The way to the east had long since been more memory than road.
Beyond Bleeding Valley, the country turned savage, etched by rivers that had been forgotten and clogged by the debris of cities that had never appeared on any map in all the centuries. Massive statues of winged creatures toppled into green moss. Bridges arced across canyons with no bottoms. Kael sensed time thin out here—as if the world itself was unraveling.
On the sixth morning, they came.
A ring of black obsidian pillars rested atop a ridge, unaffected by the forces of age. Not a single one wore the encrustations of moss and lichen. All had the signature of the sword—the identical sigil upon Kael's arm, branded in shining starlight.
Lysara slowly released a breath. "The Sanctum of the First Flame."
Kael advanced. The sword hummed within his hand as they went forward.
Within the ring, a stairway led down into the ground, cut from white stone veined with black. No dust. No cobwebs. Only quiet.
They went down in silence.
---
The sanctum was round, domed, and unimaginably huge. Runes hung suspended in the air like embers, radiating soft, ancient light. In the center stood a pedestal. On it lay a stone tablet.
But it wasn't stone.
It throbbed like a heart.
Kael approached it, and the runes stirred—circling around him in circles of light. The sword behind his back shrieked. His knees weakened.
Other people's memories rushed through him—
A field of glass and blood. A woman with the same mark as his, piloting Shadowfire through the chest of a titan. A young man crying out as he drowned an empire in fire. A world shattering to expose wings the size of continents.
Then—
A tower of black. A faceless king. A sword that struck through time itself.
Kael fell to the ground.
When he opened his eyes, Lysara stood beside him, hand resting on his shoulder. Her complexion was pale.
"You did see it, didn't you?"
Kael drew himself up cautiously. "Them all. Those who came prior."
She nodded. "The core of this sword. The memory. The spot where the first wielder tied the fire. It is here the circle was initiated."
Kael glanced down at his arms. The runes shifted. Twisting.
"I saw her," he replied. "The first bearer. She wasn't… human."
"No," Lysara replied. "She was one of the Aetherborn. Flamewalkers. Starbloods. Whatever name you use for them—they were not of this world. But they gave us fire. They gave us Shadowfire."
"And cursed us to bear it," Kael grumbled.
Lysara paused.
"I did not tell you everything," she replied. "I was not just a Seer. I was to be the next bearer. Chosen by the Circle of Flame. Trained. Prepared."
She looked at him.
"But the sword rejected me."
Kael's breath hitched. "Why?"
Her face grew darker. "Because it does not choose worth. It chooses need. And you, Kael… you're not just destined to bear it. You're destined to bring it to an end."
---
Above them, far over the ridge, the sky started to burn.
A second sun dawned in the west—red, boiling, perverse. Birds dropped from the sky in silence. Forests died in minutes.
In the tower of dark stone, the sorcerer stood at the center of a ritual circle traced in the blood of kings.
He held up a mirror forged of bone and void. In it, Kael's face glimmered.
The sorcerer smiled.
It starts," he breathed. "The Final Flame. Let the bearer