The forest breathed in smoke and secrets.
Branches overhead wove a net of blackened limbs, brittle with frost and ash, while the ground beneath Elira's feet was a patchwork of moss, roots, and scorched memory. Somewhere, far beyond the treeline, an owl called, its cry long and low, as though mourning something only it could see.
Elira sat by the fire, its embers fading to a dull, pulsing glow. The warmth of it barely touched her skin. Her thoughts were heavier than the cold.
Kyren was gone, slipped back into the veil between worlds after whispering his last warning: They are coming.
She wasn't sure if he meant the Inquisitors or something worse.
Tavren crouched across the fire from her, sharpening his dagger with deliberate care. The sound, stone dragging across ember-glass, was rhythmic and strangely comforting.
"You're not sleeping," he said.
Elira gave a faint shake of her head. "Didn't feel safe."
Tavren's eyes, the same color as dead leaves after rain, flicked up. "It's not."
There was no apology in his tone, only honesty. She appreciated that. Since meeting him, he hadn't offered false comfort. He didn't lie to soften the truth.
"You've traveled these woods before?" she asked.
He nodded. "Years ago. Before the Burned Ones cleared the southern path. There used to be a whispering tree near here, massive thing, hollow in the center. The Ashpath would leave ember fragments in its roots for safe passage."
"What happened to it?"
"The Sanctum cut it down. Claimed it 'wept fire.'" His jaw tightened. "They like things that don't scream when they're destroyed."
The fire snapped, sending sparks into the dark. Elira watched them rise and vanish.
"I didn't ask for this," she said softly.
"I know," Tavren said. "None of us did. But you're still the one holding the flame."
She looked down at her hands, scarred, trembling slightly. The ember lived in her now. Not a flame she lit, but something awake, ancient and watching from just beneath her skin.
"It wants something," she whispered. "Kyren says the ember remembers. That it waits. But I don't know what for."
Tavren paused his sharpening, then reached into his satchel and pulled free a worn leather tube. He handed it to her with both hands, a gesture oddly reverent.
Inside was a scroll. She unrolled it slowly, the parchment rough against her fingertips.
Strange script curled across it, emberglyphs, alive and shifting. The letters shimmered like coal-light under oil. She could feel the heat even through her gloves.
"A map," Tavren said. "Sort of. It shows the ember veins that run beneath this land, what the Sanctum calls fault lines. Places of memory. Power."
Elira's eyes caught on a symbol near the bottom of the scroll. A tower etched in swirling lines, surrounded by a ring of seven fox tails.
"What's this?"
"The Hollow Spire," Tavren said. "Old shrine. Old danger. They say it was where the last Emberborn sealed the ember's rawest fire, bound it with blood and Oath."
Her heart beat faster. "You want to take me there?"
"I want to give you a choice," Tavren said. "You can keep running, stay afraid, watch the Sanctum burn every path behind you. Or you can go to the place they fear most, and learn why they're afraid."
She looked at the spire mark again. Even the drawing radiated a pulse like something calling.
She closed the scroll. "You said 'we' earlier. Why help me?"
He hesitated. "Because when I was taken into Sanctum custody, there was a girl in my ward. Emberborn, but small. She lit sparks in her sleep. They took her in the middle of the night. No trial. No name left behind."
Elira said nothing.
"I survived," Tavren said, voice low. "She didn't. I've been trying to make that matter ever since."
The fire cracked sharply. Elira looked up to see the flames lean sideways, pulled by a gust of wind that hadn't come from nature. She stood slowly, hand on her satchel.
In the distance, a flicker of unnatural orange shimmered through the trees.
Tavren rose beside her, scanning the dark.
"They're close," he murmured. "Too close."
Elira felt the ember inside her stir, not in fear, but in warning.
Let it come, Kyren's voice echoed faintly. Butdo not kneel.
Tavren pulled his dagger. "We leave at dawn."
Elira nodded, fingers tightening around the fox-tooth charm. Her breath came steady, despite the fear clawing at her spine.
She no longer had the luxury of staying small.
At the edge of the woods, a flicker moved through the trees, a figure cloaked in scorched silver, eyes glowing faintly orange behind a shattered mask. It crouched beside a trail of footprints leading into the clearing.
Ash curled around its fingertips like smoke from a pyre.
The Burned Ones had caught the scent.