Valinor gave Liora the Starseed — a crystal that held pure potential. With it, she could shape a Flame not of sky or earth, but of choice.
They returned to Iridia to find it half lost. The Star-Eater's presence was now visible — a growing black spiral in the sky. Stars dimmed. Flames no longer obeyed.
But people still remembered Elara. Still remembered hope.
Liora, standing in the center of the ruined Solanar, placed the Starseed in the Worldforge — a place deep beneath the Flame Temple, once hidden even from Elara.
She struck it with her will.
And a new Flame was born — blue, white, gold, full of song and memory and freedom.
After the Star-Eater faded and Liora reshaped the Flame, peace returned — but not clarity.
The new Flame sang with strange echoes. Every now and then, it whispered names that didn't exist. Places no one remembered. And visions — of Elara before she ever lit the Eternal Flame… in a time that shouldn't have existed.
The Keepers feared a paradox, but Liora felt something deeper:
> "The Flame remembers more than just the past. It remembers the paths not taken."
She began to dream of a different Iridia. One where Elara failed.
One where the Star-Eater won.
And where the last hope lay not in fire — but in time.
Deep beneath the ruins of the Skyborn citadel, Liora uncovered a sealed chamber: The Mirror of Ashes, said to reflect not your image, but the version of you from another world.
When she touched it, she saw herself — dressed in obsidian, crowned in flame, standing atop a broken world. Her name was Liora the Blackflame — a version of her who had surrendered to the Ashborne King long ago.
That version of her was still alive.
Still ruling a shadow world.
And somehow… crossing over.
The shard between worlds, known as the Shardveil, had begun to thin. It once separated timelines, preventing parallel realms from colliding.
But Liora's use of the Starseed Flame had shattered parts of it.
The Mirror cracked.
Suddenly, portals began appearing across Iridia — leaking creatures from other timelines. Giant horned serpents, ash-dragons with glass bones, and warriors with hollow eyes who claimed to serve the One Flame — the tyrant version of Liora.
To stop the collapse, Liora had to go through the Shardveil… and confront herself.
In the mirror-world of Umbradia, fire burned blue-black. The sun was gone, replaced by a single burning eye in the sky. There, the Blackflame Empire ruled all — a world where the Ashborne King had been victorious and where Elara never existed.
Liora the Blackflame was powerful, terrifying, but not cruel.
She believed in order — that people must be forged, not freed. She welcomed the Liora from our world… with a warning:
> "Every flame becomes a tyrant eventually. Even yours."
Liora saw the truth: this wasn't evil. It was the cost of too much control.
And she began to doubt her own path.
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