"Flames are loud. But ashes whisper forever"
Days passed in the Dust Realm but days here were not like those above.
There was no sun. Only the slow collapse of broken time.
Eirian walked alone through the Valley of Whispers, where the wind did not blow—it breathed.
The ground was not earth, but compacted red soil, crunching underfoot like the bones of forgotten words. Shadows moved at the edges of his vision, not following, not fleeing... simply watching. Their eyes were pits of smoked glass, reflecting nothing.
Each step carried a heaviness that wasn't physical. It was like walking through his own forgotten regrets.
The Ashborne cinder now embedded in his chest whispered names he didn't recognize.
But one day, he found a voice.
A real one.
"You walk like you still think you exist."
Eirian turned.
A boy, no older than twelve, stood barefoot on a ruined obelisk. His skin was charcoal-gray, eyes white and ancient.
"Who are you?" Eirian asked vigilantly. He didn't sensed this boy's presence when he was walking.
"Someone who was remembered by mistake."
The boy grinned. "I'm Dris. You must be the idiot who touched the Laws."
"Why are you here?"
Dris leapt down and walked past him. "I'm your guide now, Flameborn. You'll need one."
Eirian frowned. "Why?"
Dris's eyes turned sharp and cold.
"Because there are others, who burn quietly.
Souls who weren't erased.
Souls who've waited for someone like you to - start the fire again."
"What is Flameborn". Eirian asked calmly without expressing any emotions.
"Flameborn" he repeated in a low voice, tapping his finger in the back of his head. "Those born from fire, not womb"
He looked towards the sky murmuring in a low voice, "It is a curse the stronger they grow, the more their intelligence burns away making them puppet".
Eirian was stunned when he heard this new information and the surroundings turned silent for a long time.
After a while the boy led Eirian through the Valley of Whispers, after walking for a long time they arrived into a place and found a cave of cracked soul mirrors which was hidden behind two large trees. Inside, each mirror reflected not you—but what you could have been.
One showed Eirian as a hero. Another, a tyrant. A third… a corpse.
"You'll need to choose soon," Dris said, eyes sad.
"Choose what?"
"Who you want to become before the Realms decide for you."
That night, Eirian dreamed of fire again.
But this time, it wasn't his mother.
It was himself, older, surrounded by corpses of gods.
His eyes were glowing with an ember no one could extinguish.
"Eirian are you alright" the boy asked indifferently no emotions could be seen in his white eyes.
Eirian jerked awake, his breath coming in ragged gasps, the remnants of the dream still lingering in his mind like smoke. "Yes.. I am alright" Eirian said after regaining his composure.
Eirian walked toward the Soul Mirror and stopped when only two meters remained. For the first time since arriving in the Dust Realm, he saw his reflection clearly. His sharp, phoenix-like eyes gleamed, his face pale as carved jade, his long jet-black hair falling like a shadow. His body—lean yet powerfully built—stood motionless before the glass, a figure both regal and untamed.
He stood frozen, lost in thought after seeing his reflection in the mirror—until a whisper slithered through the cave.
Eirian whirled toward the boy. "Dris… was that you?"
The boy didn't answer. His hollow gaze was fixed on something in the shadows.
Following his stare, Eirian's breath hitched.
A door.
Black as a starless night, its surface crawled with ancient symbols, half-hidden behind a collapsed wall. The whisper coiled from its cracks—not a voice, but the sound of something breathing on the other side.
Dris tossed a pebble in. It didn't hit the door.
It dissolved mid-air, unraveling into gray dust.
"The Red Star," Dris said in a low trembling voice. "Where the Dust Realm's war was lost. Where the last of the Flameborn died."
Eirian's Soulbrand pulsed—a dull, aching throb. "Why does it feel familiar?"
Dris's eyes darkened. "Because scars remember. And this one remembers — YOU.
The walls weren't rock—they were compacted battle-deaths, fused together by time and rage.
Then, the whispers started.
"Eirian…"
"Traitor…"
"You left us to fade…"
Shadows moved. Not people. Not ghosts. Echoes of the erased, their faces smeared like wet ink. One lunged towards them.
Eirian reacted on instinct, his Soulbrand flaring—
The echo didn't burn.
It laugh-cried, its hollow mouth stretching too wide.
"You can't kill what's already dead, Flameborn. But we can kill "you"
The canyon - woke up.
A voice could be heard from background.
The Last Flameborn's Curse
The echoes didn't attack.
They remembered.
And their memories were blades:
A battlefield drenched in black rain.
A man with white eyes (older, fiercer) standing atop a mountain of corpses.
His sword—no, not a sword, a burning name—plunging into the heaven and earth.
Then, the vision twisted:
The man turned, looked directly at Eirian, and spoke— "You shouldn't be here. I made sure of that."
The canyon ruptured.
A figure crawled out from the fissure—a corpse wrapped in chains of dead flame.
Its voice was the sound of a burial shroud tearing.
"Little ember… you've come to finish what our family had started."
Dris recoiled. "No. That's impossible. He's—"
"The First Flameborn,"* Eirian finished, his Soulbrand roaring in recognition.
The corpse smiled.
"Call me—"Dain" The last general of the Forgotten Legion.
The corpse didn't attack. It spat truth like venom.
"The Dust Realm isn't where souls come to fade. It's where they come to burn clean.
It pointed a skeletal finger at Eirian's chest.
"Your Soulbrand isn't a gift. It's an infection. A remnant of the war we lost 4000 years ago in Imm..Rea.... His voice abruptly stopped by an unknown power.
After few minutes he said again, "The gods didn't just erase us—they made the survivors forget they ever existed.
Dris was shaking. "Then why did does Eirian remember?"
The corpse's grin was a crack in the world.
"Because his mother didn't just die for him. She killed a god to do it.
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