The Ruins of Yvallon rose from the black sands like the bones of a fallen titan.
Once a bastion of flame scholars, it had been swallowed centuries ago by time and magic—its spires cracked, its altars buried beneath dust and silence. The wind here didn't howl—it whispered, as if the stones themselves were trying to speak but had long since forgotten how.
Kael and Elira stood at the edge of the last dune.
The Codex pulsed with warmth on Kael's back, and the First Flame buzzed faintly at his hip—an animal sense of caution radiating from the blade.
"You feel that?" he asked.
Elira's hand went to her dagger.
"Something's wrong. This place remembers pain."
They stepped forward.
Inside the central dome of the ruin, the world changed.
Time itself folded at the edges. Kael could hear his own footsteps echoing before they hit the ground. Light bled sideways across the floor. Runes flared and vanished without reason.
"This is memory magic," Elira whispered. "A broken mind leaking into reality."
Kael nodded slowly.
"Then he's still here."
"What's left of him, anyway."
At the heart of the temple was a great amphitheater—circular, built from obsidian and red stone, its center marked by a raised platform.
Floating above it was the shard.
Or what should have been a shard.
Instead, it pulsed violently—twisting in shape, flickering with unstable color. Red, then violet, then black. Around it floated fragments of other souls—burned faces, screaming mouths, half-formed memories.
Then a voice.
Not from the shard—but from everywhere.
"Another Flameborn… come to steal what is mine?"
A figure emerged from the shadows.
Not a man, but not quite a wraith. His body was composed of flame and ash, shaped like a human but constantly shifting—like smoke trying to remember flesh. His eyes were orbs of flickering green fire, and across his chest glowed seven broken glyphs.
Elira gasped.
"That's… Ithir."
Kael stepped forward, sword drawn.
"Who was he?"
"A scholar of Ardarion. One of the first to find a soul-shard after the king fell. He tried to bind it, instead of absorbing it. Then he tried to take more."
Kael narrowed his eyes.
"He took too many."
The creature grinned—a flicker of teeth in the flame.
"I am the Flameking. I am his wrath, his knowledge, his bones."
"You're what's left of a mistake," Kael snapped.
The creature screamed.
The walls bent.
Kael barely had time to raise the First Flame as pillars of molten stone erupted from the floor. Elira rolled aside, casting a glyph-shield just as one of the soul-wraith's attacks split the amphitheater.
Kael lunged.
The First Flame clashed against the wraith's form—it didn't cut flesh, but cut memory. The soul-wraith staggered, shrieking, as fragments of half-stolen lives peeled away from him like burning leaves.
Kael saw visions mid-strike:
A child witnessing his father's execution.
A woman screaming at a burning palace.
A king weeping over a newborn.
All of them—real, but not his.
"You carry pain that's not yours," Kael shouted. "You wear grief like armor!"
The wraith howled, sending a wave of soulfire across the chamber.
Kael dropped to one knee, raising the sword to shield himself. The Codex flared on his back, absorbing some of the blow—but Elira cried out as a blast struck her glyph-line, knocking her into the far wall.
Kael turned, heart racing.
"Elira!"
She lifted a hand weakly.
"Finish it!"
The wraith lunged, its body unraveling into fire and reforming midair.
Kael didn't dodge.
Instead, he let the flame enter him.
He let the shard recognize him.
The world slowed.
In the silence of his soul, Kael stood face to face with the memory—not the wraith, but the shard it had consumed. A younger version of the Flameking stood before him, eyes hollow, blade broken.
"You would take me? After what I've become?"
Kael didn't speak.
He reached out.
And placed his hand over the ghost's heart.
"You were not meant to be worshipped. You were meant to be remembered."
The shard shuddered—then fused into Kael's chest.
The soul-wraith screamed one last time—then imploded, vanishing in a burst of red-gold light.
The amphitheater fell silent.
Kael stood trembling, the First Flame now burning steady in his grip.
His skin glowed with faint glyphs. The second shard was his.
Elira limped over, blood on her lip.
"Well…" she said, breathing hard. "That could have gone worse."
Kael gave a tired smile.
"Could've gone a lot worse."
She looked at him.
"You absorbed a corrupted shard. You shouldn't be standing."
Kael looked down at his hands.
"Maybe the fire's starting to trust me."
Or maybe, he thought, I'm starting to trust it.
That night, they made camp just outside the ruins.
The Codex opened on its own.
A new page read:
"The flame does not seek perfection.
Only truth.
And pain reveals the purest form of both."
Kael read the words three times.
He now carried two shards of the Flameking.
And the Temple would know it.