Three months had passed since the fall of the Forgotten Sovereign.
Three months since the rift closed.
Three months since Orin released the Skybrand's flame and survived.
But peace was never permanent.
Not in a world still remembering itself.
The skies had returned, brighter than before. The stars sang again—but some of them flickered with a strange rhythm, as if blinking in forgotten code. And in the northern reaches of Velstra, reports whispered of echoes—voices without bodies, flames without heat, shadows without source.
Eryssa stood on a cliff near the ruins of a pre-Void temple, her cloak fluttering in the ocean wind. She held the Blade of Memory in her hand—but it was quiet now. Not asleep… but listening.
Behind her, Orin approached. His movements were slower now—not from injury, but weight. The Skybrand no longer burned, but a faint mark glowed in his palm: a circular brand of golden script, etched with light no one else could read.
"They're calling it the New Sky," he said.
"It isn't new," Eryssa replied. "It's waking up. And when something that big wakes… sometimes it dreams first."
Mira had joined the flameguard in Serenthos, and Kaelen had returned to the Gale-Wardens to rebuild the shattered wind sanctuaries. But Orin had stayed near Eryssa. Not out of need—but instinct. Something was coming.
And today, they felt it.
A tremor—not in the earth, but in the air. A ripple that sang down the spine like the moment before lightning strikes.
From the sea rose a column of blue fire. Silent. Cold. Impossible.
Eryssa's blade rang once in warning.
Orin stared into the light.
And from it stepped a girl.
Young. Barefoot. Eyes wide with wonder and terror. Her voice echoed like a bell struck far away.
"I… I was born in the flame. But I am not alone."
Eryssa gripped her blade tighter.
"She's not from this world," Orin whispered.
"No," Eryssa said. "She's from what comes after."