Ash in the Corridor
The corridor still smoldered.
Ash drifted down like silent snow, settling over scorched stone and broken blades. Renzo stood amidst the unconscious bodies of his would-be executioners, shadows flickering across his face from the low, flickering torches. His body remained wrapped in fractured Shadowsidian, the armor alive with slow pulses, as if breathing alongside him.
But the flame within him—his echo—was still.
Not extinguished. Not enraged.
> It watched.
Yna arrived moments later, her steps swift and measured. Her eyes swept over the scene—six Ash Guard, high-ranking enforcers of the Dominion, all incapacitated by a force none of them truly understood.
> "You didn't kill them," she said.
Renzo didn't look at her.
> "I wanted to."
The honesty in his voice wasn't sharp.
It was quiet. Tired.
Heavy.
Yna stepped over a fallen assassin and stood beside him. "I recognize two of these faces. These aren't extremists. These are veterans. Leaders."
Renzo finally met her gaze.
> "Then this wasn't rogue. This was authorized."
He looked down at his hand, still tingling with residual flame.
> "The Dominion's cracking."
---
Infirmary Depths – Council Containment Cells
Deep below the Ember Spire, Sovereign Thorne walked the halls alone.
He passed each of the sealed containment cells—inside, the failed assassins knelt or sat in silence, bound by flame-forged manacles etched with runes of suppression.
He stopped before the last cell, where the leader—an Ash Guard lieutenant named Varic—sat with arms resting on his knees, head tilted up.
Thorne's voice was low, grave.
> "You forced his hand."
Varic's lip curled.
> "He's the Vault. His very existence is a threat. You taught us to extinguish threats."
Thorne studied the man's hollow eyes, then spoke like smoke.
> "If existence is a threat… then perhaps none of us should be here."
He turned and walked away, the flame seals hissing shut behind him.
---
Ember Fields – Three Days Later
The heat of distrust began to boil.
What once whispered in corridors now echoed in sparring circles. Students looked over shoulders. Instructors stopped speaking when Renzo passed. The Dominion had become a house divided—not just by fear, but by flame itself.
Renzo, Yna, and a small circle of allies—Instructor Dal, scholar Kael, and acolyte Mira—met in the lower Ember Chamber, where even walls had begun to glow with unease.
Dal's expression was grim. His cloak bore burn marks from a recent battle.
> "There's been another Voidburst."
Renzo froze. "Where?"
> "The Southwest range. Outside Dominion jurisdiction. Where the exiles live."
Yna straightened. "The rogue flame sects. Outcasts. Survivors of the first Collapse."
Dal nodded. "We thought the Void was dormant—scattered remnants with no anchor. We were wrong."
He pulled a scorched fragment of stone from his pouch. Void-tainted. Corroded at the molecular level.
> "And the worst part... survivors said it wasn't a Vault that caused it."
Renzo's voice dropped. "Then who?"
Dal hesitated.
> "A Celestial. One who called himself the Flame Eater."
The name struck the room like a dying star.
Kael muttered, "That name... it's from the old stories. A celestial who devours resonance. Not corrupts it. Consumes it."
Yna whispered, "It's Verus. He's changed."
Renzo's hands clenched.
His flame didn't flare.
It tightened—like a coil bracing for war.
---
The Ruins of Solmere
What remained of Solmere was quiet.
Too quiet.
Buildings melted like wax. Trees stood petrified in glasslike forms. Human silhouettes, flash-burned into stone, stood mid-scream or mid-prayer. Not a single body decayed—they had been preserved in their last emotions.
In the center stood Verus.
But he no longer glowed with the celestial blaze of old.
His fire had mutated—starfire laced with void, soulflame touched with hunger. The cloak on his back now twisted like a nebula feeding on itself.
He cradled the still body of a flame-bearer—elderly, eyes open in final horror.
> "You tried to master flame through pain," Verus murmured, stroking the man's singed hair. "But flame... is hunger."
He opened his palm.
A swirling siphon of flame and void drew from the corpse, pulling out its final trace of resonance—a flicker of soul—and swallowed it whole.
Above him, the atmosphere began to ripple.
Stars bent. Space folded.
Verus smiled.
> "The Vault awoke. Now I will become the Door."
---
Archives of Flame – The Forbidden Vault
Driven by the pull of memory—and a growing certainty in his veins—Renzo descended into the Archives, deeper than any student had gone.
Yna followed, guiding him through corridors carved in lava-glass, past ancient barriers laced with ember script.
At last, they arrived at a sealed pedestal.
A flame-locked tome hovered above it.
Yna touched her hand to the seal. "This book hasn't been opened since the War of Dimming Suns."
> "Book of the First Flame," she read aloud. "Recorded by the last Flamebearer who walked between void and harmony."
Renzo opened the book.
The first page showed an image inked in stardust:
A figure wrapped in galaxy-colored fire, armored in flowing Shadowsidian, but with radiant rings orbiting its shoulders like haloed moons.
Below it:
> One who survives the Void becomes not just a bearer—but an Anchor.
Capable of stitching existence through flame and will.
A living convergence point.
Yna's voice lowered. "You're not just the Vault…"
> "You're the Flame Anchor."
Renzo closed the book, eyes sharp with dawning clarity.
> "Then I need to learn fast."
Because across the stars, something had awakened.
And it was hungry.