Ember's POV
Pain wakes me.
Sharp, stabbing pain behind my eyes, like someone hammered nails into my skull. I try to open my eyes, but they're crusted shut with dried blood. When I finally pry them open, all I see is darkness and rubble.
I'm buried alive.
Panic explodes in my chest. I can't breathe. Can't move. Something heavy pins my legs to the ground. I push against it with trembling arms, and the wooden beam rolls away with a crash.
My head spins as I sit up. Where am I?
The underground vault. Papa's vault. But the ceiling has collapsed, and weak sunlight filters through cracks in the rubble above me.
How long have I been here?
I try to remember what happened, but my thoughts are like smoke—there one moment, gone the next. I remember fire. Screaming. Running. But the rest is just... empty spaces where memories should be.
Someone was with me. Someone important.
Who?
My stomach twists with hunger so fierce I almost throw up. I haven't eaten in days. How many days? I don't know.
I have to get out.
I crawl toward the light on hands and knees, dragging myself over broken stone and splintered wood. Every movement sends pain shooting through my body. My dress is torn and stained with blood—mine and someone else's. Whose blood? Why can't I remember?
When I finally pull myself out of the vault and into open air, I stop breathing.
Cindervale is gone.
Not damaged. Not burned. Gone.
Where Mrs. Chen's bakery used to fill the air with the smell of fresh bread, there's only a pile of black timber. Where Old Thomas's forge used to ring with the sound of his hammer, there's nothing but melted metal and ash. The schoolhouse, the chapel, the market square—all of it reduced to ruins.
And bodies. So many bodies.
I stagger to my feet, my legs shaking. "Hello?" My voice comes out as a croak. "Is anyone there?"
Silence. Just the wind blowing ash across the destroyed town.
"SPARK!" I scream suddenly, the name bursting from my lips. My sister. My baby sister with the gap-toothed smile. "SPARK, WHERE ARE YOU?"
I run through the ruins, stumbling over debris, calling her name until my throat is raw. I check the schoolhouse ruins. The market. The chapel. I turn over bodies with shaking hands, whispering prayers that none of them are her.
She's not here. She's not anywhere.
Maybe she escaped. Maybe she's hiding somewhere safe. Maybe—
I find myself standing in front of what used to be my house. The walls have fallen inward. The roof is completely gone. Our little flower garden is just scorched earth.
My feet carry me inside even though every instinct screams at me to run.
The living room where Mama taught me to weave memories—destroyed. The kitchen where Papa made terrible pancakes every Sunday—ash. The bookshelf with three generations of family journals—burned to nothing.
In the back bedroom, I find them.
Mama and Papa.
They're lying together, Papa's arms wrapped around Mama like he tried to protect her. Their bodies are burned, but I know them. Mama's wedding ring, melted but still on her finger. Papa's pocket watch, stopped at 9:47.
Something breaks inside me.
I fall to my knees beside them, and that's when the tears finally come. Great, heaving sobs that shake my whole body. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry. I can't remember what happened. Someone took my memories, and I don't know why, and I can't—"
I press my forehead against the ash-covered floor and try to remember. Try harder.
There was fire. Soldiers in black uniforms. A man with a cold voice saying terrible things. A silver needle pressed against my head. Screaming. So much screaming.
But who were they? What did they look like? Why did they come?
The memories are gone. Stolen. Erased.
They burned my town and then they burned my mind.
I don't know how long I kneel there. The sun moves across the sky, casting long shadows through the ruined walls. I can't make myself leave Mama and Papa. If I leave, it means accepting they're really gone.
Then I hear it.
Footsteps. Heavy boots crunching on debris.
My whole body goes rigid. I flatten myself against the floor, holding my breath.
"Check the Ashford house again," a man's voice says. Close. Too close. "Lord Dredge wants proof the girl is dead."
Lord Dredge. The name sends ice through my veins. I know that name. It means something terrible. But what?
"We extracted her memories three days ago," another voice argues. "The needle scrambled her brain. Even if she survived, she's useless now."
"Then finding her body should be easy."
The footsteps come closer.
I grab a shard of broken glass from the floor, clutching it so hard it cuts my palm. Blood drips onto the ash.
The footsteps stop right outside the bedroom.
I can see their shadows through the collapsed doorway. Two soldiers. Armed. Searching.
For me.
"Do you hear something?" one of them asks.
Silence. I don't breathe. Don't move. Don't even blink.
"Just rats. Come on, she's not here."
The shadows move away. The footsteps fade.
I wait until I can't hear them anymore. Then I wait longer, counting my heartbeats. One hundred. Two hundred.
When I finally dare to move, my whole body is shaking.
They're hunting me. The people who destroyed Cindervale want to make sure I'm dead. Which means I need to run. Hide. Get as far away as possible.
But first—
I look down at my parents one last time. "I promise," I whisper. "I'll find out who did this. I'll get my memories back. And I'll make them pay."
I stand on trembling legs and turn to leave.
Something crunches under my foot.
I look down and freeze.
It's a memory crystal—the kind Mama used to make. Small, glowing faintly orange even in daylight. There's a label wrapped around it in handwriting I recognize.
Mama's handwriting.
My hands shake as I pick it up and read the label:
"Insurance. Play when safe. Trust NO ONE—not even family. They're coming for us all. —M.A."
Not even family?
What does that mean?
And then I see more writing on the back:
"Spark is alive. They took her. Find the Phantom Collective. Look for the girl with violet eyes."
The crystal burns in my palm like a hot coal.
Spark is alive.
My sister is alive, and someone took her.
Behind me, I hear shouts. The soldiers are coming back.
I clutch the crystal to my chest and run into the ruins. My legs burn. My lungs scream. But I don't stop.
Because now I have something more than grief.
I have hope.
And I have a mission.
Somewhere out there, my baby sister is waiting for me to save her. And whoever took her—whoever destroyed my family—left my mother one chance to fight back.
This crystal holds the truth they tried to erase.
And I'm going to make them regret leaving me alive long enough to find it.