The Hollow Tree stood silent.
Wind rustled its silver leaves, whispering stories only the flames could understand. Yet even it — the oldest guardian in Nareth — seemed uncertain tonight. As though it too waited for something it could not name.
Seren stood at its base, her eyes closed, one hand pressed to its bark. The Hollow Flame within her flickered wildly, no longer steady as before. Since the throne shattered, something inside her had shifted — a new rhythm, not hers, beating through her bones.
She wasn't alone anymore.
Not truly.
And that terrified her more than anything.
Kael approached carefully. He had long stopped trying to mask his steps around her. There was no point. She always knew when he was near.
"You haven't slept."
"I can't," she said softly. "It won't let me."
Kael tilted his head. "The flame?"
Seren opened her eyes, and for a moment, they weren't her eyes.
Not entirely.
A glimmer of something violet danced in her pupils — fleeting, but real.
"She's awake again," Seren whispered. "And she's dreaming."
He didn't have to ask who.
---
Arlya had not spoken since they returned from the ruined temple. She hadn't cried. Hadn't moved. But the room where she lay had changed.
Light pooled unnaturally in corners where no windows existed. Shadows sometimes curled along the ceiling in swirling spirals, even when the lamps were out. The air carried a hum — not sound, but memory. The sensation of something old sifting through the present.
Virea stood guard outside her door.
"She's not in a trance," she told Seren when she arrived later. "She's somewhere else."
Seren stepped inside and knelt beside the child's bed.
Arlya's skin was warmer than usual, her breathing too slow.
And then… she spoke.
A single word.
"Underneath."
Seren leaned in. "What's underneath, Arlya?"
The child's brow furrowed.
"Fire," she said. "But not ours."
---
That same night, far from the Hollow Tree, the old temple groaned.
Not from wind.
From memory.
Stones rolled away on their own. The thorns that once clung to its ruins recoiled, as though something deep below had stirred.
And then came the first crack.
Not in the earth — but in time.
A ripple, invisible to the world, spread like spilled ink across the fabric of the realm. Birds fell silent. Trees bent unnaturally. A lake in East Mere turned black for an hour before returning to blue.
The Flameguard — Seren's chosen — felt it. Every one of them, no matter how far. Each reported the same nightmare:
A throne made of bone. A woman on fire. And a whispering voice that bled gold.
---
By morning, Seren had summoned her council.
Kael. Virea. Laziel. General Therin. Eira of the Mist-Clan. And two envoys from the once-dormant Starborn.
The table was tense.
"We can't ignore this," Therin said. "Every Flameguard recruit reported the same dream. Even the children."
"It's not just dreams," Eira said. "Mist-water rose in the north. That only happens when something beneath the realm moves."
Laziel nodded. "The temple's cracking. I believe whatever was sealed under the last throne… it's waking."
Kael folded his arms. "You think Seren breaking it released something?"
"No," Laziel said. "I think it woke something that never left."
They all turned to Seren.
She said nothing for a long time.
Then: "Prepare the tree."
They looked at her.
"The Hollow Tree?" Eira asked. "What for?"
Seren stood. Her voice was calm, but beneath it trembled a quake of destiny.
> "We're not just waiting for fire anymore. We're sitting on it."
---
The Hollow Tree had long been sacred. A relic. A place of council, healing, and memory. But no one had ever tried to go beneath it.
Until now.
The tree's roots extended deep — deeper than any living creature had dared explore. It was said to touch the bones of the realm itself.
Seren led the Flameguard to begin digging, carving carefully with enchanted tools that sang in the presence of the Hollow Flame. For three days they worked, until they found it:
A stone arch, sealed with ancient sigils.
It hummed.
And when Seren touched it, it opened.
---
They descended.
Kael beside her. Laziel with lanterns made of captured starlight. Virea, silent and alert, one dagger always drawn.
The tunnel wound in impossible spirals, defying sense and stone. The deeper they went, the warmer it became — not the heat of fire, but blood.
"This isn't a passage," Laziel murmured. "It's a vein."
At last, they reached the chamber.
A cavern unlike anything in Nareth — enormous, round, lined with walls of obsidian that shimmered with trapped memories.
And in the center…
A throne.
But not one Seren recognized.
It was not made of gold or stone.
It was made of bone. Dragon bone. Bound together with old flame. It pulsed softly, like a heart.
Upon it sat no one.
But someone had once ruled from there.
The moment Seren stepped forward, a presence filled the air.
A voice, not spoken aloud, but pressed into every mind.
"She shattered the Pattern. She broke the flame. She dares return. She must remember."
Seren fell to her knees.
Visions came.
Dragons circling skies burned with prophecy. A woman crowned in ash. A child born from smoke and mourning. A war waged not with swords but stories — rewritten, erased, bled dry.
Then she saw herself, wrapped in chains made of names.
Vaerlyn. Seren. Fire-born. Flamebreaker. Queen of Ash. Thief of Time.
The voice screamed.
"You undid the story. Now burn in its ending."
---
Kael grabbed her, pulled her back.
Her skin steamed.
But the Hollow Flame flared within her, answering the ancient voice with defiance.
> "No," she gasped. "I rewrote it. I freed us."
The throne pulsed.
Then, from the bones, a shape began to rise.
Not a person.
A memory in flesh.
Wings unfolded — great and skeletal. Eyes opened — empty but burning.
A dragon not alive. Not dead.
Something between.
Seren stood tall.
"I know you," she whispered. "You're the one they erased."
The being growled, voice like breaking mountains.
> "I am the First Flame. You were my end."
> "Then let's begin again."