The journey to Solmere took three days.
Elara barely slept.
Each night, the same woman returned in her dreams — not attacking, not chasing, just watching. As if waiting for Elara to understand something she wasn't ready to name.
When they reached the sunlit gates of Solmere, Miraen's expression tightened.
"This city was built on old magic," she said. "It listens… and it remembers."
They entered quietly. Solmere was beautiful — spires of white stone, veils of starlight fabric blowing between buildings, canals of glowing water — but beneath the shimmer, Elara felt a pressure in her chest.
Not danger.
Judgment.
Aelira felt it too.
"Do you feel like the city is… measuring us?" she whispered.
Elara nodded.
Inside the central hall, they were greeted by the Council of Flamebearers — descendants of the original seers who once chose Isolde as flamekeeper.
The lead councilor, a man named Vireth, stepped forward. "You returned the Gate to balance. But balance draws eyes from every end of the veil."
He handed Elara a scroll sealed with an obsidian emblem — the same one from her dream.
"This arrived the day you changed the Gate," he said grimly. "No one saw who left it."
Elara opened it.
There was no message. Just a symbol — a spiral turning inward, swallowing itself.
Kael looked over her shoulder. "What does it mean?"
Aelira answered, voice dark. "It's the mark of the Hollow Flame."
Miraen paled. "That legacy was buried. It's impossible."
"No," Elara said quietly. "She's real. I saw her. In my dream."
Vireth's face turned grave. "Then you must understand — not all flames seek to warm. Some were born to consume. And if the Hollow Flame awakens…"
His voice broke.
"She won't rewrite the world. She'll erase it."
---
Far beneath Solmere, in a place no map remembered, a hand of shadow touched stone.
Eyes opened — not with fire, but hunger.
And a voice whispered:
"Soon, sister. Soon you will see what was stolen."