The seas had darkened by the time I left Asshai.
The stars did not shine the same, and the sky whispered of old things watching from behind the veil. Otherys had not asked where I'd gone or what I had seen-he knew better than to pry. His blade had remained sharp, his eyes watchful, but even he was unnerved by the silence that clung to me like smoke.
We sailed north, past sunken coasts and drowned isles, until we reached the ghosted banks of the River Sarne.
The remnants of Sarnor awaited-what little still stood.
Once a mighty empire of men who defied Valyria and held the Dothraki at bay, now reduced to broken ziggurats, shattered obelisks, and creeping vines. Statues of forgotten kings loomed in the mist, their eyes blind with time, their crowns chipped and crumbling.
But beneath it all, something pulsed. I could feel it.
The dagger across my back grew warm. The egg on my belt stirred faintly in its cradle.
We found the entrance beneath a drowned amphitheater, its stairs descending into black water. I lit a torch, and Otherys muttered a prayer to gods he claimed not to worship.
"Do you even know what lies down there?" he asked.
"No," I replied honestly. "Only that I must go."
-----
The air beneath the ruins was thick with mildew and old magic. Glyphs lined the walls-etched in silver and obsidian, glowing faintly in our passing. They told of kings who wore the Crown of the Deep Flame, a relic said to grant visions of the future and command over fire that even dragons feared.
But the deeper we descended, the more the carvings changed.
The crown was not forged-it was found.
Pulled from the pit of something that should not have been.
A gift… or a curse.
-----
We reached the bottom.
A great cavern opened before us, lit by an unseen glow. At its center was a platform of fused glass, and atop it-a throne of black stone.
And on that throne sat the crown.
It was wrought of twisted gold and dark crystal, its points shaped like dragon talons, its core pulsing with embers. But it was not alone.
The moment I stepped forward, the chamber shifted.
The bones around the throne began to move.
A guardian.
Its form was skeletal-a mass of fused armor and ancient bone, wings folded like a mantled cloak, its face hidden beneath a helm shaped like a dragon's skull. No eyes. Just burning slits where life once lived.
It rose, drawing a blade forged of the same glass as the chamber floor.
Otherys stepped beside me, but I raised a hand. "This is my trial."
He did not argue.
-----
The guardian moved like smoke-silent, swift, inevitable. Our blades clashed once, and the force of the strike sent me skidding back.
It was not mortal.
It did not tire.
Each swing tested me. Each moment drained me.
But the dagger at my back sang.
When I drew it, the guardian froze.
Recognition?
No-hatred.
It howled with a voice that cracked stone. The cavern trembled.
And then it charged.
-----
I remembered Ashkara's words: "Not all shadows can be burned."
But some things are more than shadow. Some things are memory.
And the dagger in my hand remembered everything.
I parried once, twice-then struck low.
The blade cut deeper than it should have.
The guardian staggered.
I seized the moment. Whispered the word that now lived in my blood.
"Dracarys."
Flame erupted from my hand-not from breath, not from spell, but from will. The fire of the egg. The fire of the Vault.
It consumed the guardian in roaring light.
And when it ended, only the crown remained-still pulsing, still waiting.
I reached for it.
The moment it touched my brow, the world changed.
-----
Visions.
Dragons dying midair. Cities burning. A boy with silver hair and violet eyes, holding a blade of starfire. A horn that could summon storms. A woman in black, weeping over a grave made of glass.
And a name.
Whispered by a thousand voices.
"Xyron."
I gasped and fell to my knees.
Otherys caught me.
"You found it?" he asked.
I nodded, slowly rising, the crown now bound to me.
"One flame reignited," I said. "Two remain."
But I knew now-
With every fire I claimed, the shadows would grow stronger.
And they were watching.
-----
The fires still danced behind my eyes long after I left the ruined sanctuary of Sarnor. The Crown of the Deep Flame rested in a silken wrap tucked beneath my cloak, warm even through layers of leather. I had not dared to wear it again-its power was raw, volatile, too demanding. But its whispers had not ceased.
"Three flames to awaken the storm. One born of the vault, one born of the deep, one born of shadow."
Xyron.
That was the name the crown had seared into my soul-like a buried truth, unearthed and undeniable. The egg pulsed in tune with the name now, its warmth increasing with each passing day. I could feel it… it was no longer dormant. It was waiting.
Otherys said nothing as we traveled eastward. He knew better than to ask what I had seen beneath the Sarnori stones. But I caught him watching me sometimes-warily, as if unsure whether I was still the man who had stepped into that vault… or something else.
The landscape shifted as we moved beyond the known routes of Essos. Grass gave way to cracked plains, and the wind carried the scent of ash and burnt metal. This was the path to the third flame-the one born of shadow.
We sought the Obsidian Scar.
It was a place few dared speak of-where the sky was said to bleed during eclipses, and the land itself groaned with the weight of something buried. The Shadowbinders of Asshai whispered of it as a rift-a scar left by the death throes of a dragon too large for even Valyria to control.
They called it K'laeragon, the Star-Eater.
We reached it by the end of the week-a jagged ravine splitting the land like a wound. The stones around it were scorched black, not by flame, but by something older. Deeper. Twisted towers-watch posts built by forgotten hands-lay shattered across the ridges.
At its center, there was a gate.
Twisted iron, embedded with obsidian and fused dragonbone. And beyond it, only blackness.
The third flame lay somewhere within.
I stepped forward.
-----
The descent into the Scar was unlike any I had made before. The very air was heavy, as if sound itself feared to linger here. Each step echoed with a whisper, not my own, as though the stones were speaking secrets I was not meant to hear.
Then, as the darkness enveloped us fully, light bloomed from the egg.
It glowed like a heartbeat-steady, warm, alive. A beacon.
Otherys muttered a prayer to gods he no longer believed in, sword drawn. But I knew steel would not protect us here.
We reached the heart of the chasm after what felt like hours. There, the walls opened into a hollow dome of shadowed obsidian. At its center was an altar-low and wide, carved with runes I could barely decipher.
Upon it lay a shard of blackened flame. Flickering. Undying.
The Third Flame.
But we were not alone.
From the walls, figures emerged. Wreathed in darkness, faceless, yet draped in the remnants of what once might have been robes. Shadowbinders. Not living. Not dead.
Guardians of the Star-Eater's heart.
They moved not with rage, but with purpose.
And they spoke as one.
"You bear the Crown. You bear the Egg. You are not yet Flameborn."
They raised their hands.
And the darkness surged.
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