Chapter 32
Eliendara stared at the mirror-pool.
And the thing it showed.
It didn't reflect her hair or face or flame.
It reflected a door.
An obsidian gate crowned with crimson rings, veins of silver light pulsing through its surface like blood through skin. It was beautiful.
Terrifying.
Alive.
Her.
She stumbled back.
"No," she whispered. "No, that can't be me. That thing… that's not what I am."
Ravien knelt by the pool, gaze unreadable. "It's not what you are now. But it's what you were created to become."
Kael stepped forward, sword drawn, barely able to hide the fury rising in his voice.
"You're saying she wasn't born?"
"She was born," Ravien said quietly. "But not as a girl. Not as a vessel. She was born as a seal. A final one. The gods bound the Eighth Flame in mortal form and erased the memory of it from the world. Even from her."
Eliendara's pulse rang in her ears.
The Scorched Crown on her brow began to burn—tightening like it knew the truth was near. Fighting it.
"That's why it hurts," she breathed. "Why it's rewriting me. Because I'm not the Crown's chosen…"
"You're its prison," Ravien said.
The chamber trembled.
The Hollow of Names began to pulse with heat—not hers, not Kael's, not even Ravien's—but from the crown itself. It crackled like molten iron. The red gems along its edge glowed so hot the air warped.
Kael turned to her. "Can you take it off?"
Eliendara clawed at it—
But her fingers passed through the metal like smoke.
She gasped. "It's not sitting on me anymore. It's inside me."
Ravien nodded. "The moment you embraced it willingly, it fused with the gate locked inside your soul. That's why you're remembering things that never happened."
"They did happen," Eliendara whispered. "Just… not to this version of me."
He looked at her.
"You're not just wearing memories. You're wearing lives. Every life the Eighth Gate touched. Every version of you created to hold it back."
Kael's grip on his sword tightened. "Why are you telling us now?"
Ravien's voice lowered.
"Because the others are waking."
Eliendara's breath caught.
"What others?"
"The ones made before you. Failed seals. Broken containers. Gate-shards left to rot."
He turned to her fully.
"They're angry, Eli. Forgotten. Buried. But now that the Crown has chosen you, they're coming."
Kael raised his sword. "To destroy her?"
"No," Ravien said.
"To take her back."
The pool shattered.
A wind howled through the Hollow, black and red and screaming with voices that didn't belong in any realm. The names carved into the walls began to glow and melt, as if too many truths were being remembered at once.
And then—
A voice. Female. Soft. Cold.
"There you are… Little Flame."
A figure stepped from the darkness.
Dressed in mirrors.
Her face—Eliendara's.
But wrong.
Twisted by age, time, and power stolen from things long dead.
The first failed Gate Vessel.
The first version of her.
Still alive.
Still burning.
And furious.
🔮 Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 33: The Girl I Never Was
Eliendara comes face-to-face with her oldest forgotten self—The first vessel. The prototype. The one who broke.
But this version of her has a demand:
Give back the Crown.Or be unmade.