Chapter Twenty-Six: The Burnt God's Heir
The mountain chamber thrummed like a heart, every beat echoing off the stone walls in a pulse of violet flame.
Nyra stood, her blade gleaming in the glow, her stance solid despite the pain burning in her chest.
The child across from her—no taller than her sword—smiled with eyes too ancient for her face. Beside her, the ember-wreathed figure of what was once Vellan loomed, cracked and glowing from within, his voice no longer his own.
"You walked away from the fire, Nyra," the thing said. "But you left the door open."
Nyra's grip tightened on her sword.
"And you crept through it like smoke."
Kael moved to her side, eyes locked on the emberglass at the center of the chamber. Its glow grew brighter with every breath, casting long shadows against the worshipers who surrounded it, swaying in trance-like unison.
"We can't fight them all," Kael muttered.
"We don't need to," Nyra said. "Just break the tether."
Estra nodded from behind them. "Destroy the emberglass."
Tarek glanced at the child. "And what about her?"
Nyra didn't answer.
Because she didn't know.
The girl took a step forward, bare feet silent on stone.
"I am the Flame's Heir," she said. "Born from what you cast away. I remember every soul you forgot."
"You remember nothing," Nyra said. "You were made—twisted—by something that never should've survived."
The girl held up her hand.
From her palm, fire bloomed—not red, not gold, but a deep, aching blue.
It was beautiful.
Terrifying.
And it did not belong to any human heart.
Then the girl whispered:
"I remember your pain."
And Nyra's world tilted.
She staggered.
Images flooded her mind—her memories, torn loose from the embers:
Her mother's final scream.
The chains in the pit.
The look on Kael's face the first time he saw the crown hover.
The hollow in her soul the day she sealed the flame.
They weren't just memories.
They were burning her from the inside out.
"Nyra!" Kael grabbed her arm. "Focus—don't let it in!"
She dropped to one knee, teeth clenched, blade trembling in her grasp.
She felt the Crown Below again—tugging, calling.
Not as a god.
As a home.
But then—
A different memory rose up.
Not pain.
Not power.
Kael's arms around her the day the Wound sealed shut.
Tarek's laughter when she first spilled soup in the training hall.
Estra humming an old tune while stitching her torn cloak.
The fire could not take those.
They were hers.
And hers alone.
Nyra stood, breathing hard.
The girl's fire sputtered for a second—uncertain.
"I buried you," Nyra said. "And I'll bury you again."
She charged.
Kael was a half-step behind her. Estra flanked from the right, Tarek from the left. They didn't speak, didn't shout—just moved like old war machines reawakened.
The child raised her hand.
The emberglass pulsed.
And the world went white.
Nyra slammed into a wall of flame—but it parted around her.
It didn't burn her.
It welcomed her.
But she had already chosen once.
And her soul would not bend again.
She plunged her blade into the heart of the fire, driving toward the emberglass.
The burning figure of Vellan intercepted her, hand outstretched, mouth open in a wordless scream.
But Kael caught him with a shield slam, sending the creature skidding across the stone.
Estra's blade met two cultists who charged, cutting through robes and bone.
Tarek hurled a vial at the base of the platform—smoke exploded upward, breaking the trance of the worshippers.
Nyra leapt into the haze—
And drove her sword into the emberglass.
It didn't shatter.
It sang.
A single note, pure and deafening, rippling through every soul in the chamber.
And then—
It cracked.
Once.
Twice.
Then split open.
From inside it came no fire.
Only smoke.
And a sound like something exhaling after centuries of breathless rage.
The Crown Below was gone.
For real, this time.
Whatever fragment had clung to life in emberglass, in blood, in desperate memory—it had finally let go.
The flame in the child's eyes vanished.
She blinked.
Collapsed.
Nyra caught her before she hit the stone.
The girl was just… a girl now.
Cold.
Frail.
Frightened.
They emerged from the mountain before dawn.
Kael carried the girl in his arms.
The others walked in silence.
There were no songs.
No applause.
No divine whispers.
Just the hiss of wind through stone.
And the sound of a door finally, completely, closing.
That night, Nyra lit a fire in the camp.
No magic.
Just flint and time.
She sat with the girl beside her, wrapped in a blanket, watching the flames flicker.
"I don't remember anything," the girl whispered.
Nyra smiled gently.
"That means you're free to choose everything."