---
**Chapter Four: The Watcher in the Dark**
The passage narrowed with every step. My torch was only the pendant now, pulsing softly, casting long shadows along the stone. The air smelled of iron and damp earth, old as buried secrets.
I wasn't sure how long I walked. Minutes? Hours? The tunnel curved so many times I lost all sense of direction. But the strange part was this: I wasn't afraid.
Not yet.
Then I heard the whisper.
Not like the wind through the jacaranda tree. Not like the magic murmurs back in Eldenridge. This was clearer. Closer.
"Flameborn... you should not have come alone."
I spun, heart pounding, but saw no one.
"Who's there?" I shouted. The echo didn't carry. The air swallowed my voice like breath in water.
Then—movement. A shape stepped from the shadows ahead. Cloaked, hood drawn low, though I could feel his gaze on me like heat.
"You bear the mark," he said, voice low and even. "So the old fire stirs again."
My fingers found the pendant, which now glowed so bright it lit the man's face. He was older than me—maybe twenty, maybe two hundred. His skin was the color of dusk, his eyes ringed with ember-red. Not natural.
Not entirely human.
"Who are you?" I asked, trying to sound braver than I felt.
He tilted his head. "A Watcher. I guard what was left behind… and warn those who seek what should not be found."
"Was it you who spoke in the chamber? The voice that said she saved me?"
"No," he said, and his eyes flickered like coals. "That voice was your mother's."
The air left my lungs.
I'd never heard her speak. Not in dreams. Not in memories. But somehow… I knew. He was right.
"She knew this day would come," the Watcher continued. "She bound your flame and hid it. But now it's awake. And others have felt it."
He held out his hand. "You have two choices, Ailani. Leave this place. Hide. Or take the path deeper and learn what you truly are."
I stared at his palm. Every part of me screamed to run. But my feet didn't move. Neither did my heart.
"I want the truth," I whispered.
The Watcher nodded once. "Then burn or be burned."
He turned and walked toward the far wall. It split open like paper under flame, revealing a chamber bathed in shifting light—red, gold, silver. At its center stood a gate made of obsidian and bone. A hum poured from it, soft and dangerous.
"Step through," the Watcher said. "The path to your father begins there."
I clutched the pendant, took one breath, and crossed the threshold.
---