I could speak, a tremor shook the ground. From beneath the glass, hands began to claw upward—soldiers of shadow, armor cracked, eyes hollow.
"Raven's army," Liora whispered. "He's raising them."
The first of the wraiths screamed and lunged. I drew my sword, but the twin flames in my hand jumped to the blade, transforming it—half burning, half devouring light.
"Stay behind me," I said.
"Not a chance." She spun her daggers, runes sparking.
We fought back-to-back as the undead poured from the sand. Every swing of my sword left trails of molten light; every kick sent shockwaves across the dunes. But for each one we cut down, two more rose.
"Too many!" Liora gasped.
"Then we burn brighter," I said—and let the fire take me.
For the first time, I didn't hold back. The two flames merged, gold and black twisting into white. The desert turned day-bright. Wraiths dissolved into ash.
When the light faded, silence fell. Liora stared at me, eyes wide. "Gautam… your aura—it's not flame anymore."
I looked down. The energy around me pulsed like living glass, half light, half shadow, humming in perfect discord.
From far above, thunder rolled. The twin suns had aligned. A single beam of mixed light pierced the desert and struck me square in the chest.
Agony seared through every nerve. I screamed, the sound swallowed by the wind.
Liora ran forward—but stopped as a dome of energy erupted around me, throwing her back. My body lifted from the sand, suspended in the beam.
A second voice joined the first—deep, echoing through bone.
> "The balance is broken. The vessel awakens."
> "Gautam, stop!" Liora pounded on the barrier. "Fight it!"
I tried. I truly did. But inside the light, another consciousness stirred—ancient, patient, familiar.
> "Do not resist, child of flame. You sought to know me… now become me."
The beam shattered. I fell to my knees, panting. The world was silent again. The suns had vanished, replaced by a ring of faint stars.
Liora crawled to me, eyes filled with fear and relief. "Are you—?"
I looked up. The reflection in her pupils wasn't my face. My eyes had turned half gold, half black, swirling like twin storms.
And somewhere deep inside, a voice laughed.
> "When the sky burns twice, so shall the world."
The horizon ignited.