The scent of ash was still clinging to her when Liora stepped into the ruined atrium.
Callux was gone.
No trace. No disturbed dust. Not even a lingering aura of his soul's strange light. The only evidence of his presence were those five haunting words charred into the sanctum's stone:
THE FLAME KNOWS YOUR NAME.
And it wasn't a warning.
It was a claim.
She stood over the mark with bare feet, her fingertips buzzing. The Hollow Flame had left a tether in her—subtle, like a thread drawn tight through the marrow. It pulsed. Not just in her bones, but somewhere deeper.
"You left without telling me."
Dareth's voice cut through the thick silence like a blade. He stood behind her now, arms crossed, eyes full of something between betrayal and fear.
"I had to."
"And what did it cost this time? You've been down here for three days. Eliane's lost her mind looking for you. The city—Liora, the city is changing."
She turned to face him, slow and steady, like something ancient had begun to take root in her posture.
"Then we adapt."
There was a stillness between them.
Not the kind lovers shared.
The kind that came before war.
Dareth took a careful step forward. "What happened down here? What did you do?"
Liora hesitated.
And then the words came like fire breaking a dam. She told him everything.
About the fusion. About Callux's fragmented soul. About the relics hidden beneath the city. About Alric's Codex and the truth it whispered—her family's legacy wasn't just of power. It was of betrayal, madness, and a cycle of burning that spanned centuries.
"We were never supposed to survive it," she whispered. "We were meant to continue it."
He sat heavily on a broken stone bench, head in his hands.
"You're saying your bloodline… summoned the Hollow Flame?"
She didn't answer. She didn't have to.
The light in her eyes had already said it.
Far above them, in the halls of the White Circle, another storm was brewing.
Master Jorvan stood in the Inner Chamber, blood trailing from his split lip, his robes torn from the failed binding he'd attempted on a rogue Archivist who dared speak Liora's name in reverence.
The Council was divided now.
Half called Liora a threat.
The other half called her salvation.
And one—the youngest among them, a girl with eyes like shattered ice—spoke only once:
"We should kill her before she learns to burn the gods."
Her name was Yevra. And she had once held a Veil-tier bond. Had. Past tense. The magic had turned on her when she tried to twist it. What remained of her body now was mostly bone and fire, caged beneath human skin.
She would become a major problem.
Soon.
Back at the sanctum's edge, Dareth finally stood.
"So what now? What's your next move, Liora?"
She looked up at the crumbling ceiling above them, past it, past stone and ruin and memory.
"I find the sanctuary my father left behind. The one he erased from history."
Dareth frowned. "The one from the Codex?"
She nodded. "If anyone knew how to survive the Hollow Flame's curse, it was him."
"And if it's a trap?"
"Then I burn it down."
They moved by night, cloaked in silence. Liora walked ahead, her magic humming so fiercely the air distorted around her like heat haze. She could feel the world responding now—Veil-threads opening like old wounds. She was becoming something else. Something not entirely human.
And she wasn't afraid of that anymore.
She was afraid of what she'd have to do with it.
By the second night, the sanctuary came into view.
Hidden within the bones of a crumbled temple north of Virellos, swallowed by ivy and warded by ancient blood runes, it was untouched by time.
Eliane met them at the threshold, robes damp, eyes red from weeping.
"You should've told me," she whispered. "I would've gone with you."
"I'm telling you now."
Eliane embraced her, tight, like she was afraid Liora might vanish again.
Inside the temple, the air was thick with old magic. Glyphs shimmered as they passed, lighting with every step she took. The flame inside her answered them, like a lock finally meeting its key.
Then, in the final chamber, they found it.
The Well of Recollection.
Carved into obsidian, rimmed with silver, and filled not with water—but memory. Tangible, living memory, swirling with color and light and sound.
Liora stared at it.
And then she stepped in.
The world shattered around her.
She was seven years old again, hiding behind her father's robes.
He was speaking with men in white masks.
The White Circle.
"She doesn't know," one said. "But she will. The Hollow Flame skips no heir."
"I won't let her burn," Alric snarled. "I'll bury it so deep she'll forget she ever had a name."
"That's not your choice to make."
"It's my daughter."
He turned.
And his eyes locked with Liora's.
But this wasn't a memory anymore.
This was a message.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "But I never taught you how to survive it. Only how to run. And now…"
His voice cracked.
"Now you'll have to choose who burns."
Liora awoke in a cold sweat, gasping.
Dareth and Eliane were kneeling beside her, panic on their faces.
She sat up slowly, vision clearing.
"I know what I have to do."
"What is it?" Eliane asked.
Liora looked at them both. Her friends. Her family. The people she knew would die if she chose wrong.
"I have to finish what he started. But I'm not going to run."
A pause.
"I'm going to burn through everything that stands in my way."
And from somewhere deep beneath the temple, something laughed.