"Even ruins remember the prayers once whispered within them."
The air smelled of smoke and iron.
When I opened my eyes, the world was gray—ashen sky, dead trees, ground fractured like glass. My ears rang, my body ached, but I was alive. Somehow.
The bunker was gone.
No sound of battle, no trace of Elias or the cloaked hunters. Only silence, heavy and endless.
I tried to move, wincing at the pain lacing through my arm. Burn marks ran from my wrist to my elbow, faintly glowing blue where the fire had touched me. The pendant around my neck pulsed weakly, its light dimmed.
"Elias…"
The name escaped like a whisper. No answer.
I pushed myself up and stumbled forward. The river he'd mentioned wasn't far—a thin, silver vein cutting through the wasteland. I followed it north, each step crunching over shards of glass and bone.
Hours blurred together. The world felt wrong—too still, too hollow. Sometimes I thought I saw shadows moving between the trees, but when I turned, there was nothing. Only the echo of my own footsteps.
By dusk, I reached what remained of a city. Broken towers leaned like tombstones, and in the center, rising above the ruins, stood the cathedral.
Its doors were shattered, yet its spires still pointed defiantly toward the sky. The stained glass windows were cracked, but faint light filtered through them, painting ghostly colors across the dust.
For a long moment, I just stood there, staring. Something in me stirred—a memory, faint and ungraspable.
A voice in my mind whispered: You've been here before.
I stepped inside.
The interior was vast and cold. Rows of ruined pews stretched toward a distant altar. The walls were covered in murals—faded depictions of angels and fire, of men kneeling before winged figures. In the center of the ceiling, a single word was carved in ancient script.
REQUIEM.
I traced the letters with my gaze, heart pounding. The air hummed softly, like the echo of a forgotten hymn.
Something shifted behind me.
I spun around, summoning a spark of flame instinctively—but the figure that emerged wasn't a hunter.
It was a woman.
Or at least, what remained of one.
Her form flickered like light through smoke—half spirit, half memory. Her eyes glowed faintly gold, and her voice carried the tone of both mercy and mourning.
"You shouldn't have come here," she said.
I tightened my grip on the fire. "Who are you?"
"The Keeper of Ashes," she replied softly. "I guard what's left of the old world. And you, child of flame, are its undoing."
My pulse spiked. "Then why not stop me?"
She smiled faintly. "Because it isn't time yet."
The words froze me. "What does that mean?"
She began to walk toward the altar, her steps leaving no trace on the dust. "The seal within you has begun to break. When the final one shatters, the serpent will awaken. And with it—the storm that ended the last age."
"The serpent…" I whispered, remembering the dreams—the coils of light, the wings of fire, the whisper calling my name.
The Keeper turned to face me. "You still dream of it, don't you? The moment you burned the heavens?"
I shook my head. "No. That wasn't me."
"Denial doesn't change truth," she murmured. "The soul remembers what the mind forgets."
Her eyes softened, as though she pitied me. "Elias was right to fear your awakening. His oath binds him to protect you, even from yourself."
I took a step back. "You know him?"
A hint of sadness crossed her face. "I knew who he was, before he chose to fall."
Something in her tone made my chest tighten. "Where is he now?"
The Keeper's gaze drifted upward, toward the broken stained glass. "Lost between flame and shadow. Neither alive nor gone. You will find him only when you remember what you made him become."
Before I could speak, the ground trembled. A pulse of dark energy surged through the cathedral, rattling the walls.
The Keeper's expression changed—fear flickering through her eyes. "They've found you again."
"Who—?"
"Run," she commanded, her voice rising. "The Conclave has sent their hounds. This place won't hold them."
"I'm not leaving without answers!"
"There is no time!"
Her form began to fade, dissolving into light. Her final words echoed through the crumbling hall—
"When the serpent calls your name, do not answer."
Then she was gone.
A deafening crash split the air as the cathedral doors burst open. Figures cloaked in silver light stormed in, weapons drawn, eyes burning white.
The Conclave had arrived.
The world erupted in chaos.
Light exploded across the cathedral floor, shattering what remained of the pews. The Conclave's hounds—three of them, clad in armor that shimmered like liquid moonlight—advanced through the smoke.
"Target located," one of them said, voice mechanical through his mask. "The vessel is active. Authorization to terminate?"
I ducked behind a fallen column as another bolt of white fire scorched the wall above me. The sound was deafening, like thunder caught in a cage.
Every instinct screamed to run, but something inside me rebelled. No more running. No more hiding.
I reached for the pendant on my chest—the last piece of Ariselle's memory—and whispered the word that had come to me in dreams.
"Solvere."
The air convulsed. The blue flame burst from my palm, swirling upward like a living thing. It didn't burn—it sang. Each flicker hummed with the sound of ancient voices, harmonizing in rage and grief.
The Conclave's leader raised his weapon. "Contain him before it stabilizes!"
Too late.
The fire obeyed me.
It leapt from my hand like lightning, crashing into the nearest hound. His armor shattered, the light within his body fracturing into sparks before dissolving completely.
The other two faltered, momentarily stunned. I could feel their fear—because I was afraid, too.
But for the first time, it wasn't Aiden who moved.
It was her.
The air bent around me as my vision blurred. The cathedral seemed to shift—its shadows deepened, its ceiling rose higher, its broken windows repaired in a flash of golden light. And in that reflection of memory, I saw her: Lady Ariselle, standing where I stood, her eyes glowing with the same fire that now burned through my veins.
The remaining Conclave hunters saw it too.
"Reincarnation confirmed—subject is unstable!" one shouted.
"Fall back—!"
Their command cut short as the ground cracked beneath them. The fire spread across the cathedral like veins of light, wrapping around the altar. The word REQUIEM began to pulse again, faster and faster, until it wasn't a word anymore but a heartbeat.
And through it all, a voice spoke.
"Aiden Vale."
My breath caught. It wasn't Elias's voice.
It was older. Colder. Familiar in a way that made my skin crawl.
"The flame remembers its cage."
"Who are you?" I shouted.
No answer—only laughter, echoing through every wall, through every stone that had ever held a prayer.
The Conclave fell silent. Their weapons dimmed as if swallowed by the same voice.
I looked down at my hands. The fire had turned from blue to gold. My body trembled, the world spinning as power flooded through me—too much, too fast.
And then, through the haze, I heard a sound that made my blood freeze.
Footsteps.
Slow, deliberate, echoing down the aisle.
A figure emerged through the smoke. Tall. Dressed in black. Eyes glowing faint crimson beneath the cracked light filtering from above.
Elias.
Alive.
But wrong.
His expression was unreadable, his aura cold enough to still the air. Around him, the Conclave members stopped moving—as if bound by invisible threads.
"Elias," I breathed. "You're—"
"Don't." His voice cut through me like ice. "Don't say my name."
The way he said it made the world tilt.
He raised his hand, and the Conclave turned their weapons on me.
My heart stopped. "What are you doing?"
"Finishing what should've never begun," he said. "You should've stayed asleep, Ariselle."
The word hit harder than any blade.
Before I could answer, the ground beneath me split open, the altar collapsing into a pit of light. I fell—through dust, through silence, through memory.
And as I plunged into the blinding void, I heard him whisper—
"Forgive me, Aiden."
Then everything went dark.