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**Chapter Ten: Threads in the Wind**
We camped at the edge of Virelai's ruins, the tower watching us like an eye that never closed.
The Watcher kept his back to a rock wall all night, one hand always on his blade. Kaelen didn't sleep at all. She sat cross-legged near the fireless camp, eyes on the stars as if reading secrets in their silence.
And me?
I dreamed.
Of fire—yes. But also of chains.
Chains made of light and sorrow. Chains that didn't bind me, but *him*.
My father.
I saw him standing beneath the tower of Virelai, his face half-shrouded in smoke, his shadow vast across the broken stones. But his eyes—when they found mine—they weren't cruel. They were *empty*.
When I woke, the sun had just kissed the horizon. Kaelen stood above me, arms crossed.
"It's waking," she said.
"The city?"
She shook her head. "The memory of it."
Virelai's gate creaked open at our approach, rusted iron parting like tired lungs. The city was dust and echoes, long abandoned but never *quiet*. The buildings leaned like they had bowed to time. Murals stained the alley walls—bright once, now burned pale by sun and sorrow.
"It was beautiful once," the Watcher said. "Before the Fire Court fell. Before grief took the throne."
Kaelen stepped ahead of us. "The temple's heart is beneath the tower. That's where the emberkeeper waits."
"The what?" I asked.
"A memory-bearer," she said, already walking. "One of the few left who knew your father before the fall."
We moved through the streets, and I swear I felt them shifting beneath our feet—like the city still breathed. Whispers threaded through the alleys.
And then I heard it.
A name. My name.
Spoken like a prayer. Or a warning.
When we reached the heart of the tower, it opened to a circular chamber filled with floating embers. They danced in spiral patterns, humming with soundless song.
And at the center, draped in a robe of soot and starlight, stood a figure older than time.
The emberkeeper.
She raised one hand, and the embers scattered into stories—scenes stitched from smoke and flame.
My father, smiling.
My mother, before she ran.
The two of them together. Hopeful. Strong. Unbroken.
And then the breaking.
A betrayal. A pact. A fire no one could control.
"You carry their flame," the emberkeeper said, her voice like wind across coals. "But what you build from it… will not be theirs. It will be yours."
I stepped closer, throat tight. "Why did he fall?"
She looked up, and her eyes were ash and gold. "Because he loved too much. And feared losing more than he could protect."
The sword on my back pulsed. The pendant burned warm at my heart.
And for the first time, I wasn't afraid of the truth.
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