The journey north began in silence, and it remained that way for days.
There were no cheers as we departed Emberreach. No horns. No parting words. The people knew the weight of our mission and the danger it carried. Those who had rebuilt homes and buried the dead after the last attack watched from a distance, their eyes wide with fear, reverence, and hope.
We were leaving the warmth of the valley, the cradle of the Flame, and venturing into the Waking North a land untouched by time, cloaked in legend, and feared even in stories. It was where the old gods were said to have vanished. Where ice whispered secrets to those who dared to listen.
Lucian rode beside me, his new cloak billowing in the wind. Kieran led a secondary force a few miles behind, his team acting as scouts and backup. Lira rode further back, bundled in layers, quiet but alert. I had expected more resistance when she insisted on coming, but her determination had silenced every argument.
The terrain shifted quickly. Forests thinned. Rivers froze. The sky turned steel gray and remained that way, unmoving, uncaring.
By the fourth day, we entered lands no map had ever accurately charted. The magic here felt older, less cooperative. It didn't hum it growled. The Flame within me flickered constantly, not in warning, but as if unsure whether to retreat or burn brighter in defiance.
On the sixth day, a blizzard nearly ended our progress. We found shelter beneath a jagged overhang and waited for the winds to pass. That night, I had dreams.
They weren't just visions they were memories.
Not mine, but the Gatekeeper's.
I stood in her place. A vast battlefield stretched before me. Mountains had been split in two. Rivers boiled with blood. The sky glowed red as the sun itself wept.
I saw her wielding the Flame not as a weapon but as a lock. Her power was absolute, but it wasn't enough. One by one, she sealed the veils. Each cost her something flesh, bone, soul. Until only the final seal remained.
And for that one, she needed a successor.
When I awoke, snow covered our boots, and the Flame in my chest pulsed like thunder.
The temple wasn't a building. It was a wound.
Hidden beneath the jagged spine of the mountains, the entrance yawned open like the mouth of a long-dead beast. Two massive statues guarded its sides weather-worn figures whose faces had been eaten away by time and wind. Their hands held broken chains, the ends buried in the snow.
As I approached, the runes beneath the ice began to glow not gold, not red but icy blue. Their magic tasted of frost and sorrow.
"Do you feel that?" Lucian whispered.
"It's not just old magic," I replied. "It's waiting magic."
We descended into the chasm with only torchlight and my Flame to guide us.
The air changed.
It didn't grow colder it grew empty. Magic didn't flow here. It congealed.
Sound was swallowed. Movement felt sluggish. The deeper we went, the more oppressive the atmosphere became, as if time itself resisted our presence.
And then we found the chamber.
Massive and circular, the space was carved from black stone that shimmered like wet glass. In its center stood a cracked monolith. At its base, half-buried in crystalline frost, was a blade long, obsidian, and humming with dormant energy. It did not gleam. It drank light.
Etched into the stone floor were countless glyphs some Flameborn, some unknown. As I stepped closer, they shifted, responding to my presence, aligning in patterns I couldn't read but instinctively understood.
The Flame inside me flared, then froze.
Visions surged fragments of memory, of prophecy.
I saw a battlefield of ice. I saw the Gatekeeper's fall. I saw seven veils only four of which remained. I saw the seals breaking, not through war but through will.
And then I saw myself burning too bright, too fast shattering the last veil simply by existing.
Lucian stepped beside me.
"You're shaking," he said.
"I saw the end," I whispered.
"Of what?"
"Everything."
And then the voice spoke.
"You're late."
A figure emerged from the shadows a man, though not quite. His features shimmered faintly, as if memory fought to hold him together. His hair was silver-white, eyes the color of frozen stars. His robes were layered like mist.
He didn't breathe.
But he spoke with the weight of ten lifetimes.
"I dreamed of you, Aurora Quinn," he said. "The girl who carries the Fourth Flame. The girl who must choose whether to burn the world... or save it."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I am the Remnant. The memory of the last Gatekeeper. Bound to warn the next."
I stepped forward, the Flame flaring. "Warn me of what?"
He turned toward the monolith.
"That is not a weapon. It is a prison key. It seals what even the gods feared. The final seal was never meant to be placed inside a human heart. And yet your mother chose differently."
Lucian's hand tightened on his sword. "What sleeps beneath this temple?"
The Remnant's smile was slow. Sad.
"Nothing sleeps here. Not anymore."
A tremor shook the chamber.
From the far wall, a long crack split open, ice crumbling away to reveal a hidden chamber beyond.
Inside it, something breathed.
A sound like glaciers grinding together.
"Go," the Remnant said. "You're not ready."
"I need answers," I demanded.
"You will find them," he promised. "But not here. Not yet."
With a single wave of his hand, the runes beneath our feet blazed. The Flame inside me surged and the world folded inward.
We awoke outside.
The entrance was gone.
The statues remained but they were broken. Empty.
Lucian knelt beside me, checking for injuries. Lira stood behind, wide-eyed, gripping her pendant.
"What did you see?" Lucian asked.
"Not what sleeps," I said slowly. "What waits."
And in the silence that followed, we all heard it.
A slow, rhythmic thud beneath the snow.
A heartbeat.
And it wasn't mine.