Forty seasons later.
The forest had long since swallowed the ruins.
The world no longer spoke of fire as fear — only as memory.
The Hollow thrived. Its stories whispered through trees, carried in wolf songs and river chants. The tale of Caelina the Heretic had grown into legend. Some said she never aged. Others said she had become part of the earth itself, buried beneath the roots of the Great Tree at the heart of N'toka.
Few knew the truth.
Even fewer had reason to ask.
Nina, daughter of no clan, barefoot and wild-haired, found herself wandering through the forbidden ridge one dusk.
She wasn't supposed to be there.
But her dreams had drawn her.
Ever since her first shift, she'd been seeing fragments — salt, flame, and the face of a woman with eyes like winter storms.
No one believed her.
"Just nerves," the elders had said.
But she knew.
Something waited out here.
Something unfinished.
The wind changed as she passed an old cedar grove.
And in its center, half-buried by moss and moonpetals…
Was a hilt.
No blade.
Just the carved, salt-silver handle of a sword too old to be remembered by name.
She reached down.
Touched it.
And suddenly —
She saw everything.
Not as memory, but as presence.
Miren. Tavian. Elara. Zela.
The Crucible, screaming.
The howl before the storm.
The salt-lily blooming in silence.
Then — Caelina. Sitting by a fire. Looking older, but unbowed.
She turned to Nina and spoke, calm as a lullaby:
"If you're here, it means the world needs remembering again."
Nina fell back, gasping.
The vision vanished.
But the hilt remained in her hand — warm now. A pulse, faint, like breath.
Behind her, the trees moved. A single elder wolf stepped out — white-furred, one eye clouded.
Zela.
Not dead.
Just older. Watching.
"You found it," she said.
"I didn't mean to—"
Zela raised a hand.
"No one ever does. The sword finds who it wants. Always has."
Nina looked down at the hilt. "What do I do with it?"
Zela smiled.
"Listen to it. Then choose whether you tell the story…
or become the next one."
That night, Nina stood before the Hollow's flame circle.
Children gathered, some her age, some younger.
She held the hilt in both hands. And when the moonlight hit it just right, for a second — just a second — the blade shimmered into view.
Not as steel.
As memory.
She took a breath.
And began:
"Let me tell you about the one who walked into fire, not to rule — but to remind us that even in ash, there can still be bloom."
And as her words danced into the dark,
the stars above shimmered
like they, too, were listening
The End.
But stories like this don't truly end.
They settle.
They breathe.
And they wait for the next heart brave enough to carry the flame, not to burn — but to warm.