I made it, Joren.
The wind tore the hood from my cloak, whipping my hair about, lashing it against my neck as I turned for one final glance at Cindara's endless dunes—my footsteps already fading into the shifting sands. Ash gritted between my teeth, a bitter grit clawing my throat. I swallowed hard, forcing it down, and staggered through the grand archway into Aetherforge Citadel—a seething inferno of fire and fury that vowed to devour me raw or hammer my bones into something unbreakable. My scarred fingers, raw and throbbing from the wastes' relentless bite, clutched the necklace at my throat—a rough twist of ember-shard, etched with swirling flames by my mother's own hands—her final gift. Its faint glow whispered burn bright, like a dare against the roaring vents and molten haze.
The citadel unfolded before me like a living beast, structures of crimson basalt rising like jagged spires that pulsed with inner fire. Ember-veins threaded through the stone, glowing with the rhythmic throbs of the underground calderas, as if the buildings themselves were colossal hearts pumping the empire's fiery blood. I'd fled here to outrun the ghosts of the wastes—the suffocating crush of the collapse that crushed my brother alive, his final rasp scraping my soul raw, the guilt festering like an open wound. But as the Bonding Eclipse hemorrhaged the sky in blood-red fury, a spark ignited deep in my gut, yanking me toward the unknown.
As I walked further into the citadel, dancing lights created hypnotic patterns on the faces of passersby—artisans hauling carts of shimmering ore, Phoenixkin performers practicing controlled bursts of flame, and lowborn apprentices like myself, with their eyes downcast amid the grandeur. The undercity's cavernous halls loomed below, echoing with the ceaseless hum of forges. Enraptured by the sight before me, I didn't realize I had stopped amid the bustling street until a man bumped into me. I quickly looked to apologize when I saw that he was still, staring at my necklace—my Core was pulsing this bright and volatile light that illuminated my mother's pendant. He gazed at it with hunger, but a quick shadow of fear raced across his features. Meeting my eyes, he turned and melted into the crowd without a word. With a new level of wariness, I pulled my cloak around me and continued further into the citadel.
Today, the Bonding Eclipse Festival transformed the citadel into a whirlwind of celebration. Bonfires roared in every plaza, their flames twisting in sync. Performers in flowing robes enacted rebirth rituals, bodies wreathed in fire that licked harmlessly at their skin before exploding into triumphant rebirth. Vendors hawked spiced ember-brews that promised subtle euphoric glows, and crowds gathered to share tales under the moons' aligned gaze, where Cores stirred with a faint, electric hum—amplifying magic, binding fates, or so the old lore claimed.
Elder Thorne's instructions had been simple: "Go to the inn; it's just past the archway—you can't miss it." Lo and behold, there the inn stood, its facade of crimson basalt etched with faint ember-veins that pulsed like veins in the night, offering a welcome yet foreboding glow. A faint chime rang as I pushed in the front door. An inviting common room lay before me with sturdy oak beams supporting the walls and upper floors, a central hearth—roaring as flames danced on polished copper accents—and threadbare rugs stained by countless boots. The air carried a mix of stew simmering in iron pots and fresh-baked ash-bread, drawing weary travelers to communal benches.
"Ahem."
I looked to my right as the noise startled me. Behind an old, scarred oak desk sat an aging man. He looked thin and frail behind such massive furniture, but his presence and piercing gaze belied his physique.
"Lass, can I help you?" His resolute, smoke-thick voice was firm and clear, cutting past his age-lined face.
"Oh… yes," I whispered. "I need a place to rest. Do you have any rooms?"
He chuckled a little. "Of course we do."
Of course they do. I berated myself as I felt the heat rising in my cheeks.
"How long will ya be stayin'?"
"Oh… I'm not really sure. Until I find something permanent, I guess."
"I see. Well, welcome to Aetherforge Citadel. I take it this is your first time here, and on such a fortuitous day! Are ya going to go out and enjoy the festivities?" He reached for one of the skeleton keys hanging behind him.
"Oh, um… I'm not really sure."
"Well, ya should! I recommend gettin' some ember-brew, a spot by the fire, and just take it all in." He said with a wink as he handed me my key. "Key's yours, lass. Room's on the third floor."
"Thank you… I'll think about it."
I grabbed the key and headed up the stairs to my room. The noise from the common room faded the higher I climbed. It seemed like I was the only one on the third floor, and almost as though the old man was giving me some privacy. The room was small and simple, with a full-size bed with rough linens to the left, a desk beneath the window, and a washroom to the right with a copper basin fed by heated vents. I set my belongings—what was left of my life stuffed in a small bag—on the desk. It was rough and scarred with carvings from previous guests.
Before I could think of sinking into the mattress, the glow from the citadel caught my eye as amber and shadow danced along the window pane like lovers chasing each other in the night. I could see the main street with more people gathering and children running with streamers to the plaza. Joren, if you could only see this place. I wonder if this is everything you've ever dreamed it would be? My Core pulsed faintly at the thought. I need to find Garrick. Elder Thorne said he would be my ally here and someone to help me find my place. I dragged my hand over my pocket once more to make sure I still had the scroll and headed back toward the common room, hoping the old man would know where I could find him.
"Excuse me, sir? Do you happen to know where I can find the tavern?"
The old man gave me a contemplative look as he took in my appearance. "Oh yes, the tavern's such a solemn place on a day like this, though. Why on earth do you want to go there, lass?"
"I, uh… I am looking for someone. His name is Garrick."
"Hmm. I see. Well, if ya must know, you can find the tavern across the way on the corner before the plaza. You should really get out and enjoy the celebration, though. Much more lively people."
"Thank you." I gave him a small smile and a nod before stepping out the door.
"Good luck." I heard as the door closed behind me.
I silently made my way through the growing crowd toward the plaza. The tavern sat just beyond the shadows, with a low roof blackened by years of forge-smoke drifting in from the nearby vents. I pushed through the creaking door, my boots scuffing against the grit-strewn floor, the sealed scroll from Elder Thorne burning a hole in my pocket. The place was a burrow of shadows and murmurs, a stark contrast to the lively celebration outside. Apprentices nursed ember-brews at scarred tables, their faces etched with the day's Scorch, while a lone bard strummed a lament on a shard-lute in the corner.
I scanned the room, my heart beating faster with the possibility that I might have missed him already, until I finally spotted him: Garrick Bromly, slouched at a back table with a tankard in his good hand, his shard-prosthetic arm glinting faintly in the low light like a forged relic. He looked up as I walked over, his grizzled face—framed by salt-and-ash hair and a scarred jawline—breaking into a wry grin that didn't quite reach his weary eyes.
"Well, if it ain't Thorne's little spark," he rumbled, his voice a gravelly echo of the wastes, laced with the citadel's sharper accent. He gestured to the stool opposite with his prosthetic, the ember-veins in the metal pulsing softly. "Sit, girl. You've got the look of someone who's crossed more than just dunes to get here."
I slid onto the stool, sliding the scroll across the table. "Elder Thorne sends his regards—and a debt to collect."
Garrick's eyes narrowed as he unfurled it, the parchment crinkling and releasing remnant ash. He read in silence, then let out a low chuckle that turned into a cough. "That old wraith always did know how to twist an arm. Saved his hide in a raid once; now he's cashing in for you." He leaned back, appraising me with a forge-master's keen gaze. "Heard about your brother—rough break. And your Core… Thorne says it's pure as the first flame. Dangerous gift in a place like this."
I nodded, the weight of Joren's memory pressing like hot coals against my chest. "I need work. Real forging, not scavenging scraps."
Garrick tapped his prosthetic thoughtfully. "Aye, I can get you in at the Emberheart Crucible—overseer's an old contact. But listen close, lass: the citadel's flames burn hotter than the wastes. Lords like the golden-eyed charmers up top? They'll sniff out your spark and try to claim it. Stick to the anvils, keep your head down, and maybe you'll last." He stood, clapping my shoulder with surprising gentleness. "Meet me at the forge gates at dawn. And Elowen? Burn smart, not bright—lest you end up like the rest of us, half-ash and regrets." As he limped away, I felt a flicker of hope amid the tavern's gloom.
With this newfound hope and the old man's words replaying in my head, I decided to steel my nerves, head out to enjoy the festival, and bask in the firelight.
Evening was falling and the eclipse deepened. I wandered through the plaza, drawn to a bonfire's edge. Warming my hands, my gaze slowly got lost in the flame's dance. I heard children nearby laughing as they chased each other around. My vision lost focus. "El! El! Come see what I found!" I heard Joren's voice. A memory replayed: we were back in the dunes—scavenging for what Joren called treasures. "Show me what you found," I said with a smirk across my lips.
"Look, look—it's a key. We can use this to get into the hidden citadel!" His laugh was a spark that lit up the dunes.
Slowly my vision cleared, and I was still staring into the bonfire's flames. I brought shaking fingers to my lips, feeling the subtle smirk from my memory as a tear trailed down my cheek.
I withdrew my gaze from the flames when a Phoenixkin performance began nearby. It seemed to be a play of sorts. Two young girls entered the center of the plaza, one dressed in white and the other in black, carrying fans of silk in similar colors. From afar, they looked so similar. A woman joined them with a warm smile.
"Tonight we will enthrall you with the myth of the Shadowed Flame," she addressed the crowd. The two young girls began to dance, slow and close as though they were one.
"In ancient Infernia, during the first Bonding Eclipse after the Great Eruption, the primordial flames birthed twin spirits: Lumina, the true light of unbreakable bonds," the young dancers began to drift apart, "and Umbra, her shadowy twin who envied her radiance." Their dance began to increase in pace with long, elaborate moves.
"Umbra wove illusions from ash-mists, crafting 'shadow flames'—false Ember Links that mimicked warmth but transmitted only pain and deceit." The young girl in black danced faster, circling around her twin until the white fabric became smaller and smaller.
"Those ensnared by Umbra's bonds believed in eternal love, only to Scorch from within when the eclipse waned, their Cores fracturing into echoes of betrayal." The young girl in white had almost completely disappeared from view.
"The myth warns that during eclipses, Umbra's whispers tempt the vulnerable, binding souls with threads of lies." At once, the girls stopped dancing and slowly rose to bow toward the crowd together. Many clapped and cheered for their performance, and children ran to play with the fans.
Across the fire, a man caught my eye. He stood, having observed the performance, looking thoughtful among all of the revelry. He had windswept ember-red hair that caught the light like dying coals, eyes of molten gold holding a quiet intensity, and a lean frame fitted in understated forge-leathers etched with subtle flame motifs. He slowly turned and locked eyes with me. With an unhurried grace, he approached, offering a small, genuine smile that crinkled at the corners of his eyes.
"The flames tell stories tonight—yours seems to be one of quiet strength amid the excitement. I've seen many eclipses, but few who watch them with such… rumination."
His voice was warm, a measured baritone that felt inviting rather than commanding. "My name is Malric Ashthorn." He held out his hand to shake mine. I hesitated, unused to such direct attention, but there was something in his tone—wistful, almost kindred—that drew me in.
"Oh… my name is Elowen. Elowen Voss."
Our hands touched, and I felt a spark flit quickly across my skin, followed by a warmth that slowly crept up my arm. I gasped and quickly withdrew my hand. I looked up at him, but he was still giving me a warm smile as though nothing had happened. It must have been embers carried by the breeze.
"It's very nice to meet you. May I sit with you?" He gestured to a spot next to me on the stone bench. I nodded slowly. Why is he talking to me, out of everyone here?
Malric sat down next to me, leaving comfortable space between us, and leaned back to rest on his arms while looking up at the ember-red sky.
"Hmm, what a performance. Have you ever seen anything quite like that, Elowen?" He still had a wistful air about him, and the way he said my name sent heat rushing up my neck. I turned my head back to the bonfire, hoping to conceal my blush.
"No. I haven't. I've never been to a festival before." I responded quietly. The rhythmic swirls of black and white silk replayed in my mind.
Malric sat up and leaned in slightly, as if trying to catch my words. "I remember my first eclipse." His molten-gold eyes reflected the flames; his voice dropped to a warm, intimate timbre, inevitably drawing me in. "The first time I truly felt the eclipse's pull," Malric began, his gaze shifting back to the blood-red sky as if reliving it, "I was no older than twelve, a scrappy apprentice in the outer forges—far from the citadel's grandeur, out where the wastes meet the vents. The moons aligned just like tonight, and the air hummed with that electric charge, stirring Cores like a whisper from the flames themselves. I remember standing alone on a ridge, away from the clan's bonfires, because even then, I craved solitude to feel it raw. The shadows lengthened, the sky bled crimson, and suddenly my Core ignited—not with power, but with this deep, aching pull, like invisible threads tugging at my soul."
I touched my chest, remembering the same feeling just earlier today.
"It was terrifying and beautiful all at once; I felt exposed, as if the eclipse was peeling back layers I'd hidden even from myself. A scar from a childhood burn throbbed like it was alive again, reminding me of losses I'd buried. But in that moment, I knew—fate wasn't just a story elders told. It was real, waiting to bind us to something greater… or break us if we resisted. Have you ever felt that, Elowen? That undeniable call, like your past and future colliding in the fire?"
He looked at me with that quiet intensity, the molten gold in his eyes shifting in the firelight. I hesitated as his question hung in the air like smoke. His story stirred something deep in me, a resonance I couldn't seem to ignore. Drawing a breath laced with the festival's spiced haze, I met his gaze.
"Yes… I have felt something like that," I admitted, my fingers absently tracing the ember-shard necklace. "It was during an eclipse much like this one, back in the Cindara Wastes—though ours were wilder, untamed by citadel walls. I was just a girl, maybe ten, scavenging with my little brother, Joren, near a caldera rim. The moons aligned, and the sky turned that same bloody red, the air buzzing like a swarm of angry sparks. We were laughing, chasing what we thought were glowing shards in the dusk, when my Core… it woke. Not gently, like a whisper—it surged, hot and fierce, like flames erupting from my chest. For a heartbeat, everything collided: the pull of the eclipse dragging up buried fears, the future flashing in visions of fire I couldn't control, and the past… well, it felt like Joren and I were bound in that moment, our laughter echoing forever. But it scared me, that undeniable call. Joren teased me about becoming a 'flame queen,' but I just felt… exposed, like the eclipse had stripped me bare."
I trailed off, my eyes distant, the memory's ache mingling with the festival's roar. It was the first time I'd voiced it so openly, drawn out by Malric's quiet intensity.
His eyes softened further in the firelight; he leaned just a fraction closer, his posture open and inviting, as if my words had unlocked something shared and profound between us.
"Exposed… that's the word for it," he murmured. "Your story touches something familiar in mine—the surge, that blend of fear and undeniable promise. It's as though the eclipse wove these echoes for us to find, two souls recognizing a rhythm in the flames. And your brother… he sounds like he had a keen eye for hidden fire. What happened to him, if you don't mind my asking?"
His question slipped in like a soft invitation wrapped in empathy, his tone carrying sincere curiosity that felt like a subtle guide to unravel more of myself. I hesitated, the warmth of his attention loosening the guarded knot in my chest, and before I could stop them, the words flowed.
"It was during a scavenging run near a volatile caldera rim," I began, my voice barely above the crackle of the bonfire, the festival's revelry fading into a distant hum. "I was ten, and Joren—my little brother—was eight, trailing me like he always did, his laughter cutting through the wastes' silence. He was full of dreams, clutching some shard he'd dug up, insisting it was a key to a hidden citadel. 'We'll be lords one day, El!' he'd say, his eyes shining brighter than any ember."
I paused, the necklace heavy at my throat, its faint glow mirroring the ache in my chest. "The ground trembled without warning—a cinder collapse, ash and rock crashing down like the flames' own vengeance. We were buried in an instant, choking darkness pressing in, my lungs burning as I clawed for air. My hands found his fingers—small, desperate—and I screamed for him to hold on. In that panic, my Core surged for the first time, raw and hot, blasting through the debris. I dragged myself free, gasping, skin torn by jagged stones… but Joren didn't follow. I dug until my nails bled, uncovering his face—pale, eyes frozen wide. His last breath… it was just a rasp, my name, lost in the settling dust. Gone, like that."
The guilt twisted deeper as I spoke, my eyes stinging with unshed tears. "That day awakened my Core fully—spared me, but left me questioning why. Why me, not him? The clan whispered it was a curse, and after Mother's death soon after, the wastes felt like a tomb of regrets. Joren's dreams of the citadel… they drove me here, to forge something from the ashes, to prove my survival wasn't a waste. But some nights, it feels like the flames took more than they gave."
My voice trailed into the bonfire's crackle. Malric gave me a faint nod; he had shifted subtly closer with one hand resting near mine on the stone bench without quite touching, as if offering comfort should I choose to take it. His molten-gold eyes misted faintly while he remained a steady anchor, his silence inviting, as though my pain and sorrow were a shared flame between us.
"Such a loss… it carves us deeper than any blade," he replied at last, his tone holding a slight quiver. "Your strength in carrying it—honoring his dreams by coming here—that's the true flame, Elowen. The eclipse binds us in strange ways; perhaps it's no coincidence we share these scars tonight." His words hung like a promise, drawing my gaze back to his with a pull I couldn't yet name.
As the bonfire's embers began to settle and the crowd's energy waned with the fading eclipse, Malric rose with reluctant grace, offering a faint, lingering smile. "It seems the festival comes to an end, but perhaps our paths will align again—after all, flames have a way of finding their kind." With a brief, reassuring touch to my arm that sent a subtle spark through my Core, he faded into the throng, leaving me by the dying fire.
I returned to my modest lodgings, my heart feeling lighter. Fate? Of all the people, and he seemed to genuinely care about my story… about me. I wonder if I really will see him again. It felt like, for the first time in ages, I felt a spark of possibility. Maybe the citadel will hold more than just survival. I tucked my necklace away with renewed hope, the flames outside my window pulsing like a promise—or a warning.