Aero stood on the cliff's edge, fingers trembling, watching the sky where the tear had closed.
Still, the scent lingered. Not sulfur. Not fire.
Burned history.
Behind him, Kaeli was crouched beside the ancient skeleton they had found in the tomb. The glyphs on its bones were no longer glowing. Its third eye socket, empty and black, stared into nothing.
"Court Mage," Kaeli whispered again, reverent. "One of the Originals."
Mica raised an eyebrow. "You gonna explain what that means? Or are we gonna die stupid?"
Kaeli ignored her sarcasm and stood.
"The Forgotten Court was the Empire's deepest shame. Fire mages too powerful to control. So they buried them beneath the earth. But not dead. Just—starving."
Aero turned. "Starving for what?"
"Life. Memory. Emotion. Anything alive." Kaeli knelt beside the corpse again. "They don't feed like humans. They consume meaning."
She placed a small vine on the glyph. It immediately withered.
"See? This one is still feeding."
They climbed out of the scar before Verdenthorn collapsed into it completely.
What they carried back was worse than any physical wound.
A fragment of soulmetal, recovered from the skeleton's chains. Dense, obsidian black, but pulsing faintly—like a heartbeat.
Mica touched it. Her eyes rolled back instantly. She collapsed.
"MICA!"
Aero caught her.
But Kaeli didn't flinch. "She touched a memory too strong."
"Help her!"
"She needs to find her way out alone."
Mica began to whisper. Not words. Names.
"Leona... Kastiel... Rion…"
Kaeli froze.
Those were slaves from the royal palace.
"She's remembering people she forgot," Kaeli whispered. "The soulmetal is storing lost names. It's made of condensed death. And someone's feeding it."
Aero clenched his jaw.
"Then whoever dropped it from the fortress…"
"Wasn't attacking."
"Then what?"
Kaeli stared at the shard.
"They're calling out."
Mica woke an hour later. Eyes bloodshot. Face soaked in tears.
She didn't say much.
Just whispered:
"They made us forget them."
That night, Aero sat in silence.
The white flame in his veins pulsed slower now, calmer. Not gone. But watching.
"Who are you?" he asked the fire.
No answer came.
Only the low hum of the Verdenthorn, responding softly.
Not in words—but in shapes.
Roots twisted under the camp, blooming into silent symbols.
Aero followed the shifting lines until they formed a single word.
"Mirror."
The next morning, an object fell from the sky.
Not from the fortress this time.
From higher.
From space.
A burning comet.
No—a coffin.
It crashed miles away. A geyser of sand and ash exploded into the air.
Aero and Mica reached it first.
The object was a coffin indeed. Forged from the same black metal as the soul fragment.
But it was open.
Empty.
Then they heard it.
"Help…"
A voice. Soft. High. Childlike.
They turned.
A little girl stood barefoot in the ash. Skin like paper. Eyes blind and glassy.
"They left me behind," she whispered.
Aero crouched beside her.
"Who did?"
She smiled. Teeth cracked and wrong.
"My family."
Mica raised her blade. "That thing's not human."
Aero looked deeper. With his life sense.
What he saw made him go cold.
No heart.
No soul.
Just… voices.
Hundreds.
Screaming, buried under the girl's skin.
"She's a memory vessel," he whispered. "A carrier."
Suddenly, the girl's body snapped. Bones broke in reverse.
She screamed—and a tsunami of fire erupted from her back, forming wings made of screaming faces.
Aero pushed Mica aside and unleashed his flame.
But something strange happened.
His fire didn't burn hers.
It absorbed it.
The white flame drank the girl's power—and for a moment, Aero saw a vision.
A tower made of ash.A man wrapped in roots.And a voice.
"We planted you in death so you could bloom in war."
The fire vanished.
The girl fell, silent.
Ash crumbled.
Nothing remained.
Mica stared at him.
"You're becoming something else, Aero."
He didn't respond.
He just looked at his hands.
They were no longer trembling.
That night, Kaeli met him at the Verdenthorn again.
"You're drawing attention."
"I know."
"Not just from the Court. The tree's growing."
Aero looked up. Verdenthorn's branches stretched farther than before. The white leaves glowed under the moonlight.
"It feeds on trauma," Kaeli whispered. "It's waking up."
"And?"
She met his gaze.
"So is something else. Buried deeper than the Court. Something older."
"Older than the Empire?"
"Older than flame."
Aero touched the tree again.
This time, it didn't resist.
It whispered.
"We remember the First Burn."