Beneath the surface of Emberlight, far from its wine-splashed taverns and fragrant bakeries, a second city breathed in secret—one made of forgotten stones, hollow halls, and ritual flame. It was called the Ashreach Sanctum, and it belonged to the Ember Veil.
Only a handful had ever walked its halls and lived to speak of it.
Saelith Veyr moved through the smoke-veiled corridors of this hidden sanctum like a phantom. The carved runes along the arched walls pulsed faintly as he passed—resonating to the sound of the bone flute strapped across his back. Every step he took sent embers dancing across the ancient stone floor.
He wasn't alone.
"Veyr," came a voice—deep, weathered, and edged with judgment.
From the veil of flame, a man stepped forth, draped in crimson robes stitched with phoenix feathers. His beard was silver, and his eyes were clouded with firelight. This was Grand Flute Arvan, High Oracle of the Ember Veil.
"You disobeyed the Will," Arvan said, voice calm as a dying flame. "You sought the Flameborn without the Sanctum's blessing."
Saelith dropped to one knee. "I did."
"You violated the Third Accord."
"I did."
Arvan leaned forward. "Why?"
The silence stretched long.
Then Saelith rose. "Because the Flame lives again. And the enemy stirs."
The chamber crackled—something in the flame hissed, as if it heard.
"You're certain?" Arvan asked, the weight of history in his voice.
Saelith reached into his coat and retrieved a small crystal orb, filled with shifting fire. "The girl. The one he protects. She called the soulflame to her hand... without instruction."
A hush fell. The nearby sentinels—a pair of red-eyed elves—looked at one another in alarm.
"She is a true-born ember," Arvan whispered. "Not a vessel. Not a fragment. A Flameborn."
"And she is untrained," Saelith said. "Unprotected. Kael hides her from prophecy, from memory, even from the Veil itself."
Arvan turned away, hands clasped behind his back. "You always spoke of Kael as if he were still your brother."
"I owed him my life," Saelith replied. "And I still do."
---
Meanwhile, in the Emberlight palace, a storm was brewing.
Onyx-armored men knelt before an obsidian throne. Upon it sat a figure cloaked in shadow, a crown of ice upon his brow, and eyes like frozen stars. He was Valen the Hollow Flame, once a king, now a revenant bound to a hunger older than the sun.
"The ember flares," he hissed. "The girl burns bright."
His hand moved slowly, and across the room, a chained vampire convulsed as cold fire wrapped around her.
"I will consume her... and through her, I will unmake the Flameborn legacy."
Beside him, a woman cloaked in feathers and thorns bowed. "Shall I send the Shadowsong?"
"Yes," Valen rasped. "Let them find her. Let them test the warrior's flame."
---
Back in Emberlight, Saelith left the sanctum at dusk, slipping again into the city's surface life. He had broken a dozen laws, burned bridges centuries old.
But he had seen the girl.
He had heard her fire sing to him.
And if the Ember Veil refused to move... he would gather those who still believed—and shield the flame until it was ready to burn the darkness away.
The war hadn't begun yet.
But the pieces were falling.
And in the center of it all, sat a quiet bistro... where a forgotten warrior flipped omelets, taught his daughter to hold a ladle, and waited for the past to find him.