The desert welcomed no one.
The Scorching Hollow stretched like an endless wound beneath a bruised sky, where sand and ash danced in violent spirals. Heat shimmered in unnatural waves, bending light and sound into whispers of memory. What grew here had long since died. What walked here did not cast shadows.
Mara pulled her hood tight. The fifth shard pulsed against her chest, trying to warn her—but its voice was muffled, buried under centuries of pain scorched into the earth.
Serai conjured a dome of cooling wind, barely holding back the ember-wind that sought to sear them from the inside out.
"This place is wrong," she said. "It's… haunted by flame."
"Flame doesn't haunt," Tessara muttered, sword drawn.
"No," Serai replied. "It remembers."
---
The Village of Black Petals
Beyond a ridge of crumbled obsidian cliffs, they found it: a forgotten village half-sunken into the sand. Its name lost to time, though once it had been known as Black Petals—a sanctuary for exiles and wanderers.
Its buildings were twisted by heat, but whole. An old well still stood, sealed with warding runes. Charred flowers—long-dead—littered the square, petals turned to ash and frozen mid-fall.
Talon crouched at a wall and brushed dust away from a burned sigil.
"This was the mark of the Flameborn refugees. The ones who fled the Order."
Mara stepped forward, her gaze distant. "My mother passed through here."
"How do you know?" Serai asked.
"I don't," Mara whispered. "The Heart does."
---
They found the first remnants inside the village hall—scraps of letters etched in blood-ink, burned into the walls in haste:
> "The child must never return.
The flame inside her is too old."
And then another line, half-erased:
> "We were wrong to hide her."
Mara backed away. The wind howled louder.
Then… silence.
A figure stood at the edge of the village, silhouetted against the dunes. He walked slowly, like gravity was optional. The sand melted where he stepped.
Vaerion had arrived.
---
Flame Meets Flame
Tessara stood in front of Mara instinctively. Talon drew steel.
Vaerion raised a single hand—and the air around them collapsed into heat.
Blades warped. Wind fell silent.
"I don't want the others," he said, voice like obsidian grinding. "Only her."
"You won't have her," Tessara snapped.
He looked at her. "Then burn with her."
He stepped forward.
But Mara raised her hand.
"No," she said. "No more running."
She walked past her companions, the shards blazing now—five pieces of the old god thrumming under her skin.
Vaerion halted.
"You're not ready," he said.
"Neither were you," Mara replied.
Their flames met in the air—his a river of disciplined destruction, hers a storm of ancient memory and raw will.
Where they clashed, the village cracked. Ash swirled into constellations. The sky turned red.
Vaerion struck hard—fast. A wall of fire, a lance of embersteel, a thousand years of trained violence.
Mara responded—not with power, but with understanding. She let the Heart guide her, not control her. She listened.
Each shard lent her a gift:
The First: Will.
The Second: Shield.
The Third: Truth.
The Fourth: Grief.
The Fifth: Judgment.
She turned his flame aside. Not blocked—redirected.
"You still serve them," she said, eyes glowing like twin suns. "But you could break free."
"I am flame," he growled.
"No," she said. "You're what's left of a soul that once believed in something."
For a breath, he hesitated.
And in that breath—Mara unleashed the memory of the Heart.
---
A vision split the air between them. The world turned black and gold.
Vaerion saw himself as a child, before the Vessel Order. Before the shards. Before the burning.
He screamed.
And vanished.
---
Ashes and Aftermath
The village was gone, erased by the battle's echo. Only cinders remained.
Mara stood at the center, trembling but whole. The Heart's fire dimmed to a low, steady pulse.
Tessara stepped beside her. "Is he dead?"
"No," Mara said. "Just… lost. Like I was."
"Where now?" Talon asked.
She turned her gaze toward the horizon.
"One shard remains. And it's waiting somewhere cold."
---