Darkness.
Thick. Suffocating. Alive.
Elira gasped as her body slammed against hard stone. Her gauntlets sparked dimly in the void. Pain jolted through her spine, but she forced herself up, coughing dust and grit. Around her, the others groaned — Kael clutching his shoulder, Dante already scanning the space with a drawn dagger.
They had fallen deep — impossibly deep — through a hidden fissure in Virellen's ruins.
But this wasn't just a cave.
The walls pulsed faintly with veins of molten amber, ancient runes glowing faintly like embers under ash. The floor beneath them was smooth, carved, and covered with layered symbols… forgotten languages intertwined with blood-red sigils.
And in the center of the chamber stood the gate.
Massive. Sealed in obsidian chains. Made of blackened stone and a blazing molten core that flickered like a heartbeat. The Ember Gate.
Elira's breath caught in her throat.
Kael limped closer. "This… this wasn't just legend."
"It's real," Dante muttered, eyes narrowed. "And it's humming with power. The kind that doesn't sleep."
Elira approached slowly, flames crackling gently around her. As she neared the gate, the temperature rose — not just heat, but memory. Her past clawed at her mind — the faces of her parents, the burning house, the shouts and fire and blood.
Then the gate pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
CRACK.
The sound split the air. The ground trembled.
"Elira, step back!" Kael shouted.
But she didn't move. The gate was calling her.
A dark voice echoed from beyond it, as if spoken by a thousand embers in unison:
"At last… the blood returns."
Flames erupted from the seams of the stone. Chains snapped. One. Two. Three.
Dante drew his weapon. "We need to run. Now."
Elira didn't hear him. A vision seized her — a fiery battlefield from centuries ago. Her ancestor, Lyrielle, standing against a colossal creature of flame and shadow, sealing it away beneath the Hollow. Her screams. Her sacrifice.
"I am the one your parents died to seal away," the voice boomed again.
Elira's eyes widened. "No… it can't be…"
Suddenly — the gate shattered in a flash of molten light.
From the blinding core, a massive clawed hand burst through — covered in arcane markings, made of living fire and ancient ash. The chamber shook violently. Rocks tumbled. The gate moaned like it was weeping.
Kael grabbed Elira's arm. "We have to go!"
But Elira stood frozen.
The creature on the other side of the gate was still trapped… for now. But its voice cut into her mind like a blade wrapped in flame.
"You carry her flame… but you will carry my curse."
The hand clenched, and for a moment, the light of Elira's gauntlets flickered… as if something else tried to claim them.
And in that instant, something changed inside her.
The fire didn't feel like hers anymore.