The gate flared once more, and the trio emerged not into fire or sky — but into silence.
The land stretched gray and lifeless, blanketed by ash and wind. No trees. No birds. No voices. Only ruins — twisted spires of black glass and bone. Elira shivered.
"This… this was home," she said, voice hollow. "Or what could've been."
Aran knelt and lifted a scorched pendant from the ground. It bore the sigil of their house — but twisted. The flame, inverted. The promise, broken.
They walked for hours through the shattered city. The skies above bore no sun — just a dull, flickering eye that watched but never blinked.
At the city's heart stood a throne of iron and obsidian, forged into the ribs of a fallen wyrm.
Upon it sat the False Aran.
He was waiting.
"You came," he said, voice calm, assured. "To see what you could've become."
Elira stood tall. "This world is dead. You did this."
"No," the False Aran replied. "You did — when you refused to act. I took the hard path. I ended suffering."
"You ended everything," Aran snarled.
The false one smiled. "Then stop me."
And he vanished — slipping between the worlds again.
But not before whispering one final promise:
"I'm going to fix the flame — by burning it down."