The vision lingered long after Ember awoke.
That tower—twisted, tall, stained with memories—was real. She was sure of it. It stood far to the east, beyond the Dustspine Ravines, in lands marked forbidden even before the Cataclysm. A place not of fire, but of silence. A place called Calrath's Spine.
Eryssa marked the route by sun's rise. "If the tower's real, it lies past the Withered March. That land's poisoned. Dead magic hangs there."
"Nothing's ever really dead," Ember said. "Not if memory remains."
They began the journey eastward, leaving the golden sanctuary and the forest's quiet behind. The terrain shifted swiftly from regrowth to rot. The skies dimmed again, and the air took on a metallic scent. Ash no longer fell in flakes—it drifted like threads, woven into the wind.
By the fourth day, they reached the edge of the Withered March. No birds, no beasts—just black earth, twisted trees, and a fog that moved against the wind. The flame within Ember dimmed here, not out of fear—but mourning.
"This was a battlefield," she whispered. "A final stand."
"How do you know?" Orin asked.
"I remember."
At the center of the March, they found relics: broken swords, shattered banners, and bones too large to be human. And far on the horizon—just as Ember had seen—a spire of black stone rose against the ashen sky.
Calrath's Spine.
They approached carefully, navigating collapsed trenches and ruptured ground. As they drew near, strange static began to buzz through Ember's flame—not pain, but interference. Like the memory within her was fighting to be heard.
The tower's entrance was carved with names. Dozens. Hundreds. Ember touched one, and images flooded her mind—faces, voices, moments of defiance and despair.
"It's a grave," she said softly. "Every name here… a memory trapped inside."
The moment her palm reached the center of the stone door, it opened with a groan—revealing a narrow, winding staircase of obsidian.
Inside, the silence was total.
Each step upward brought more visions. Specters of the past flickered and vanished—soldiers arguing, mages weeping, a council screaming at each other as fire cracked the sky above them. And in the chamber at the tower's peak, the shard waited.
It hovered over a basin of blood-stained glass, its light red and jagged, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Ember approached—and it recoiled.
"It doesn't want me to touch it," she said.
Eryssa stepped beside her. "Then speak to it. Flame answers flame, right?"
Ember closed her eyes. Reached inward.
"I don't come to rewrite you," she whispered to the shard. "I come to remember you. Let me carry what the world has hidden."
The shard shuddered once—and then plunged into her chest.
A scream ripped through her mind.
Betrayal.
Fire.
A voice calling down ruin not from the skies—but from within.
She saw them: the Council of Flame, tearing itself apart from within. Some wished to use the Triad Flame to heal, to rebuild. Others… sought dominion. Power. And one—Kael—stood at the center, torn between both.
He had tried to stop them.
And he had failed.
Ember collapsed to her knees, sobbing as the truth seared her heart.
"They destroyed themselves," she gasped. "And he… Kael sealed the shards to protect what remained of their legacy. He chose silence over fire."
Orin helped her up. "And now?"
Ember's eyes glowed—not with rage, but resolve. "Now, we carry the memory forward. Because forgetting didn't save the world."
She turned to the tower's shattered window. The shards were awakening. And with them, the true story of the Flameborn.
And stories, once awakened, could not be silenced.