Chapter Summary:
With her status reinstated and the Council temporarily silenced, Echo turns to the true legacy of her bloodline: recovering the five shattered fragments of the First Flame. She and Kael venture into the ancient borderlands in search of the first relic—but what they find is not only guarded by flame… but haunted by a figure Echo thought was long dead.
Chapter 82: Ember Relics
The map was incomplete.
Burned at the edges, ink faded, smudged by centuries of dust and neglect. But it was the only clue Echo had to the relic's location.
A dot.
No name.
Just a symbol—the fractured sun of the First Flame—marked on the outer rim of the known nations, where trade maps stopped and whispers began.
"The borderlands," Kael said, frowning as he turned the brittle parchment under the lantern light. "No infrastructure. No governance. No way to call for help."
"Perfect place to hide a piece of godfire," Echo muttered, strapping her flame-woven dagger to her thigh.
He raised an eyebrow. "You're serious about going."
"You saw what that trial meant," she said. "The Council may have backed off, but they're watching. Waiting for me to make a mistake."
"Or hoping you'll burn out before they have to strike again."
She looked at him.
"Then I guess we better find the rest of the fire."
They left Emberhold under cover of night.
Kael piloted the glider-ship, sleek and dark, slicing through mist and starlight. Echo stood on the observation deck, wind tangling her hair as ancient lands unfolded beneath them.
The borderlands were vast and strange—half-swallowed by time and overgrowth, filled with the skeletons of cities that had once dared to defy the nations.
Their destination: Caldrith Hollow.
Once a monastery. Now a grave.
And somewhere beneath it, if the map was right, the second shard of the First Flame.
They landed at dawn.
Fog clung to the earth like old ghosts. The ruins of Caldrith Hollow rose before them—arches twisted by roots, towers broken like snapped bone. Vines slithered over statues of flame-eyed monks, their prayers long forgotten.
Kael drew his sidearm.
Echo raised her hand.
"No flames. Not yet."
She could feel it.
The echo of something deep, buried.
A hunger.
Inside the chapel, the walls whispered.
Ash coated the floor. A broken altar sat beneath a hole in the ceiling, where sunlight stabbed down like a spear.
"This is where they kept it," Kael said quietly, brushing ash from a faded symbol carved into the floor. "A sanctum built to contain raw flame. They called it the Embercell."
Echo closed her eyes.
Reached out.
And felt it.
Below
Waiting.
"Stairs," she murmured.
They followed the spiral down into darkness.
The Embercell was not just a vault.
It was a tomb.
Circular. Black stone. Runes etched into every surface, humming faintly under Echo's skin.
And in the center: a pedestal.
A single shard hovered above it, spinning slowly.
Deep red. Veined with gold.
Unlike the first shard Kael had found beneath Emberhold, this one pulsed with something… older.
Angrier.
"It's awake," Kael whispered.
Echo took a cautious step forward.
The moment her boot touched the floor, the runes flared—
And the air rippled.
A blast of heat shoved Kael backward.
A figure appeared between them and the shard.
Cloaked in black. Hood drawn.
Then it lifted its head.
And Echo's breath stopped.
"…Riven?"
The figure grinned. "Hello, sister."
For a second, the world spun.
"That's impossible," Echo whispered. "You died in the Emberfall. I saw your name on the wall."
Riven stepped down from the dais.
"Death's not always final. Not when the Void Flame chooses you."
Kael moved to intercept, weapon raised, but Riven didn't flinch.
He extended a hand toward the shard.
"The relic doesn't belong to you."
Echo stared at him. "It belongs to all of us."
He shook his head. "No. It belongs to the Flameborn who are strong enough to command it. That's me now."
"You were the heir," she said quietly. "You left us. You burned the treaty and vanished."
"I evolved," he said. "The Council, the rebels, the Nations—they're all obsolete. Only the Flame remains."
He stepped closer.
"And only one of us gets to carry it."
The duel was silent at first.
No declarations. No grand posturing.
Just fire.
Riven moved like shadow and blaze, his flame twisted by Void energy. It hissed when it touched stone, burned cold.
Echo countered with goldfire. Pure. Controlled. Hers.
They clashed in the circle, two legacies colliding.
"Why come back now?" she shouted, blocking a wave of shadowflame.
"Because I heard you'd survived," he growled. "And the Flame doesn't tolerate weakness."
"You think I'm weak?" she spat.
"No," he said. "I think you're trying too hard not to be."
Kael circled behind the fight, eyes on the shard.
If he could disrupt the pedestal, maybe—
But Riven sensed it.
He lashed out with a whip of flame.
Kael ducked—but the energy caught his shoulder, searing flesh.
Echo screamed.
The fire inside her snapped.
Gold exploded across the chamber.
Riven staggered.
Echo advanced, every step a roar.
"You abandoned us. You let them burn our home. You left me."
Riven sneered. "Because I knew you'd be the one to rebuild it."
He reached behind him.
And threw the shard—not at Echo—
At Kael.
Kael caught it.
Pain lanced through him.
He dropped to his knees as visions stabbed into his mind: firestorms, broken cities, the Void swallowing the sky.
He held on.
He gritted his teeth and stood.
The shard burned like a sun in his hand.
But it didn't consume him.
It listened.
Riven blinked.
"That's not possible—"
Echo hurled a column of flame that knocked her brother against the wall.
He slumped, unconscious.
The chamber dimmed.
Silence returned.
Later, as they bound Riven and prepared the shard for containment, Kael looked at Echoes.
"You said he was dead."
"I thought he was."
"He said the Void Flame saved him."
She nodded slowly. "Which means the Void isn't finished."
Kael met her eyes.
"We need to find the next shard."
She held his gaze.
"And we need to be ready… if the next one fights back."
Far away, in the ruins of Valtaris, Soren stared into a scrying mirror.
He watched Riven fall.
Watched Echo rise.
And turned to the obsidian-eyed woman beside him.
"She's gathering the Flame."
The woman smiled.
"Good. Let her."