Night had grown strange in the Emberlands.The stars above no longer shone steady; they flickered like dying candles, as though the sky itself had caught the sickness of the earth below.
Kael couldn't sleep. The whisper of the flames beside him was too alive, too aware. Every time the wind blew, it carried faint murmurs that seemed to form words.
"Kael… Kael…"
He sat up, staring into the dying fire. The embers glowed like small, open eyes.
Lira stirred beside him. "You heard it again, didn't you?"
He nodded. "It's not the fire's voice this time. It's something older… deeper. It feels like it's crawling through the smoke."
Seren, who kept watch a few feet away, turned. "It started after Merath," she said. "When the man vanished. Maybe he wasn't gone — maybe he took something with him."
Kael sighed. "Or left something behind."
The next day, they traveled toward the northern forests, hoping to reach the Temple of Still Waters — a place where silence was said to heal the mind. But silence was not what followed them.
Everywhere they went, people spoke of dreams. Dreams of fire that whispered names. Dreams that promised power, freedom, or revenge.
A farmer stopped Kael by the road, his eyes ringed with ash."She spoke to me," the man whispered. "A voice in the dark. Said the Flame was hungry… that it wanted to see me burn."
Kael's heart grew cold. "What did you do?"
The man smiled sadly. "I lit my fields myself. Better my fire than hers."
Smoke rose in the distance, black against the pale morning sky.
Lira's voice trembled. "This isn't natural. The flame's will doesn't command destruction like that."
Kael closed his eyes. "It's not the flame anymore. Something else is speaking through it."
By nightfall, they reached the edge of the Silent Forest. Its trees were tall and silver, their bark cool to the touch. The air here felt cleaner — yet strangely heavy, like the forest was holding its breath.
They set up camp by a clear stream. Seren scouted ahead while Lira brewed tea. Kael sat apart, staring at his reflection in the water.
His eyes — once golden with firelight — now carried faint threads of black smoke within them.
Lira came closer. "You're changing again."
"I know," he said softly. "Every time I use the fire, it leaves something behind. It's not just light anymore. It's memory."
"Memory of what?"
Kael looked at her. "Of everyone who's touched it."
He could feel them — hundreds of voices, small and broken, trapped in the flame. Pleading. Whispering.
We followed the fire… it betrayed us…Help us… we're still burning…
Kael gripped his head. The voices grew louder, like a chorus of ash.
Lira rushed to him. "Kael!"
But when she touched him, she felt it too — faint echoes crawling into her thoughts. Images of cities burning, of people reaching for the sky only to be devoured by their own flames.
Kael gasped, pulling her hand away. "Don't… it spreads."
Seren returned soon after, her face pale. "There's something ahead," she said. "A shrine. Abandoned, but… there are markings. Fresh ones."
They followed her through the forest. The trees began to twist, their silver bark turning dark. The ground grew warm beneath their feet.
At last, they reached a clearing where an ancient stone altar stood. Upon it burned a small, black flame — steady, silent, wrong.
Lira stepped back. "That's not the ember's light."
Kael nodded slowly. "No. That's something else entirely."
He approached the altar. The flame flickered — and then, it spoke.
"Kael of the First Fire," it whispered. "You walk in circles, chasing ghosts."
He froze. The voice was calm, patient, too familiar.
"The Eye," he said quietly.
"You thought you destroyed me," the voice said, echoing from the dark flame. "But destruction is only another form of transformation. I learned from you."
Kael's hands trembled. "You don't belong here."
"Nor do you," the Eye answered gently. "You were meant to vanish with the first ember. Yet you linger — half fire, half man."
Lira shouted, "Stop listening to it!"
But Kael couldn't move. The flame's whisper sank deeper.
"Tell me, Kael… when you burned the first darkness, did you ever wonder if you were saving the world — or feeding it?"
His breath caught. The question hit like a blade.
"Every savior," the Eye continued, "becomes the thing they fight. That is the law of fire."
Kael's voice broke. "You lie."
"Do I? Then why do you still hear me?"
For a moment, the forest blurred — every leaf, every sound bending into a single rhythm of whispers.
Kael forced himself to step back. "You won't twist me again."
The black flame flared, but before it could grow, Kael drew his blade and drove it into the altar. The flame screamed, then burst into smoke.
When the air cleared, the stone was cracked — and Kael was on his knees, shaking.
Lira ran to him. "Kael, what did it say?"
He looked up, eyes full of sorrow. "It asked me a question I can't answer."
Seren frowned. "What question?"
He whispered, "If the fire saves us… why does it always leave ash behind?"
They left the shrine in silence.That night, Kael sat by the dying fire, his reflection dancing between gold and black.
In his chest, something flickered — not just power, but doubt.
"Maybe," he thought, "the Eye was never truly gone. Maybe it only changed shape — into the fear we refuse to face."
He closed his eyes.The last ember sighed softly — like a heart remembering a wound.