The molten rivers of the Fire Realm twisted like serpents beneath Raine's boots, their glow casting jagged shadows across her crystallized arms. The Earth Shard pulsed in her grip, its emerald light flickering in time with the erratic rhythm of her heartbeat. Beside her, Kaios moved like a ghost, his silver hair shimmering with residual temporal energy, his mismatched eyes scanning the horizon where the sky bled into the abyss.
**Valrokh's trial was only the beginning,"* he murmured, his voice barely audible over the distant roar of the Pyre Drake's kin. *"The Fire Ember remembers. And it's angry."*
Raine flexed her fingers, the crystals embedded in her skin catching the light of the lava flows. The memory of the drake's revelation still burned in her mindthe Conclave's first sacrifice, the hatchling fed to the Rift. The Earth Shard had shown her fragments of the past, but the Fire Ember had seared the truth into her bones,
*"Were not just sealing the Rift,"* she said, her voice low. **Were undoing what they started."*
Kaios's gaze darkened. *"If we survive long enough to try."*
A tremor shook the ground, and the molten rivers surged, their currents twisting into unnatural spirals. Raine's boots sank into the scorched earth as the air itself seemed to thicken, heavy with the scent of burning metal and something oldersomething *alive*.
Then the earth *split*.
A fissure yawned before them, its edges glowing white-hot, and from its depths rose the remnants of Valrokh's kinnot living, not dead, but*preserved*, their forms twisted into grotesque effigies of flame and stone. Their eyes, hollow pits of smoldering coal, locked onto Raine.
*"The Conclave's failures,"* Kaios hissed, his hand hovering over the temporal dagger at his belt. *"
They tried to recreate the Pyre Drakes. These are what survived."*
The creatures moved as one, their bodies cracking like fracturing magma, their voices a chorus of shattered echoes:
*"Thief. Liar. Sacrifice."*
Raine's gloves flared, the Fire Embers energy surging through her veins.
*"I' m not here to steal,"* she spat. *"I'm here to *end* this."*
The creatures lunged.
Kaios's dagger flashed, slicing through the air with a ripple of distorted time. One of the drake-kin *stuttered*, its form flickering between moments before collapsing into ash. Raine didnt hesitateshe *charged*, her crystallized fists slamming into the nearest creature.
The impact sent shockwaves of flame rippling through its body, and it *screamed*, a sound like a mountain breaking apart.
But there were too many.
They came in waves, their molten claws raking at her arms, their voices whispering of the Conclave's sins. One caught her shoulder, its touch searing through fabric and flesh alike. Pain lanced down her side, but beneath it, something *stirred*the Fire Embers rage, the Earth Shard's resolve, the fragments of her own fractured past.
*"Raine!"* Kaios's voice cut through the chaos. *"The altar"now*!"*
She turned.
At the heart of the fissure stood an obsidian altar, its surface etched with runes that pulsed like a dying heartbeat. And atop it, embedded in a pool of liquid fire, was the *true* Fire Embernot the shard she carried, but its*source*, its power raw and untamed.
The drake-kin *howled*, their bodies convulsing as they sensed her intent.
They surged forward, but Kaios was there, his temporal dagger carving through the air, freezing moments, fracturing time itself to buy her seconds.
Raine didnt waste them.
She sprinted toward the altar, her boots skidding on the crumbling edge of the fissure. The heat was unbearable, the air itself burning her lungs, but she *reached*, her crystallized fingers plunging into the molten pool.
Agony.
The fire *consumed* her, not as flame, but as *memory*visions of the Conclave's experiments, of the hatchling's screams, of her own mother's last words. The crystals in her arms *shattered*, then *reformed*, their glow shifting from amber to a searing white.
And then-
*Silence.*
The drake-kin froze, their forms crumbling to ash. The fissure trembled, its edges sealing as the Fire Ember's light *pulsed*, its energy flowing into Raine, into the Earth Shard, into the very fabric of the realm.
Kaios staggered to her side, his dagger dripping with temporal residue.
*"You... absorbed it,"* he breathed.
Raine looked down at her arms. The crystals had spread, but they were no longer jagged, no longer *painful*.
They gleamed like polished gemstones, their surfaces etched with the same runes as the altar.
*"Not absorbed,"* she whispered. *"Accepted."*
A gust of wind, thick with the scent of burning embers, swept through the realm. And with it came a voicenot Valrokh's, not the drake-kin's, but something *older*.
*"The Water Ember waits,"* it murmured, its tone like crackling parchment.*"
Where the drowned remember.
But beware, child of fire and earth... the Conclave is not your only enemy."*
The ground beneath them *shifted*, and for a moment, Raine glimpsed something in the depths of the fissurea-shadow, vast and coiled, its eyes reflecting the abyss of the Rift itself.
Then the earth sealed shut, leaving only the echo of its warning.
Kaios's hand found hers, his grip tight. *"We need to move. Now."*
Raine nodded, but her gaze lingered on the spot where the fissure had been. The Fire Embers power thrummed in her veins, but beneath it, something *else* stirreda-whisper, a *presence*.
The Rift was watching.
And it was *hungry*.