The sun was just beginning to rise—though here in the eastern wilds, the sky bled more grey than gold.
Riven stood at the edge of an ancient ruin, half-buried beneath moss and time. Its pillars leaned like broken soldiers, and the carvings on its walls had long since faded into cracks.
"Velmoran script," Kael whispered, brushing lichen from the stone. "This was a sanctuary... a war shelter."
Riven didn't reply.
He could feel it.
Something in the air—old, familiar, burned into his bones.
> "Your blood remembers this place," Veyron murmured.
Riven stepped inside.
The interior was quiet, empty but intact. Broken benches, faded banners, and at the far wall—a cracked mural. He brushed the dust away.
Two children. Standing side by side.
Both cloaked in fire.
One with silver eyes.
The other—dark.
> "We lit the flame together…"
Riven didn't know if it was a memory or an instinct, but his voice trembled slightly as he spoke.
He stared at the second boy in the painting. His face was obscured by age, but the energy in the image burned with unmistakable power.
Vaelen.
---
As Riven stepped closer to the mural, a pulse of heat struck his chest.
The pendant around his neck flared with light, and the mural's eyes—both sets—lit up in response.
The stone beneath his feet shifted, and the ground split open, revealing a staircase spiraling down into crimson light.
Kael stepped back. "How many hidden chambers does Velmora have?"
Riven smirked faintly. "All the best things were kept underground."
> "Except the truth," Veyron added. "That's always buried deeper."
---
Below the ruin was a chamber unlike the others.
Perfectly circular.
Walls smooth as glass.
At its center: a pedestal, with a single object atop it—
A crown.
Blackened at the edges, but unmistakably royal.
Riven approached slowly.
His fingertips hovered just above the metal.
> "That belonged to the Firstborn," Veyron said. "Your ancestor who wielded the Hollow Flame when it was pure."
"And Vaelen?"
> "He was meant to inherit it with you."
Riven touched the crown.
Instantly—
Memories flooded in.
Screams.
Flames.
A throne room torn apart by betrayal.
And two boys.
One reaching out.
The other walking into the fire.
> "You lied to them," the other boy whispered in the vision.
"You chose their death."
Riven gasped.
The vision cracked—and for a moment, he was no longer in the chamber, but back on that night.
Standing at the foot of a burning city.
Watching someone disappear into flame.
Hearing his own voice scream a name—
"Vaelen!"
---
The vision shattered.
Riven fell to his knees.
Kael rushed over, alarmed. "What happened?!"
"I… remembered something."
His voice was hoarse.
"I tried to stop him. I tried to save them. But he—he thought I betrayed him."
> "The Hollow Flame fractured that night," Veyron said. "You took one half. He took the other."
Riven looked at the crown in his hands.
A piece of it had crumbled to ash the moment he touched it.
But something else had awakened.
A new ability began to stir inside him—not just fire, but something more volatile. Unstable. Emotional.
The Hollow Flame… was responding to memory.
> "You grow stronger with pain," Veyron said. "And your past is pain unending."
Riven rose slowly.
"We need to move," he said. "If Vaelen's still alive… I'm going to find him."
"And if he's not the boy in that memory anymore?" Kael asked.
Riven didn't blink.
"Then I'll end him myself."
---