The shard burned in her chest—not like flame, but like a bruise struck too many times. Evelyn twisted in restless sleep, sweat cold along her brow, breath shallow. She knew this wasn't a dream, not truly.
Not anymore.
There was no sky in this place.
Just ember-glow and void. A flat plane of scorched stone stretched endlessly outward, broken by arcs of ruinous glyphs flickering in and out of phase. In the center stood the Warden.
Not the old, weathered corpse she remembered from half-taught childhood tales. No. This version stood tall, cloaked in woven coal-thread and ash robes, the core of his chest open—glowing with the same kind of fractured light she now carried.
"You've come again," he said. His voice echoed twice—once in the mind, once in the bone.
"I didn't choose this," Evelyn answered.
"Choice was lost the moment the shard entered you."
She stepped closer. The Warden's face was concealed behind a smoldering mask carved in the shape of a raven's beak. She could hear the thrum of memory pulsing off his form—not heat, but history.
"What are you?" she asked.
"What you will become, if you survive."
His hand reached out, palm upward. A mote of fire hovered above it, but it didn't burn. It pulsed—like a heart.
"You remember the hymn of flame?" he asked.
Evelyn blinked. "What?"
He began to speak—not in words, but in tone. A rising hum that threaded through her mind like forgotten song. The ember in her chest responded, vibrating to the rhythm.
A vision bloomed.
Children carved from bark and bone playing in a circle of light. Wardens walking a road of stone through a city of spires—each tower tipped in blue fire. Then: the shattering.
A sky broken open.
Spirits turned to ash. Men turning from light, not out of hate, but fear.
And finally, a choice made in a chamber deep beneath the world. The heartfire sealed. The order buried. The shard passed forward—not as gift, but burden.
Evelyn gasped. Her knees struck the ground.
"Why show me this?"
"Because you ask what you are. The better question is what you carry."
He knelt beside her. The ember between them flickered—then stretched into a thread, joining her core to his.
"You are a lantern in a dead place," he said softly. "But light demands cost. And those who walk the flamewalk must always pay it."
"What cost?" she asked.
The Warden touched her forehead.
And suddenly, she felt it all.
The deaths. The lives carried inside the shard. The pain of generations locked into stone and soul. Echoed screams, ancient bargains, and something else—something beneath the memory. A presence waiting. Watching.
She screamed.
The ember thread snapped.
She woke.
Torren was beside her, hand on her shoulder. His brow furrowed in worry. "Ev?"
She bolted upright, the breath punching from her lungs. Her hands shook. Her mouth tasted of smoke.
"Another vision?" he asked.
She nodded.
Vareth stirred from the far wall. "You were humming in your sleep."
She met Torren's eyes.
"It wasn't just a vision," she whispered. "It was… him. The old Warden. He remembers. And now… so do I."
Torren leaned back, wary.
"What did he say?"
"That I'm the lantern now."
She looked at her hand.
The skin glowed faintly—lines of ember branching under the flesh.
"And there's a cost I haven't paid yet."