The morning in the Vale broke not with sunlight but with a dim red haze, casting everything in the colors of blood and ash. Elira and Kael stood at the edge of the Echo Vault, the world beyond unnervingly still.
Kael adjusted the straps of his satchel and gestured to the east, where a crumbled stairway wound up the cliff face.
> "The Firebound Path runs through the Spine Peaks," he said. "Beyond them is the City of Cinders. That's where the last Flame Watchers made their stand before Mareth unleashed the Rift."
> "And that's where we'll find the next fragment?" Elira asked.
Kael nodded. "If the ember within you is awakening, it will draw the others to it. The next flame sleeps in the Hall of Mirrors — buried beneath the ruins of the city."
They began the climb.
The path was narrow and treacherous, each step sending shards of blackened stone down into bottomless ravines. The wind was sharp and full of whispers, like voices caught in a storm. The farther they ascended, the heavier the ember felt in Elira's chest.
> "It's pulling me," she said at one point, gripping the stone wall as the wind howled. "It wants me to move faster."
> "That's because something else is moving too," Kael replied grimly. "The Pact doesn't rest. They have their own seers."
As they reached the summit, a thunderous crack split the sky. Lightning — deep crimson — rippled through the clouds above, followed by a low, inhuman roar that echoed across the range.
> "That wasn't thunder," Kael muttered.
From the other side of the peak, black shapes began to stir — cloaked wraiths on horseback, trailing smoke and shadow behind them. Their steeds had no eyes, only molten sockets that bled flame.
> "Run!" Kael shouted.
They bolted down the far slope, loose gravel sliding beneath their boots. Elira opened the book mid-run, speaking instinctively in the old tongue. A wall of searing light erupted behind them, delaying the riders only for moments.
As they reached the next ridge, the ruined spires of the City of Cinders came into view, sunken into the valley like a dying crown. Smoke drifted endlessly from its center.
> "We made it," Elira gasped.
> "We arrived," Kael said, "but we haven't made it yet."
Far below, in the city's shadowed heart, something stirred. A pulse. A heartbeat. A second ember.
And it was waiting.
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