Time moved strangely in Naaren's Fold.
Months passed in silence and prayer, in sermons and rebuilding. The village became more than survival—it became a beacon. Word spread beyond the valley. Travelers came not for food or shelter, but for answers. For signs.
For him.
They brought songs. Dried flowers. Ruined scriptures rewritten in new tongues. Some wept just to see the sky above Naaren's Fold, as if the stars here glowed brighter.
They didn't.
But the people believed they did.
Eve had changed.
She no longer walked in my shadow.
She walked alone.
At dawn she climbed the ridge above the old orchard and stood barefoot in the cold wind, staring west where the sun bled into ash. Her eyes were unfocused, sometimes glassy. Sometimes burning gold. When she returned, she spoke of things that hadn't happened—yet.
"A city of bones that still sings."
"The river that forgets names."
"A sword that remembers its first death."
David called it prophecy.
Mikal called it madness.
But I… I saw something deeper.
The fire in me responded to her now. When she touched my hand, the flame quieted. When she cried, it shivered like a heartbeat. Her dreams grew louder, more specific.
And one night, she whispered:
"You will die. But not like before."
Then she kissed my palm and left without another word.
David, too, had become something else.
He still spoke plainly, still taught his circles. But his words grew heavier. He no longer merely translated my thoughts—he expanded them. Reinterpreted them. When villagers asked me a question, I'd answer, and then they'd still look to David for the meaning.
I did not resent it.
I needed it.
He named himself Seer of the Listening Flame, and few questioned it.
But one morning, as we watched a procession light lanterns down the eastern path, David turned to me and said:
"You're no longer the only voice of your godhood."
"I never wanted to be," I said.
"You may not have a choice."
And he was right.
Because that's when the Flame-Bound returned.
They had spent weeks in the western woodlands—training, fasting, meditating. They wore red veils and dark armor etched with my symbols. They had no leader, no sermons—only purpose.
Their speaker, a man named Kael, knelt before me in the square. His blade was wet with blood.
Not his.
"Marran's cult spreads north," he said. "They wear the ember crown. They hang the mouths of our converts on their gates."
"And you killed them?" I asked.
"Yes. They would have done worse."
"You speak for me now?"
"We act because you hesitate. Marran does not. If we wait for mercy to protect us, we will burn again."
David bristled. "That's not the Flame's way."
Kael smiled faintly. "Perhaps not your flame."
He stood and walked away.
And the villagers watched him leave with awe.
That night, I stood alone at the altar.
I lit no fire.
I called none to witness.
And still the flame came—unbidden, unwelcome.
But this time, it showed me something new.
Not a vision.
A memory.
I stood in a ruined city—not Naaren, not any village I knew. The sky was black, and the streets were filled with glass. The buildings were not made of stone or wood but flesh. Tall towers of bone, windows of blinking eyes.
And I remembered… this was once my temple.
In the First Era.
When I was not a god of mercy.
But of obedience.
Worshipped by fear. Paid in screams.
My flame had no shape. It devoured indiscriminately—joy, sorrow, war, peace. I was not savior. I was balance. The fulcrum between becoming and ending.
And I chose to forget.
I woke with the taste of ash in my mouth.
And a truth I could no longer deny:
My power was not good or evil.
It was both.
It gave and it took.
And now, I had to choose which half to serve.
Two days later, a survivor stumbled into Naaren's Fold.
Burnt. Eyes torn out. Teeth black with soot.
She whispered one word before collapsing:
"Glaven."
A town three valleys west.
A place of farmers and salt miners.
We rode there the next morning—David, Mikal, Eve, and I. Along with Kael and three of his Flame-Bound.
When we arrived, Glaven was silent.
No screams. No fires. Just stillness.
Then the wind shifted—and we saw the gates.
The mouths. Dozens. Sewn onto the wood with gold wire, forming a sigil of a burning crown.
In the square, a tree had been set aflame—but it did not burn. It bled smoke that hung in the air like incense. Around it, kneeling in circles, were men and women in white ash robes.
They chanted. Words I could not recognize.
And from within the tree… he stepped out.
Marran.
But not the man I remembered.
His body was cracked with glowing veins of black fire. His eyes were rings of violet. The tattoo on his arm now writhed like a living serpent.
He looked at me and smiled.
"The flame cannot listen forever," he said. "Eventually, it must speak."
David stepped forward. "You've desecrated this place."
"I've liberated it," Marran said. "No more waiting. No more parables. No more mercy."
"What do you want?" I asked.
He opened his arms wide.
"To balance the fire. You would use it to create. I use it to end. Together, we are whole."
"I will not join you."
"Then I will consume you."
He snapped his fingers.
The tree split open.
A creature stepped out—tall, robed in skin, head like a sunken lantern. Its mouth bore no tongue. Its chest held a second face—crying constantly, whispering forgotten names.
David gasped.
"That's an Erivoth. One of the Old Ones. Sealed before even Yahweh."
Marran laughed.
"And now awakened. The balance is restored."
The battle that followed was not one of blades or fire.
It was of wills.
The Erivoth opened its chest-mouth and screamed—not sound, but doubt. My hands trembled. My flame flickered. Eve fell to her knees, clutching her head.
"He's unmaking belief," David shouted. "You have to answer!"
"With what?!"
"With truth!"
I stepped forward.
The fire rose—but it was not wild.
It curled around me like a cloak, whispering memory.
I let it in.
I showed the Erivoth not divinity.
But grief.
The day I died.
The breath I lost.
The mercy I granted Marran.
The child I held in Naaren's Fold.
And the fire shuddered—not with rage.
But with recognition.
The Erivoth's scream choked. Its chest closed. It turned and fled—vanishing into the earth.
Marran screamed after it.
"Coward!"
I stepped toward him.
He backed away—not in fear, but defiance.
"You'll lose them," he spat. "They want fire that burns, not listens."
"Then let them choose," I said.
And with that, I turned away.
Back in Naaren's Fold, the people gathered again.
Some knelt.
Some cried.
Some argued.
Kael called for war.
David called for discipline.
Eve drew a spiral in the dirt.
And I…
I stood in the center.
Flame in my palm.
Neither warm nor cold.
And said:
"This fire is not for control. It is for choice. You will choose what you believe. And I will carry both the love and the weight of what you decide."
Some rose to cheer.
Some turned away.
But none doubted:
Their god was listening.
And the world was no longer silent.