Chapter 5 What Must Burn.

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The ascent from the Forge was like clawing through a dream. Darius moved without walking, each step lifting him through smoke and memory. The heat was gone now. Only cold remained-deep, bone-sinking cold that seemed to stretch beyond the mountain.

He reached the Temple floor again, breath shallow, the Ember now dim in his hands.

Kael stepped forward, his voice sharp. "What happened?"

Darius looked up. His eyes no longer held their natural color. They glowed faint red.

"I saw everything," he said. "Before the war. Before the gods died. Before the Ember fractured."

He stood fully, and even the Keeper bowed its head.

"The world ended once," Darius said. "Because men refused to choose."

Kael clenched his fists. "Then what do we choose now?"

Darius looked around at them-the scarred warrior, the quiet mage, the boy still trembling from the Stones. "We choose what burns. The Ember is not a weapon. It's a seed."

Lysa stepped closer. "A seed?"

"A second chance."

The Keeper raised its staff and struck the ground. The temple trembled, and from the black walls, molten veins of red pulsed outward. The mountain groaned.

"You have awakened the heart of flame," the Keeper said. "Now it must be carried out. Planted. Or buried."

Joren's voice cracked. "Planted where?"

Darius turned slowly toward the mountain gates. "In the ruins of the first city. In Vael'Mor."

Kael's expression tightened. "That place is dead. Swallowed by the Scourge two decades ago."

Darius nodded. "And yet that's where it must go. The first city birthed the flame. It must either accept the seed again... or be erased for good."

---

They left the Temple at dusk.

The gate did not close behind them-it collapsed, the stone melting into slag. There was no returning now.

The descent was silent, save for the low pulse of the Ember. It beat like a second heart beside Darius's own.

Lysa walked beside him, the first to break the silence.

"You're different."

"I remember too much."

"And yet you walk forward."

"What else can I do?" he said.

She smiled faintly. "You could have stayed in the past. Most do."

Darius looked to the horizon, where Blackspire cast its endless shadow across the land. "The past is what broke the world. But it's the present we burn with every time we hesitate."

---

By nightfall, they reached the edge of the scorched wilds. Ash became sand. The wind was dry now-hot, but lifeless.

There was no map to Vael'Mor. Only whispers.

"It's west of the Deadroot River," Kael said, crouched over the embers of a small cooking fire. "Past the Obsidian Blight. No roads. Just cursed earth."

Joren spoke, his voice low. "We'll be hunted."

Kael didn't deny it.

"The Ember calls out now. Every Scourgehound within a hundred miles will feel it. And worse things than them."

Lysa's eyes narrowed. "And the old powers? The ones who tried to claim the Ember before?"

Kael grunted. "If they're still breathing, they'll come running."

Darius tightened the strap across his chest. The Ember pulsed beneath his cloak.

"Then we don't stop. We move at dawn."

---

The next three days were hell.

They crossed dead forests filled with trees made of glass. Their reflections screamed in silence with each step. They climbed over dunes where bones shifted beneath the sand and wind moaned in forgotten tongues.

They passed ruins of old cities-half-buried in time, clawed apart by beasts or flame. Statues crumbled. Roads cracked open like graves.

On the second night, a storm rolled in-not of rain, but of shadow. A darkness so thick it swallowed light.

They hid in the husk of a broken tower while the shadows screamed past.

Joren asked, "What are they?"

Kael whispered, "Remnants. Echoes. What the Ember left behind when it was misused."

Darius clutched the Ember tighter.

He could feel it growing colder.

---

On the fourth day, the world changed.

Vael'Mor appeared not on the horizon-but beneath it.

They crested a ridge and saw the valley where the city had once stood.

Now, it was a pit.

A chasm stretching miles wide. Spirals of black stone curved inward like claws. In the center, a spire-half-buried, broken, bleeding red light from deep within.

"The heart of the first fire," Lysa whispered.

Kael's jaw clenched. "The city didn't fall. It sank."

Joren looked pale. "How do we get down there?"

Darius stepped forward, the Ember already tugging at him. "We walk."

---

The descent into Vael'Mor was like sinking into a grave made of memory.

Everywhere he turned, Darius saw flashes-ghosts of people long gone. Children playing in courtyards now filled with ash. Guards in armor now rusted to dust. He saw a woman in green robes, turning to ash as she reached for him.

Then she was gone.

They reached the base of the spire by nightfall.

The door was sealed-metal, obsidian, and ancient runes that glowed like veins under skin.

Darius placed the Ember against the door.

It dissolved.

Not the Ember-the door.

They stepped inside.

---

The heart of the city was a cathedral.

Massive. Hollow. Echoing.

In the center: a cradle of stone.

Darius stepped forward.

The Ember leapt from his hand and hovered above the cradle. Then, with a slow breath, it lowered itself in.

Light burst outward-red, then gold, then white.

Each of them fell to their knees, blinded by it.

And then-

Silence.

When Darius looked up, the Ember was gone.

In its place... a seed.

A single flame, the size of a child's fist, burning softly in air.

It was alive.

And it waited.

---

The Keeper's voice echoed in Darius's mind.

"Now you choose: grow it... or destroy it. The world will follow."

Kael stepped beside him. "What happens if we grow it?"

Darius's voice was hoarse. "Hope. Or war. Maybe both."

"And if we destroy it?"

"Then this world fades. No more magic. No more gods. Just dust and bone."

Lysa stared at the seed. "And you're the only one who can choose."

Darius nodded.

He walked toward the flame.

Stopped.

And looked at his companions.

"I don't want to be the only one. Not this time."

He extended his hands.

"Then help me choose."