The wind howled across the black dunes, sweeping embers through the air like dying fireflies.
Before them loomed the remains of Cindrel's Reach, once called the City of Echoing Flame. Built atop a volcano that had never stopped murmuring, the city had been reduced to ruins centuries ago—its inhabitants lost in a ritual that turned stone to ash, and prayers to screams.
Now, the fire never left it. The buildings pulsed faintly with emberlight, and voices—long dead—still whispered through its collapsed towers.
Mara stood at the edge of the broken city, the third shard embedded in her chest humming against her ribs.
"This place feels… alive," Serai said, clutching her staff tighter.
Talon squinted ahead. "No guards. No beasts. No traps. That's never a good sign."
Tessara ran a gloved hand along one of the scorched statues. "It's not empty. It's watching."
They moved carefully through shattered archways and bridges that led nowhere. The streets were paved in black glass. On the walls, murals still flickered—painted in emberdust, shifting as if alive:
A girl cloaked in flame standing before a weeping god.
A king with eyes of ash casting his crown into molten fire.
A heart, shattered in seven, devouring a world.
"The shard is below," Mara said, pointing toward the heart of the city. "Deep beneath the old palace."
---
The palace was half-sunken into the volcano's throat. Cracks glowed with faint fire. As they descended, the air thickened with sulfur and sorrow.
In the sanctum below, they found the fourth shard—hovering above a cracked obsidian pedestal. It burned a deep, orange-red. Not violent, but… mourning.
"I feel it grieving," Mara whispered, stepping closer.
But before she could reach it—
The room dimmed.
A ripple passed through the air. The flame retreated. And from the dark behind the pedestal stepped a woman clad in chains of silver and flame.
Her face was hidden. Her eyes, burning white.
Serai gasped. "No… that's the Sealed One."
Talon drew both blades in a blur. Tessara raised her sword.
Mara stood still.
The Sealed One tilted her head. "You carry my cage," she said. Her voice was smooth, heavy with old rage. "Do you know what it cost to bind me to the ember? What you now unravel?"
"I didn't choose this," Mara said.
"No," the Sealed One replied, stepping closer. "But you will choose. To release me. Or to become me."
She reached for the shard—but Mara raised a wall of flame between them.
"Then you'll have to fight me," Mara said.
The Sealed One did not flinch.
"I already am."
With a single step, she shattered the flame.
The room exploded into battle—Serai flinging defensive sigils, Talon diving low with twin blades, Tessara engaging the Sealed One directly. But she was not like the Vessels.
She did not fight to win.
She fought like someone reminding the world who she was.
Blades bounced off her. Magic unraveled around her like smoke.
Mara reached the shard.
It called to her, gently—like a memory she'd forgotten.
She touched it.
The fourth shard merged with the others.
Light exploded outward.
The Sealed One staggered—just for a heartbeat. Enough for Tessara's blade to bite shallowly into her shoulder.
"You are not ready," the Sealed One whispered as she vanished into cinders. "But when you are… I'll be waiting."
---
Later, in the ashes of the palace, Mara sat alone beside the pulsing glow of her Heart.
Four shards. Half complete.
And for the first time, a new feeling stirred inside the flame.
Not power. Not fear.
Doubt.
---