"What was the First Burn?"Aero asked the tree aloud.
The Verdenthorn didn't answer in words.
It answered in fire.
Not heat. Not destruction.
But the purest form of memory.
Aero was pulled under again—deeper than before. No visions this time. No illusions. He was falling through time.
Down through layers of soil, ash, and bone.
Through centuries of buried thought, forgotten blood, and sealed screams.
And then…
He landed.
The sky was black, but not from clouds.
From smoke.
From wings of flame covering the heavens.
The earth burned not red, but silver-white—crackling with life-force fire so intense it pulsed like stars embedded in molten ground.
A city stood at the center of the world. Not built from stone or steel.
But carved from flesh.
Living walls. Breathing towers. A spire of flame pulsing at the center.
From the spire emerged them.
The First Court.
Thirteen beings—robes made of lightning, skin shaped by magic so dense it changed their very form. They didn't walk. They floated.
Or maybe they existed above walking.
They didn't speak, but every thought rippled like thunder in Aero's skull.
"Burn it again."
"Purge the Weavers."
"Life must be rewritten in flame."
Below them knelt thousands.
Fire mages.
Bound in chains of their own flame.
And at the front—
A boy.
Aero's chest tightened.
The boy looked up.
And he had Aero's face.
Aero snapped back into his body, panting, burning from the inside. His heart thundered like a drum cracked open.
Kaeli caught him before he collapsed.
"You saw it, didn't you?"
"The city," he whispered. "The First Court. The boy…"
He looked at his hands.
"They made me."
Kaeli looked solemn. "No, Aero. They didn't make you."
She touched his chest, where the white flame flickered beneath the skin.
"They recreated you."
Later that night, Mica slammed down a cracked plate of scavenged food. She was tense.
"You've been burning too much energy lately," she said. "You're glowing in your sleep."
Aero didn't respond.
"Kaeli says you unlocked a blood-sealed vision. That the First Burn is in your veins."
Still silent.
Mica sat beside him. "You're shutting down again."
He spoke quietly. "That girl from the coffin…"
Mica's expression tightened.
"She screamed with a hundred voices. All begging to die."
Mica nodded.
"I hear those same screams every night in my head."
Aero finally looked at her.
"We have to find the Court."
She stared.
"Not just the ones underground," Aero clarified. "The survivors. The ones who escaped. The ones who burned the Empire the first time."
Kaeli traced old maps across the walls of their shelter.
"South of the Wastes," she said, voice low. "There's a place the Ancients never conquered. Too steep. Too full of ghosts. The River of Names."
"It's real?" Mica asked.
"I've seen it. A valley where wind never dies. Voices echo forever. It's said the ashes of the First Court settled there."
Aero stood. "Then we go."
Mica smirked. "Just like that?"
He looked back at the Verdenthorn.
"The tree wants me to see it. It's where the roots lead."
They packed light. Just the soulmetal shard, Kaeli's scrolls, and the last of their scavenged food.
The River of Names lay through miles of cursed terrain.
The air turned heavy as they marched, the ground blackened beneath their feet. Wind howled like a child mourning its mother.
Kaeli began to bleed from her ears after the second day.
Aero kept burning the path ahead, white flame boiling away the darkness. His steps no longer left prints. The ground avoided him.
Mica watched him, silent.
She didn't say it aloud, but the thought haunted her.
He's changing.
On the third day, they reached the edge of the valley.
It looked like a wound cut through the earth—deep and wide, and bleeding mist.
They descended.
The River of Names wasn't water.
It was light.
Thousands of strands of pale golden thread ran across the canyon floor, pulsing gently—like nerves in a god's open body.
Every step they took, whispers filled the air.
Names.
Dates.
Final words.
Mica paused. "I hear… my brother's voice."
Kaeli trembled. "That's the trick. That's the price of walking the River."
Aero dropped to one knee. His flame began to stir.
Then—
A thread shot up.
And wrapped around his neck.
He gasped as the vision hit him.
He was a child again, barely seven, kneeling in a burning room. The man in black armor towered over him. The same voice from Chapter 1.
"Burn it down. Or burn with it."
"You are fire's final heir."
Then another voice—soft, terrified.
His mother.
"Run, Aero. Run before they use you."
The vision ended in a scream.
Aero ripped the thread from his neck.
Blood poured from his ears.
Mica grabbed him. "We're getting out. Now."
But Aero's hands flared.
The River responded.
Thousands of threads lifted into the air—spinning into a shape.
A mirror.
But in the mirror, he wasn't alone.
Thirteen cloaked figures stood behind him.
The First Court.
And they were smiling.