Three months later, the skies over Draventh were blue again.
The surviving villages rebuilt their homes. The rivers ran
clear. Fields once cursed with shadow bloomed in gold and green.
Atop the ruins of the citadel, a flame burned, a beacon of
remembrance.Eira approached Alonso, who stood watching it quietly. His cloak was tattered, his eyes older, his hand still marked with faint fire."They call you the Flame King now," she said with a smile.
"I'm no king," Alonso replied. "I'm a servant of what must
never die again."Kara joined them, her axe now a symbol of peace. "The people want you to lead."
He shook his head. "Then I'll lead by teaching others to
stand without me."From the horizon, a familiar figure approached his grandmother, Lira, leaning on a cane, eyes proud.
"You've brought light back to Draventh," she said softly.
"Your father would have wept to see it."
Alonso knelt before her. "I only gave the people back what
was theirs."She smiled. "And in doing so, you became what you were meant to be."
Years passed. Legends grew.
Travelers spoke of a man who walked the borderlands, cloaked in smoke and dawnlight, healing the broken, teaching the young to call upon the ancient fires. Some said he was immortal; others said he was merely a man who refused to die.
In a small village beneath the mountains, a boy once asked
him, "Master, why do you still fight when the war is over?"
Alonso smiled, eyes reflecting the firelight. "Because
freedom isn't won once it's kept alive, one spark at a time."
He raised his hand, conjuring a tiny flame that danced upon
his palm.
"This," he said, "is the proof that even in darkness, the
flame remembers."
The boy watched, wide-eyed, as the light grew brighter.
And in that glow, the world of Draventh began anew
THE END.