The first true council of war was not held in a palace or throne room, but in a cavern beneath Caer Thorne's oldest fortress, where the stones still whispered the names of kings who had long since turned to dust. There, among the echoes, flame met steel and resolve took root.
Queen Seralyn stood at the head of the long, carved obsidian table, flanked by her commanders. On her left, Lord Tharan, who had once faced down three border rebellions in a single winter. On her right, General Marek, tall and silent, with scars etched like warnings across his jaw.
I stood opposite them.
Lyra beside me. Corran at my back. And Rhianna of Virelia, who had arrived two nights before under the cover of stormclouds and secrecy, her face veiled, her presence guarded by twin blades from her personal guard.
Queen Seralyn spoke first.
"The flamekeeper's warnings were clear, as are the signs along the borders. The ash in Virelia's sky now touches our own. If Emberfall falls fully to the steward's hand, we are next."
"It won't just be the steward," Rhianna added. "There's something deeper at work. The old fire has been twisted. Corrupted."
I felt the Emberbrand stir. Images swirled unbidden in my mind: a tower of black flame, a crown melted to bone, a sea of swords kneeling to shadow.
"We need more than armies," I said. "We need truth. The people must know the old prophecy. The sealed history."
Tharan scoffed. "Truth won't stop blades."
"But it may stop soldiers from following the wrong banner," Lyra countered. "They followed Kael once, before the lies began. They can follow him again."
Seralyn nodded slowly. "We will prepare a declaration. I will lend my voice to this revelation. But before war begins in earnest, we need the Ember Sigil."
I frowned. "What is it?"
Corran stepped forward. "The Ember Sigil was the first seal placed upon the Flamebrand—meant to suppress it, but also to contain its purity. If it is restored and placed upon you, it may allow you to wield the Brand without losing yourself."
"Where is it now?"
"Lost," Corran said. "Buried within the ruins of Emberlight, a temple long abandoned."
Seralyn looked to Marek. "Prepare a strike force. Small. Quiet. We retrieve the sigil while Kael spreads the truth through the border towns. If we do both before the steward can respond—we may have a fighting chance."
---
The next ten days were a whirlwind of movement.
I traveled east, from village to village, under banners of truce and the queen's crest. I stood before crowds in open markets and dusty courts, revealing the visions, the books, the flames that had not burned me.
Some scoffed.
Some cursed.
But most listened.
And when I lit the fire in my palm, shaped it into the old seal once shown in the vault, they wept.
The truth had power.
One night, in the border town of Duskwatch, I sat with an old herbalist who offered me a bowl of root stew and a tale. She had once seen the Flamebrand as a child. Not me—but the original.
"She rode through firestorms with no horse, just ash beneath her feet," the woman whispered. "Said she would return when the stars fell wrong. I think they're wrong now."
Lyra met me on the sixth day. Her cloak was stained with travel, her eyes weary.
"Marek found the temple," she said. "But they've been ambushed. We need to go."
I didn't ask who sent the ambush. I already knew.
---
The ruins of Emberlight were not ruins at all.
They were bones.
Giant pillars stretched skyward, half-shattered, like ribs of a great beast long dead. Black ivy wound through the stone, and crows circled overhead.
We found Marek beneath the central arch, wounded but alive, his sword arm tied in a splint. Two of his men stood guard.
"They came before we reached the inner sanctum," he rasped. "Not just men—things. Cloaked in shadow. Eyes like burning coal."
I knelt beside him. "Did they take the sigil?"
"No," he said. "But they guard it now."
We descended into the earth.
The path twisted through ancient tunnels lit by cold flame. Murals lined the walls, depicting the first Emberbrand—her rise, her sacrifice, her betrayal.
One mural caught my eye: a child with ember eyes, weeping beside a dying flame. A warning. Or perhaps a memory.
At the end of the hall lay a door sealed in obsidian.
Beyond it, the chamber.
And the shadows.
They rose from the walls like smoke—silent, formless at first, then growing limbs, claws, faces distorted by hatred.
One hissed, voice like grinding stone. "You are not her."
"No," I said. "But her fire lives in me."
They lunged.
Lyra met the first with her blade. I faced the second with fire.
This was not a battle of blades alone. It was memory. Emotion. Flame shaped by purpose.
I called the Emberbrand forward—and the chamber lit like sunrise.
The shadows screamed.
I pressed forward, through flame and darkness, until I reached the altar.
There it was.
A simple disk of gold and crimson glass.
The Ember Sigil.
I seized it.
Pain lanced through me—searing, but not cruel.
Then… silence.
And peace.
> [New Skill Unlocked: Ember Sigil – Flamebound Harmony. Your control has doubled. Your will tempers your fire.]
I turned.
The shadows were gone.
Lyra knelt beside one of the fallen, panting. "That was... different."
I nodded. "And it's only just begun."
---
We returned to Caer Thorne with the sigil in hand and the proof of darkness more real than any speech.
Queen Seralyn did not wait.
Declarations were sent to every city within the Southern Reach. Flamebearers—heralds of the new truth—rode ahead, bearing signs of the Brand, recounting the prophecy, and delivering the call.
Join. Or burn.
In the keep's upper library, I sat one night reading the journals of the first flamekeeper. She spoke of a day when fire would no longer serve rulers, but truth alone.
"The flame is a mirror," she wrote. "It reveals what we are, not what we pretend."
Lyra joined me as dawn broke.
"You've changed," she said quietly.
I looked at her. "So have you."
She gave a tired smile. "We're not the same rebels we were in Emberfall."
"We never were," I said. "We just didn't know it yet."
Rhianna prepared her fleets.
Thorne's forges blazed.
And I stood upon the wall of Wyrmgate, watching the smoke rise from Emberfall in the distance.
"It's coming," Lyra said.
I nodded. "Then let it come."
The Flamebrand had awakened.
The storm had gathered.
And I was ready.