The snow had long since disappeared.
Torian blinked against the rising wind, the scent of soot thick in his nose. Below him, Skarn's paws crunched not through frost or pine needles now, but across cracked, blackened earth—earth that had once burned, and never healed.
The Altar-Ring.
It wasn't marked on any map. Not that Torian had one. But the land itself made clear what it had been: a place of judgment.
What once were ridgelines were now scarred hollows, blackened into the shapes of Spiral sigils a hundred paces wide—some burned into the stone, others carved into the cliffs like open wounds. Torian saw them even from Skarn's back, rising along the ridge edges, coiled symbols meant not to inspire, but to warn.
Skarn moved slowly. Not out of fear. He was never afraid. But his wings flexed more often now, his golden eyes narrowing with every step.
Something about this place put even him on edge.
Torian kept one hand on the glider strapped to his back, the other curled over the faintly warm Spiral in his chest. He could feel it reacting—not flaring, but pulsing in irregular bursts.
Not like when he fought.
Not like when he fell into memory.
This was something else.
Something external.
It was like… being watched.
He looked up.
Above them, riding the shifting winds, were birds—or what had once been birds. Their bodies gleamed like obsidian glass, hollow and lit from within by slow, ember-red light. They didn't flap their wings. They just floated, drifting in wide, impossible circles, like dying stars too stubborn to fall.
They didn't blink.
Didn't caw.
Didn't land.
They just watched.
"Told you I feel it too," Torian whispered.
Skarn snorted, his breath rising as a heated plume in the wind. His claws raked lines in the stone.
They pressed on.
⸻
By midmorning, they came upon the first monolith.
It rose from a scorched basin like a black tooth jutting from a broken jaw. Twisted Spiral glyphs ran along its base, etched in what looked like melted metal. Around it were the remains of something once ceremonial—circular stones worn flat by time, cracks radiating out from the center like sunbursts.
Torian hopped down from Skarn's back and knelt near one of the old seats. His hand brushed across it. Ash puffed up beneath his fingers.
Not old ash.
Not cold.
Warm.
He recoiled slightly. "Still burning?"
The Spiral in his chest pulsed again, this time stronger. It wasn't warning him.
It was reacting.
To something ahead.
To something near.
He turned toward the northern cliffs.
There, half-swallowed by the ridge, stood the Temple.
Not grand. Not regal. But precise. Its edges had survived the centuries — not through strength, but intention. This place had been built to endure, not be seen.
It was carved directly into the mountainside, its entrance a narrow vertical slit flanked by twin statues: Spiral-eyed figures in prayer, their mouths sealed by chained plates of scorched bronze.
Above the door, carved into the black rock, was a line in a language Torian didn't know—
—but the Spiral in his chest understood.
The words burned behind his eyes as if etched into memory itself:
ALL FLAME MUST ANSWER.
He took a step forward.
Skarn growled low, stepping beside him, wings half-raised.
But Torian didn't stop.
He didn't look back.
He walked straight into the dark.
⸻
The entrance swallowed all sound.
It was like stepping into a throat—tight, ridged, damp with an unseen heat that didn't warm. The tunnel curved downward slightly, the light behind them vanishing almost instantly. The Spiral glyphs here weren't lit, but coated—not paint, not magic.
Ash.
Pressed into the stone like ink.
The path descended through silence until it opened into a mirror hall.
Torian froze.
Dozens—maybe hundreds—of tall, tarnished mirrors lined the walls. Some cracked. Others whole. All coated in soot. They didn't reflect him. Not truly. He saw shadows instead. Flickers of flame, dancing figures. Sometimes his own shape—sometimes his younger self.
Sometimes… he wasn't there at all.
Skarn stepped beside him, the beast's breath fogging the closest pane.
And for a moment—
—for just a moment—
Torian saw himself wreathed in fire, older, eyes glowing, standing over bodies.
He blinked.
Gone.
The Spiral in his chest throbbed.
A voice echoed from ahead, hollow, crumbling like dry leaves in flame:
"Another bearer comes to beg forgiveness."
Torian stiffened.
A shape stepped from the far end of the hall.
Tall.
Thin.
Cloaked in layers of scorched fabric. A blackened mask covered his face, fused into flesh. His hands were wrapped in coiled wire and ash. At his side, a blade forged of Spiral metal, jagged, worn from use.
He did not draw it.
He simply stood.
Watching.
Torian stepped forward slowly.
"I didn't come to beg."
The voice rasped again:
"Then you came to be judged."
Torian held still.
The flame inside his chest gave a quiet, uneven thump—nothing fierce, nothing wild. Just present, like a single heartbeat asking whether it was supposed to keep going. Skarn stood beside him with claws barely lifted off the stone, his massive bulk low to the ground, but not retreating.
The figure before them did not move.
Not a whisper of breath.
Not a twitch of hand.
He stood in the center of the temple's cracked stone floor, where the mirrors no longer stood but instead leaned—burned and warped, their surfaces curled inward like the heat had turned them to wax long ago.
His voice rose again, dry and broken:
"Flame cannot be owned. It owns. It devours. You cannot speak its name and remain unchanged."
Torian didn't answer.
He didn't know how to yet.
The Spiral on his chest pulsed.
And the figure turned.
He gestured with one arm toward a circular opening deeper within the temple—a chamber barely lit by ember-lined grooves in the stone.
"All who carry the mark are brought here. You will go."
Torian hesitated.
Skarn growled and stepped forward, placing himself between them, fur bristling, wings twitching.
But the figure raised one hand—not in threat, but in calm dismissal.
"Beast. You are not my concern."
He stepped aside, allowing a clear view of the inner chamber.
"He must walk the chamber alone. If his fire is false, it will consume him. If it is true, he will leave it untouched."
Torian's fingers curled.
False?
True?
There was no choice here. Not really. This was already happening. His Spiral had brought him here. And this… this was its next step.
He looked up at Skarn, who had turned his head slightly, uncertain.
Torian placed a hand against his side.
"I'll come back."
Then he walked past the stranger and entered the chamber.
⸻
The door sealed behind him.
No creak. No rumble. Just a soft hiss, like ash blowing across stone. The silence that followed was absolute.
He stood in a wide, circular room, smooth-walled, with no corners, no edges. Dozens of carved spiral lines ran up the walls and across the floor—some glowing faint red, others cold and lifeless. And in the center stood a single, unbroken mirror. Twelve feet tall. Clear. Sharp. Polished.
Torian stepped toward it.
His reflection stepped too.
But something was wrong.
His face… wasn't quite his.
The Spiral on his chest in the reflection was burning brighter—too bright, casting harsh shadows behind him. His eyes were slightly glowing. His lips curled not in fear, not in calm—in rage.
The reflection raised its hand first.
Torian's didn't move.
He staggered back.
The mirror didn't show his fear.
It showed a different boy.
A boy already gone.
And suddenly—
The reflection stepped forward.
Straight through the glass.
⸻
He barely had time to react before the blow struck him across the chest—light, but searing. Not physical. Not heavy. But hot—like fire made into wind, like hate made into motion.
Torian slammed backward into the stone, skidding across glowing Spiral lines that flared beneath him as he passed. He gasped and rolled over, trying to push himself up.
The reflection watched him.
Then spoke.
"You let them die."
Torian's throat clenched. "Shut up."
The reflection walked closer, fire spilling from his hands.
"You could've run faster. Could've been stronger. You hesitated."
"No—"
"You brought them nothing but ash. You bring everyone ash."
It surged forward again, arm drawn back.
Torian threw up both hands, not to strike—but to block.
His Spiral flared—not with rage, but instinct.
A flare of heat burst from his palms, forming a crackling ring between them and the reflection. The blast struck both of them, launching Torian backward—but shattering the reflection into glowing dust.
Silence returned.
He fell to his knees.
Gasping.
The Spiral in his chest dimmed again. Not weak—just settled.
He looked up.
The mirror had returned.
But now it showed nothing.
Not a twisted version.
Not even him.
Just blackness.
⸻
Then the floor beneath him rumbled.
Outside the sealed chamber, the voice rose again:
"He burns too easily. He is not ready."
The wall cracked.
Skarn had begun slamming himself against the outer chamber.
"Let him go," the voice demanded from beyond.
But the judge—Eron—was not finished.
Outside, he raised his Spiral-blade, holding it with trembling arms.
His voice broke from command into desperation:
"If flame is not held, it devours all! This boy… this boy will kill us all!"
Inside, Torian forced himself to stand.
"No," he whispered.
He walked toward the sealed door.
His Spiral did not pulse violently.
It didn't scream to defend him.
It simply warmed.
A steady, burning heart.
He touched the door.
And it opened.
⸻
Eron turned, blade raised—
And stopped.
Torian stood in the doorway.
His clothes scorched. His face calm. His eyes tired, but not afraid.
He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't call fire.
He just stood there.
Eron hesitated.
Torian stepped forward and said:
"My flame didn't burn me."
Then, quieter:
"Yours is still burning you."
Eron dropped the blade.
It clattered to the floor, ringing once.
He sank to his knees.
And for the first time in decades, he cried.
Eron's knees struck stone.
The ash around his shoulders trembled as he bent forward, his mask lowering, his fingers slack and stained with soot. The Spiral blade clattered beside him, glowing faint red as it cooled. And in the firelit chamber, the temple built for judgment fell into silence for the first time in generations.
Torian didn't move.
He stood just beyond the mirror hall's arch, his face smudged with soot, his Spiral mark dimly lit beneath his shirt, not pulsing in fear or rage — just warm. Balanced. The embers drifting from his fingertips no longer lashed or sparked. They hovered gently in the air like flakes of golden dust, slow, settled, watching.
He looked at Eron — this Watcher, this relic, this man who had called him a threat — and felt no anger. Only a heaviness in the chest. A recognition.
Because Eron wasn't wrong. Not entirely.
Torian had felt the fire try to pull. Had felt it want to erupt when the reflection struck him. Had felt it strain against his will, begging to answer pain with destruction.
He just hadn't let it.
That was the difference.
And that was enough.
Skarn padded forward from the mirror hall's threshold, his great frame filling the space as though it had been carved for him. The beast stepped between the fallen Eron and Torian, massive head lowered, fangs bared slightly — a warning held back only by restraint.
Eron did not flinch.
He raised one hand, palm open toward Skarn, voice low.
"I waited too long."
Torian stepped beside Skarn, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Why?" he asked.
Eron breathed.
The mask hissed as he inhaled.
"Because I saw what fire did when no one judged it. I saw cities burned. Friends lost. I saw a Spiral-bearer rip the mountains open just to hear his own name echo through the sky. I was given a task. Judge them before they destroy us all. So I waited."
His hand fell.
"They stopped coming. I stayed."
Torian lowered his gaze.
A part of him — a deep, bitter part — wanted to say, Then you failed. You watched and did nothing. But that wasn't the truth. The truth was simpler, sadder.
He had done what he was told.
Long after it mattered.
Eron reached slowly to the blade beside him — not to rise, not to strike. Just to hold it. He placed it across his lap.
"This was meant for the corrupt. Forged to burn their Spiral out before it could spread."
He tilted it up with trembling fingers and looked at Torian for the first time, his single visible eye dry and pale.
"I don't believe it will burn you."
He extended the weapon.
Torian hesitated.
The blade was thin, jagged, forged from Spiral metal laced with veins of dull red. It wasn't elegant — it was brutal, made to wound with efficiency, not beauty. Not like Arel's old forge-blade, lost in that ruin when Skarn first pulled him out.
He took it with both hands.
It was warm.
He could feel the Spiral in his chest resist at first — not in fear, but in judgment.
As if asking: Will this be you?
Torian bowed his head.
And said, "Only if I have to."
The warmth settled.
The blade did not ignite.
Skarn watched quietly as Torian slid it into a sheath of old leather slung over Eron's shoulder. He'd carry it. For now. But it would not define him.
Eron exhaled one final time.
"Then maybe the fire has another chance."
His body did not fall. It simply slumped, ash slipping from his robes, the Spiral mark on his brow dimming into stillness.
He had not been a villain.
He had simply stood watch too long.
⸻
They left the temple at dusk.
The birds of ember-glass were gone. The wind had died. Only the heat lingered across the blackened ridges as Skarn and Torian stood at the edge of the cliff, the Altar-Ring stretched out behind them.
Torian touched the blade once, then let his hand fall.
He turned his head, speaking softly to Skarn without looking.
"I think I understand now."
Skarn made no sound.
But Torian kept going.
"The Spiral… it's not a weapon. It's a choice. Every second."
The Spiral pulsed — once — slow and steady.
He climbed onto Skarn's back. The beast unfolded his wings with a low, leathery crack. Together they rose into the wind, gliding across the dusk horizon.
Not as a flame seeking to burn.
But as a boy learning what it meant to carry fire… and not let it carry him.