The brazier's light cast long shadows along the carved walls, its golden flame flickering like a heartbeat. In the deep silence that followed Eira's vow, a low, groaning sound echoed from the tunnel above, the unmistakable grind of shifting stone.
"They're collapsing the way we came," Thorne said, already moving to the stairs. "Trying to trap us in."
Torin stood beside a stone pillar, gripping his spear with a grim look. "Don't suppose they thought to leave us a back door."
"I doubt it," Kaela muttered. "Maelis wouldn't want witnesses."
Eira stepped away from the flame, her voice steady. "We don't need to escape. Not yet. We hold here."
Kaela turned to her, frowning. "And then what?"
"We light the forge," Eira said. "Not just this brazier. There's more. I can feel it."
Lena moved quickly between them. "If the Deep Flame was meant to be protected, then there must be defenses we haven't seen."
Thorne returned from the stairwell. "The tunnel's holding for now. But they've set charges or summoned earth magic. We don't have long."
Eira looked back at the villagers. They stood clustered near the far wall, quiet but not panicked. Some had started organizing supplies: water, bandages, blankets. One of them, a grizzled woman named Marin was methodically passing out tools. She gave Eira a short nod.
"We're not just here to be protected, girl. Tell us what you need."
Eira swallowed. "We'll need lookouts. Barricades. Someone watching the flame if it dims, we'll know they're draining the magic from above."
"And runners," Marin added. "In case this place has more than one way out."
A teenager from Hollowmere stepped forward, already loading stones into a sling. "We'll fight too."
Torin glanced at him with a half-smile. "Remind me not to get on your bad side, lad."
They set to work.
Thorne and Lena examined the walls, searching for weaknesses. Kaela climbed to a ledge near the entrance to create a vantage point, bow in hand. Torin and Marin began stacking stone and metal scraps into a makeshift barricade, and the villagers followed suit, their work silent but urgent.
Eira knelt at the brazier again, the Keyblade warm in her grip.
"What else are you hiding?" she whispered.
And the flame answered.
Not in words, but in feeling, a pulse through the shard, through her veins. A pull downward, to the very foundation beneath the stone.
Lena came up beside her. "There's something beneath this room, isn't there?"
Eira nodded. "A heart. Maybe a weapon. Or a promise."
"We don't have time to unearth it."
"No," Eira said. "But maybe we can wake it."
She pressed her hand to the stone beside the brazier. The shard flared in her chest and the flame surged higher.
Far above, stone cracked.
The enemy had arrived.
—
Outside, Maelis stood on the craggy ledge overlooking the sunken path. Smoke curled from the detonated entrance. Veil soldiers spread across the ridgeline, quiet and efficient, setting anchors into the cliff in case they needed to rappel down. But Maelis waited.
Her orders were clear: flush them out or bury them.
And yet… something tugged at the edge of her mind. A warning.
She knelt near the ruin's surface and laid her palm against the earth. Her own shard, dull, cracked rested in her palm. She felt nothing. Just faint warmth, no whisper, no call.
The true flame had chosen another.
She stood.
"Send the tunneling team," she ordered. "Break into the chamber from the eastern wall. And prepare the scorchesalts. If they try to breach, we torch the whole vault."
The tracker hesitated. "There are civilians down there."
Maelis didn't blink. "So?"
The tracker fell silent.
Maelis turned to the soldiers beside her. "Let her believe she's inherited something divine. Then crush it under her feet."
—
Back below, the tremors intensified.
A spray of dust rained down from above. A corner of the tunnel entrance buckled inward. Through the cracks, Eira could see movement, Veil soldiers, masked and armored, crawling through the breach.
Lena fired first. A blast of wind shattered the lead soldier's footing. Thorne darted forward, sword flashing. Kaela's arrows whistled down from her perch, striking with terrifying accuracy.
Torin grinned grimly as he flanked the entrance. "You'd think after all this time, the Veil would send someone new."
Marin lobbed a stone that knocked another soldier back through the hole. "They never learn."
The villagers joined the defense not as warriors, but as defenders of their own legacy. Nets made from vine and chain were strung across the second stairwell. Buckets of water waited near the forge, ready to extinguish scorched wounds or wash away the dust.
As the battle roared near the entrance, Eira turned to the flame once more.
"If you have more to give," she whispered, "now is the time."
And deep beneath the forge, something ancient stirred.
A groan of metal. A low hum of energy. The carvings along the walls ignited again, every line of the forge glowing as if veins had reopened. The brazier pulsed like a second sun.
The Deep Flame was awake.
And it was angry.