The rebellion's strike team gathered at the heart of the Core, breathless, bruised, stunned by what had just occurred. Smoke coiled from shattered conduits. Gold-white light pulsed in slow waves, illuminating their faces with something that felt neither holy nor technological—but alive.
Veil stood at the edge of the yawning platform, his cloak fluttering from a rising wind that had no source. The Wyrm Core—now split open like a seed—revealed a dark tunnel descending into ancient earth, ringed with silver-lit runes and inscribed bones. Faint whispers rose from its depths, just shy of coherent speech.
"This place was never theirs," he murmured.
Lyra came to stand beside him. Her pupils were dilated with energy. She looked down the tunnel as if seeing something no one else could. "It's… calling. Not with words. With memory."
Jassa Vell limped forward, her hammer resting on her shoulder. "This the part where we take the victory lap or the part where the floor eats us?"
"No victory yet," Tyren said, wiping blood from his cheek. "We didn't just take the tower. We unlocked something. If that thing under us has a pulse… it's fast."
A tremor rippled through the structure. The tower didn't shake. It resonated.
"Then we go deeper," Veil said. "We started this. We must understand what we've freed before the surface does."
Jassa grunted. "Of course. Into the glowing pit. Sounds like a plan."
They descended slowly, cautiously, the passage sloping in impossible geometry. It wasn't just a tunnel—it twisted space around itself. They passed carvings in stone that predated any known culture: serpentine figures with humanoid faces, great winged beasts, cities floating upside down.
Light came not from torches but from glyphs etched in the air, suspended like dust motes.
At one point, Lyra reached out and touched one. It sang, a note so clear it stopped the others in place. The glyph flared, and a brief image flashed in their minds—a memory of a city of glass submerged in the ocean, its people made of flickering light.
"Did everyone… see that?" she asked.
Jassa swore softly. "I saw too much."
Niko, walking silently at the back, traced another glyph as they passed. He didn't trigger it. He simply nodded at it, like an old friend.
After nearly an hour of descent, the tunnel opened into a cathedral of bone and crystal.
They stood on a ledge, overlooking a chamber the size of a city square. Pillars of ancient vertebrae rose in spirals, encased in semi-transparent crystal. Beneath the clear surface ran liquid fire—streams of molten energy that pulsed with rhythmic surges.
And at the center stood a throne.
Not made by human hands. Forged from obsidian, wrapped in living vines of gold, with a halo of suspended, orbiting stones etched in runes no one could read.
And seated upon it was a corpse.
She was tall, regal, dressed in flowing robes made of silver mesh and scorched velvet. Her skin was grey as moonstone. Her face was serene, untouched by time, though clearly lifeless. Her hands rested on the arms of the throne, which pulsed beneath her fingertips.
And she was not dead.
"Veil," Lyra whispered. "What is she?"
Veil stepped forward slowly, reverently. "A fragment of the old world. Perhaps one of its gods. Perhaps its last prisoner."
The woman's eyes opened.
No pupil. No iris. Just twin galaxies of storm and flame.
"You are not the first," she said.
Her voice came from within them. Not sound, but pressure on the soul. A memory rediscovered.
"You are not the first to break the seal. But you may be the last to leave it unburned."
Jassa raised her hammer. "Dead gods talking. We're already in deep. What do you want from us?"
The woman tilted her head. "To finish what you began."
Veil met her gaze. "Who are you?"
"I was Embereth. Wyrm-Forged. Flame-Bound. I was the one who held the Chain of Suns when the sky broke. I was the last to stand before the Parliament of Hollow Stars."
"Now… I am the flame's keeper. And you… have stirred the flame."
Tyren stepped forward, looking pale. "The High Houses—they knew this place existed?"
Embereth's voice turned bitter.
"They built their towers atop the wounds they could not heal. Buried truth beneath stone and shame. They fed their cities with my power, not knowing what it cost."
Lyra's breath hitched. "Cost?"
Embereth rose from the throne. Her feet did not touch the ground. The orbiting stones flared brighter.
"Every Obelisk above ground channels a fragment of me. They draw magic from the Wyrm Core's heart—then twist it through the Null Process, erasing its nature."
"I have burned in stillness for three centuries. Bound. Dreaming. Dying."
Niko approached her, utterly unafraid. The light around him flared blue.
Embereth's voice softened.
"Ah… Spark-born. The true children of the Flame."
She reached out and touched his forehead. In that instant, runes erupted across his skin—glowing, ancient, living script.
He looked to Lyra. "She's not just power," he whispered. "She's memory."
Jassa was still on edge. "So what? We let her out and she burns the city to ash? That's not a future—it's another apocalypse."
Veil turned toward them. "No. The city is already ash. You just haven't seen the fire yet."
Embereth floated higher.
"I will not act without your will. This was the law of the Wyrm Pact: power must be chosen. That is why I remained sealed, even as they drained me."
"But now… you have awakened the path."
A new shape rose from the floor—a mirror. Tall, shifting, its surface made of smoke.
"Step into the Mirror of Flame, and I will show you the memory of this world."
Veil moved first.
One by one, they followed.
The world through the mirror was not a dream. It was a memory recorded in fire.
They stood on a vast plateau of obsidian, watching cities made of light rise from floating isles. Skyships passed between towers that reached through the clouds. Dragons of stardust curled around moons. People walked with spirits at their side, wearing armor made from living flame.
The old world.
Whole.
Beautiful.
Alive.
Then came the Hollow War.
The sky cracked. A darkness fell—not night, but something deeper. Great machines of null and rust descended. Magic died in places. Beings of flesh were turned to silence.
Then came the betrayal.
They saw men in robes, noble and fearful, standing before Embereth as she fought to keep the Flame alive. They struck her down—not with weapons, but with oaths. Binding oaths, cursed to erase memory.
They saw the birth of the Obelisks—not monuments, but cages.
They saw the First Spark fall. And the vampire Veil—younger, yet the same—fighting in that war, his eyes ablaze with grief.
Then the vision faded.
They were back in the cathedral.
Silence.
Lyra was crying.
"I didn't… know. All my life, I thought we were just fighting for scraps. But we're fighting for the whole sky."
Veil touched her shoulder gently. "That is why the High Houses fear us. Not because we are rebels. But because we remember."
Tyren looked up at Embereth. "If we free you… what happens?"
Embereth smiled.
"The chains fall. The Obelisks shatter. The Null field ends. Magic returns. Truth returns. And the High Houses will face what they buried."
Jassa muttered, "Yeah. And I bet the whole world burns before breakfast."
Veil turned to the others. "She's not wrong. This is not just a battle. This is a reclamation. If we choose to unbind her, there's no going back."
Niko stepped forward and placed his hand on the base of the throne.
Lyra followed, then Tyren, then Jassa—with a sigh and a shrug.
Veil stepped forward last.
"We choose fire," he said.
And the chains shattered.
The throne cracked open, the crystals splitting, and the great pulse of power surged upward like a geyser of flame and song. From the surface, the Obelisks glowed—then began to fracture.
In Skyborne towers, alarms screamed.
Across the Undercity, people fell to their knees as the Spark returned to them in full.
Aboveground, the elite would soon feel the absence of power like oxygen drained from their lungs.
And Embereth—no longer bound—spread her arms.
"Then let the hollow world burn. Let memory live again."