The Heart cracked again. The sound was not thunder, it was something deeper, something that made the void itself flinch. Every fragment of reality shivered, trembling beneath the weight of that single fracture.Kael’s breath caught in his throat. His flames wavered, the golden-red storm flickering wildly as he stared into the light bleeding from the Heart’s wound.Inside the Sovereign’s chest, through the lattice of molten ribs and divine chains, the figure moved again.Slowly. Deliberately. Each step it took sent a ripple through the flames that made up the god’s core. The Sovereign’s laughter faltered, its voice deepening into a growl that scraped against existence.“No… not you…”Mira’s hand found Kael’s arm, trembling. “Who is that?”Kael didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Because the moment those eyes met his, his mind fractured. He remembered that gaze. It was his own.But not the reflection he’d destroyed no, this was older. This was the ember that had first burned in him before the S

The world screamed. Light fractured, folding in on itself as Kael’s body shot through the collapsing rift.Fire and void twisted together into a single, spiraling tunnel of chaos, heat and memory and pain all crashing down like an ocean of molten glass.Kael’s eyes snapped open mid-fall. His body was no longer his own. Every breath came with fire; every heartbeat carried the echo of a thousand voices, whispering from the embers lodged deep in his veins.He forced a hand forward, clawing through the current of collapsing energy. Move, damn it. Move!But then,a hand caught his wrist. Cold. Too cold. Kael’s head jerked up.From the darkness behind him, a second figure was being dragged through the rift pale, shifting, faceless. It wasn’t Mira. It wasn’t human. Its fingers burned where they touched his skin, leaving trails of frost over his fire.“Let go!” he shouted, twisting violently. His flames roared, engulfing the hand but it didn’t release him. Instead, the icy grip tightened, and

The sky burned like a wound that refused to close. Kael’s crimson flames spread through the wasteland, roaring so loud that even the dark army hesitated.The air pulsed with power raw, defiant, unshackled. The Pyric Mother’s essence throbbed within his chest, no longer bound to the Sovereign or the First Flame.But he wasn’t alone. From the haze behind him, a familiar voice broke through the roar: “Kael wait!”Mira stumbled into view, her tether blazing in shades of silver and blue, her body torn from battle yet still radiating strength. She stopped short when she saw him.“Your fire…” she whispered, eyes wide. “It’s changed.”Kael turned, his face half-lit by the crimson storm. “She burned something into me.”“She?”“The Pyric Mother,” he said quietly. “The one before all of this. She’s real, Mira. And she’s angry.”Before Mira could respond, the horizon screamed.The army of god-shades surged forward thousands of molten silhouettes, their bodies fused from bones of light and shadows

The air screamed. The molten doors of the Ember Vault split apart, and a wave of fire and wind burst outward, throwing Mira to her knees.The ash laden air turned crimson. The sky if it could even be called that tore open with veins of light that pulsed like arteries.Mira’s arms shielded her face as the storm tore past. The ground cracked beneath her, and heat licked at her skin like the breath of something ancient and furious.Then, just as suddenly, silence. She lowered her arms.The doors now stood wide open, revealing only blackness beyond a darkness that pulsed faintly, as though alive.Her heart hammered. Kael’s warning echoed again: Don’t let it wake.But the Vault was already awake. She could feel it each breath she took vibrated with the hum of sleeping power, each heartbeat synchronizing with a rhythm that wasn’t her own.“Kael…” she whispered. “What is this place?”The answer came not in words, but in sound. Whispers. Thousands of them. Layered, overlapping, impossible to

Light. For the first time in what felt like lifetimes, there was no screaming fire, no echoing void only a quiet dawn.Mira gasped awake. Her body hit damp soil, cold air flooding her lungs like she was breathing for the first time. The scent of rain and ash hung in the air. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the light breaking through the clouds.She was no longer in the Vault. No longer in the fire.The sky above her was real bruised violet and gold, threaded with streaks of living flame that glowed faintly, like veins across the heavens.She sat up slowly, clutching her chest. The tether mark that had always burned faintly on her wrist was gone. In its place was a single ember, glowing faintly beneath her skin.Her voice trembled. “Kael…?”The world answered in whispers. Wind swept through the plains, carrying the faint hum of fire not wild, but alive, like a heartbeat beneath the earth.The grass shimmered gold at the edges, dew glowing faintly where it touched her palms. The entire l