The night sky cracked open like an old scar.
From the eastern horizon, a second moon bled upward. Gray as bone. Hollow as a whisper. Its surface churned with shadows that moved like smoke.
Kael stood atop the Skyward Terrace, his breath catching.
"That's it," Mira murmured beside him. "The Ash Moon."
It didn't shine like the other moon, the true moon. This one hovered wrong—too large, too still. It gave no light, only a sense of unraveling. As if it sucked meaning out of the stars.
Below them, Elarion pulsed with ward-lights. The city's towers hummed with containment glyphs, runes glowing in ancient tongues. A defensive net stretched skyward like a spider's web made of flame and memory.
"It's worse than I imagined," said Aven, stepping out from the shadow of a carved pillar. "I thought it was a myth. But it's... real."
Berrin leaned over the terrace rail, squinting. "Looks like a haunted egg."
"Berrin," Mira snapped.
"Sorry! I cope with sarcasm!"
A ripple of silence passed through them as the Flamekeeper approached. She wore ceremonial red and silver robes, trimmed in ashroot thread that glimmered faintly under the unnatural moonlight. Her expression was unreadable, her voice sharp as iron.
"The Veil thins," she said. "And you must be ready."
Kael glanced toward the other survivors. Ten remained, including them—each bearing all four sigils of resonance. Yet none of them looked victorious. They looked hollowed. Scraped clean.
"I thought the trials were the test," Mira said.
"They were," the Flamekeeper replied. "But now comes the reason for them."
She turned and began walking. "Come. The Hearth below waits. And with it—your oath."
Beneath the Hall of Embers, past winding spiral stairs and flame-lit vaults, they descended into the earth.
At the bottom lay the Hearth of the First Fire—a chamber unlike anything Kael had seen.
The walls were alive with moving carvings—glyphs that slid and danced like molten script. A single brazier stood in the center, its fire white and gold, burning without fuel. The heat it gave off was not of warmth, but of memory.
"This is where it began," the Flamekeeper said. "Long ago, before the kingdoms, before even the shaping of names. The First Flame was not fire as you know it. It was awakening."
Kael stepped forward, heart thudding. "Is this… the Everflame?"
"No. But it is its breath."
The Flamekeeper turned to the group. "Each of you will step into the circle and bind your resonance to the Oath of Flame. If your heart is true, the mark will anchor you. If it is not, the fire will consume what should not remain."
Berrin swallowed hard. "And if I just wait outside and support morally?"
No one laughed.
Kael didn't hesitate. He stepped into the circle.
The fire surged upward around him—colorless, searing, alive.
Suddenly he was no longer in the room.
He was on the cliffs of Virel, the night his sister vanished.
The wind howled. The sky burned.
And there she was—Lira—her back turned, hair whipped by ash and fire.
"Kael," she whispered. "You let me go."
"I tried to save you," he said, voice breaking.
"But you chose to live."
Kael fell to his knees. "What else could I do?"
She turned. Her eyes were hollow sockets filled with flame.
"Now choose again."
The world exploded into fire—and Kael screamed.
When he came to, he was on the floor of the Hearth, trembling.
The Flamekeeper knelt beside him.
"Did it speak to you?"
He nodded.
"What did it say?"
"That I still carry her. That the fire isn't done with me."
She said nothing—just helped him up.
Around him, the other nine stepped into the flame, one by one. Some came out weeping. Some laughing. One girl came out and collapsed, unmoving. They carried her away silently.
Then it was done.
Ten oaths taken. Ten souls sealed to the Flame.
And just in time.
Because the sky was tearing open.
That night, Kael couldn't sleep.
He sat on the roof of their quarters, knees drawn up, watching the Ash Moon pulse like a heartbeat.
Mira climbed up next to him, two steaming mugs in hand. "They say the moon wasn't always like this."
Kael took a sip. "No?"
"Long ago, it was a prison. Or a tomb. Depends on who you ask. But something inside it still remembers being worshipped."
Kael glanced at her. "Do you ever wonder if we were supposed to lose?"
She looked at him sideways. "You mean… if the world wasn't built to survive what's coming?"
He nodded. "Like we're holding together a dam already cracked."
Mira set her mug down.
"Maybe we are. But the point of the oath wasn't to fix the dam. It was to stand in the flood."
Kael didn't answer.
He just watched the moon shift.
And far in the distance—beyond the wards, beyond the mountains—something moved.
Something massive.
The flame in his chest flickered.
Elsewhere, in a chamber of broken stone, a figure crouched over a burning circle.
She wore no crest. No sigils.
Only a cloak of feathers and ash.
A pale eye blinked open in her hand.
"The oaths are complete," she whispered.
Another voice, low and cold, answered through the dark.
"Then the culling begins."