The morning air was sharp with mountain chill. Mist curled between the red hills like smoke that
refused to rise. Torian and Skarn moved steadily eastward, their path winding through craggy
terrain where the rocks seemed to bleed rust and the trees, sparse and narrow, leaned inward like
eavesdropping sentinels.
It had been three days since the Spiral Mark had flared and saved their lives from the Ember
Hounds. Three days since the Flame-Walkers warned them that a Hollow Flame was stirring in the
deep places of the world. Torian hadn't spoken much in that time, but he hadn't been silent either.
He was changing.
He felt it in the way he walked—no longer flinching at every gust of wind or shadow on the ridge. He
felt it in the way Skarn watched him—more brother than guardian now. And he felt it in the way the
world reacted: birds parting silently in his path, stones warming beneath his touch, fire lighting
without spark.But it wasn't just reverence.
It was expectation.
The world wanted something from him now.
And it would get it—one way or another.
They came upon the stone fault just past midday. It wasn't there one moment, and the next, the
earth shook beneath their feet—deep and slow, like a breath held too long and finally exhaled. The
tremor split the ridge. Rock cracked and slid away. A massive vein of obsidian split down the middle,
revealing a sloped tunnel that descended into pitch.
Skarn braced immediately, growling low.
Torian dropped to a knee, hand pressed to the newly revealed earth. The spiral mark on his palm
pulsed once—calmly. It wasn't warning him.
It was recognizing something.
A kinship.
"I think it's meant for us," he said.
Skarn didn't move.
Torian rose, drawing his cloak tighter around his shoulders. "You don't have to come in."
Skarn bared his teeth slightly, shook once, and walked down beside him anyway.
They descended into shadow.
⸻
The tunnel opened quickly into a chamber that shouldn't have existed. Massive pillars carved from
dark stone supported a domed ceiling etched with spiral reliefs and faded murals of men and
women forging weapons beneath rivers of molten ember. Dozens of forges—long cold—lined the
walls in tiers. Iron scaffolds stretched overhead, long-since fallen into rust and dust.A forge-city.
Long dead.
But not forgotten.
Torian walked slowly across the stone bridge that spanned the chamber's center. Beneath him was
a pit of black glass, cracked in rings, as if something once erupted from below.
Skarn paced beside him, cautious but steady.
"What is this place?" Torian murmured.
The ember stirred inside him.
Not with urgency.
With memory.
"The Flamewrights," came a whisper—not from outside, but from within the ember's
quiet voice. "Forgers of the soulbound blades. Servants of those who bore the fire."
Torian turned toward a nearby wall. Inlaid into the stone was a library of iron-bound
scrolls, protected behind thick glass. Most were shattered. But a few remained.
He found one that hadn't been touched by decay.
The metal tube was cold to the touch.
He unrolled it.
The script was strange, curling and looping—but the spiral mark on his palm grew
warm, and suddenly the words made sense.
When the ember chooses a vessel, it must bond. To sever the bond is death. To force it
is corruption. Let the bearer burn freely, or not at all.He furrowed his brow.
"Bonding Flame," he read aloud.
Skarn growled.
The beast was no longer following—he was circling. Nose to stone. Hackles rising.
Torian stood, scroll still in hand.
Then he felt it.
A pulse.
From below.
Not the ember.
Something adjacent.
Similar in shape, but rotted.
He followed it.
⸻
The lower levels of the forge-city were partially collapsed. Rubble blocked old tunnels.
Cracked stone walls groaned under their own weight. The further they descended, the
more twisted the murals became—spirals became jagged; figures burned without
screaming; flames curled inward, consuming their wielders.
Then came the chains.
Dozens of them, each as thick as a man's arm, hammered into the walls and floors in a
wide circle around a central pit.
Torian and Skarn stepped into the chamber slowly.It was silent.
Stale.
Even the ember inside him recoiled slightly now.
At the center of the circle was a throne—not of gold, not of steel, but of scorched bone
fused with black iron. Spiral runes, once perfect, had been carved and scratched out,
then re-carved wrong. Broken circles. Spirals that never closed. Lines that led
nowhere.
And beside the throne was a sigil burned into the stone.
A man, faceless, standing in flame with his arms outstretched.
From his chest: the spiral.
But it leaked.
Down his ribs.
Across his legs.
The spiral bled.
Torian stood frozen.
Skarn stepped in front of him protectively.
Something beneath the throne pulsed.
Just once.
Then again.
Slow. Like a heart made of magma.
The spiral mark on Torian's palm lit up, searing-hot—but not in pain.It was defending him.
From whatever was down there.
Then came the whisper.
"Give it back…"
Torian stepped back.
Skarn roared.
The ember in Torian's chest flared so bright it drove him to his knees, vision white with
heat.
Then it calmed.
And the whisper stopped.
Silence returned.
The throne remained still.
But the message was clear.
The Hollow Flame lived.
He wasn't whole.
But he was waking.
Torian stood shakily.
"This is where he was chained," he said.
Skarn let out a low, furious breath."I think he… cut himself free."
Torian looked to the ceiling of the pit.
No claw marks. No shatter.
Clean release.
Someone had let him go.
And now he was gathering his strength.
Torian looked at the throne.
He stepped forward.
Skarn didn't stop him.
He drew his father's sword, took a breath, and carved a new symbol into the black stone wall
beside the throne.
A perfect spiral.
Unbroken.
Encircled.
And he placed his hand over it—palm flat, spiral to spiral.
"I don't know when I'll be ready," he said.
"But when I come back, I'll bring fire with me."
The ember in his chest pulsed.
Strong.
Steady.The throne remained silent.
But the chains trembled.
⸻
They left the forge-city by a different tunnel—one that had broken open near the edge of a
collapsed bridge. Skarn leapt the gap in one great bound. Torian climbed carefully, his boots
slipping once on the ash-slick stone. When he reached the top, he didn't look back.
The world outside was dim with approaching dusk.
They camped beneath a stone overhang, with the old forge-city now buried beneath their feet.
That night, Torian didn't sleep.
He stared into the fire, the spiral on his hand glowing faintly as he replayed the pulsing voice in his
head.
"Give it back…"
He reached into his satchel and pulled out the scroll again—the one that described the
Bonding Flame.
He read it twice.
Then a third time.
And slowly, a plan began to form.
If he was to face the Hollow Flame…
He'd need to bind the ember.
Not just carry it.
Not just survive it.He'd have to become something new.