Chapter 54: Lessons in Fire
The training chamber had once been a place for discipline.
Now it was a sanctuary—and a crucible.
Echo stood in the center of the room, the circular walls sealed and layered with flame-resistant alloy. Sensors monitored every pulse of heat, every flicker of light. Lumen stood ten paces away, barefoot on the warm floor, dressed in soft clothes. He looked so small inside the high walls, but his eyes—still lined with gold—held a quiet storm.
Kael stood just outside the chamber, arms folded, his expression unreadable. Calder watched from the observation window. Kara refused to attend.
"She's afraid of him," Echo said softly.
"She's afraid of what he means," Kael replied. "That your flame wasn't unique."
Echo knelt in front of Lumen.
"Can you feel it now?"
Lumen nodded, blinking fast. "It's like… it wants out. Like it's pushing up through me."
Echo extended her hand, palm open. A flicker of golden flame danced above it—a soft ember, no heat, just light.
"Mine used to do that too. Before I could control it, it controlled me."
Lumen clenched his fists. "What if I hurt you?"
"You won't."
"I already did. That stairwell—"
"I survived the Trial of Flame," she said gently. "A burst of raw emotion won't scare me."
She stepped back.
"Okay. Let's try something simple. Close your eyes."
Lumen did.
"Now breathe. In… and out."
He did.
"Now listen—not with your ears. Listen inward. Feel it."
For a moment, the room was still.
Then his hands glowed faintly.
Echo smiled. "Good. Now, let it sit there. Don't force it out."
But Lumen's brow furrowed.
His breathing changed.
His fists shook.
"I can't—It's too loud. It's yelling again."
"Yelling what?"
Lumen's voice cracked.
"'Burn the pain away.'"
The temperature in the room spiked. The walls shimmered.
Echo didn't move.
"Lumen. Look at me."
His eyes opened—and blazed.
Not like hers. Not steady. Not soft.
Wild. Fragmented. Bright as a solar flare.
Flame burst from his back like wings—chaotic, stuttering with his heartbeat.
He screamed.
"I didn't want it! I didn't ask for it!"
The flames tore outward.
Kael lunged for the emergency seal—but Echo raised her hand.
"Don't."
She stepped through the inferno like it was mist. The soul-seed in her chest pulsed in sync, shielding her.
She reached the child, wrapped her arms around his shaking form, and whispered, "I know."
Lumen sobbed.
"I hated them for forgetting me. For walking past me. For acting like I didn't matter."
"You do matter," Echo said, voice steady in the blaze. "But you can't make them see it by burning everything down."
Lumen shuddered. "Then how?"
"You show them. That fire doesn't have to destroy. It can protect."
Slowly, the flames receded.
The wings vanished.
The room cooled.
Echo knelt with him in silence for a long while. When she looked up, Kael was watching through the reinforced glass, hand resting lightly on the door's edge.
Calder stepped forward beside him.
"He's dangerous," Calder said softly.
"So was I," Echo replied.
Later, in the medical wing, Echo sat beside Lumen's bed.
He was asleep, cheeks smudged with ash.
Kael entered quietly and handed her a flask of tea.
"You were right not to sedate him," he said.
"I've felt that fear before," she murmured. "Waking up with something inside me I didn't choose. And no one to tell me what it meant."
Kael sat beside her. "You never talk about that."
She stared at her hands.
"I was nine. Alone. They put me in the Cold Vault for a week when my powers first triggered. Said it was for safety. They didn't tell me it was to see if the seed would break me."
Kael's expression darkened. "Who gave that order?"
Echo looked at him. "Your father."
Silence.
Kael turned away. "That's not who I want to be."
"You're not."
"And him?"
She looked at Lumen.
"I won't let him become me either."
Meanwhile, in the depths of the city—
The catacombs shifted.
Old circuits buzzed.
Ancient memory caches unlocked.
The second seed had sent its pulse.
And something had answered.
Not a person.
Not a flame.
A memory.
A shadow of the original flame-goddess.
Awakened.
Watching.
Waiting.