🜂 First Spark
They spent the night in the Ashwake. There was no dawn here, only the slow pulse of vault lights, like the heartbeat of something waiting.
Jackie couldn't sleep.
She stood at the edge of the Emberseed chamber, palm resting against the glass of one tank. Inside floated a creature with gilded scales and feathered wings. Not quite dragon. Not quite human. A third thing.
> Like me, she thought. Between.
Luci joined her, silent for a moment.
"Do you think they'll survive out there?" Luci asked softly. "If we wake them?"
Jackie didn't look away from the tank. "That's not the question."
Luci frowned. "Then what is?"
She turned. "It's who they'll become."
---
🜂 Warden Echoes
Elsewhere in the Archives, Kael and Mira sifted through old Flameborne data nodes. Some were corrupt, others encrypted in unstable bio-scripts. But one sequence pulsed with urgency.
A recording.
Kael activated it.
A Warden general appeared—his armor scorched, helm shattered. Behind him, flames swallowed a city skyline.
> "We thought we had ended them. But the Flameborne were never a species. They were a spark.
And sparks… reignite."
He looked straight into the recorder, voice raw.
> "If Emberseed completes, we won't face war. We'll face revolution."
Mira's face hardened. "They knew. They all knew what Jazira was doing."
Kael nodded grimly. "And tried to bury it with her."
---
🜂 Heirs of Fire
By morning, the group stood before the Guardian again.
> "REQUEST," it said, eyes glowing. "SELECT EMBERSEED CANDIDATES."
Jackie looked to the others.
"No," she said. "That's not what Jazira wanted."
She stepped forward.
"We're not here to choose who gets the future. We're here to protect it. All of it."
The Guardian paused.
> "RE-PROGRAMMING CORE DIRECTIVE…
INPUT ACCEPTED."
The vault shifted. More chambers began to unlock, each holding different branches of Emberseed: some tailored to scorched biomes, some to deep-sea volcanic vents, others to skyborn altitudes.
Jackie stared.
It wasn't a single plan.
It was an ecosystem.
Luci whispered, "This could restart the world."
Jackie smiled faintly.
> "No.
This time… we rewrite it."
---
🜂 End of the Archive
They sealed the Ashwake behind them.
The dragon bones folded back over the entrance, as if the mountain had never been disturbed.
Each of them carried a vial—coded DNA sequences, spark catalysts, and a shard of Jazira's flame. Not weapons. Not relics.
Seeds.
"Where do we go now?" Mira asked as they looked out over the Riftfall trenches.
Jackie held the map. A new path had emerged—drawn in glowing ember script across the parchment.
> "Where it all began," she said.
> "Valecrown."
And with that, the heirs of fire began the long walk home—carrying the future not as a burden, but as a promise.