The tunnel gave way to a colossal underground sanctum—the Altar of Echoes. The air shimmered with a thick energy, heavy and old, like it had waited centuries to be disturbed.
Obsidian pillars lined the chamber, each inscribed with twisting runes that flickered between ember-red and hollow-violet. At the center, a stone altar stood surrounded by a circle of flame that burned without heat.
Kael stepped forward cautiously, the Flameheart at his back beginning to hum softly.
"This place feels… wrong," Serenya whispered, the tips of her fingers glowing.
"Because it is," Selira replied, eyes narrowing. "This is where the First Flame was divided. Where the Hollow Flame was born."
Kael moved toward the altar, but as soon as his foot touched the stone ring, the flames surrounding it surged. A voice echoed through the chamber, ethereal and layered:
"One bloodline. Two destinies. One shall rule. One shall fall."
From the altar, a pulse of magic erupted, knocking them all back. Shadows slithered from the stone, coalescing into three humanoid figures—faceless, cloaked in ash and ember.
Serenya scrambled to her feet. "Guardian echoes. Memory constructs."
"Of what?" Kael demanded, drawing the Flameheart.
Selira's eyes sharpened. "Of betrayal."
The echoes charged—blades of flame and smoke in hand.
Kael met the first with the Flameheart. Sparks scattered as steel met magic, and the echo hissed in response. The sword glowed brighter the longer Kael held it, as if feeding on the echo's energy.
Serenya conjured a wave of fire, driving the second echo back. It retaliated with a burst of hollow energy that almost knocked her off her feet.
Selira danced between the third and Kael's enemy, her daggers slashing swift and precise. But the echoes were fast—blurring like smoke, reforming instantly.
"We can't kill them like this!" she shouted.
Kael gritted his teeth. "Then we don't kill—we cleanse."
He drove the Flameheart deep into the altar's center.
A white-gold blaze erupted, consuming the shadows in a flash of brilliance.
When the light faded, the echoes were gone. Only the stone altar remained—now cracked, smoldering, and quiet.
From within the shattered altar, a small orb of flame hovered—pale, flickering faintly.
Serenya stepped forward. "A soulfire shard. It's part of the Flameheart's true essence."
Kael touched it. It flared, then vanished into the blade on his back, which pulsed once, then went still.
Selira looked around warily. "If the Hollow Flame was born here, this might be the first of many sites the queen will use to draw power."
"Then we find them first," Kael said. "We cut off her source. One shard at a time."
He turned toward the far wall, where another rune glowed—this one gold, not violet.
Serenya traced it with her hand. "A path forward."
As the rune shimmered and the wall shifted open, none of them noticed the faint scar now glowing on Kael's palm—the mark of the altar's trial.
Far away, Queen Virelya stared into her mirror of shadows, her expression unreadable.
"They've touched the soulfire," she murmured. "The blade remembers."
Behind her, the dark figure bowed low.
"Then he will soon...remember ".