The wind carried the scent of new flame and old sorrow.
Seris walked the edge of the Ember Plateau, Sovereign's Crown dimmed to a quiet shimmer. Below her, the lands of Solvyris stretched wide and shadowless—for now. But change was stirring, deeper than the fire could see.
Ashra's voice broke the silence behind her. "Three Wellsprings have quieted since the pact was formed. Elemental harmony is taking root."
"And yet," Seris murmured, "I still feel something pulling. Like a thread I forgot to sever."
"Echoes," Ashra said. "Power doesn't leave quietly. Especially when it's tied to memory."
Seris turned. "Then let's find where the thread leads."
---
They rode north, past the Flame Reaches and into the Weeping Barrens—once scorched, now blooming in unnatural colors. Strange flora bent toward the sky like hands reaching for forgotten stars. The ground hummed faintly under their feet.
Kaelen joined them midway, his cloak tattered from scouting the breachlines. "The Shadow isn't idle. It's learning. Testing. There's a village two days from here—Aelryn. People are disappearing. Not dying. Just... fading."
Arin met them at the outpost near dusk, grim-faced. "It's spreading through reflection now. Not fire. Not water. Just echoes. And they're calling your name, Seris."
She swallowed hard. "Then I have to answer."
---
Aelryn was empty.
No signs of battle. No blood. Just stillness.
And mirrors.
In every window, in every bowl of water, every shard of glass—they waited. Glimpses of people, caught mid-laughter, mid-step. Frozen.
Seris stepped into the village square. "I see you," she whispered. "Come out."
The mirrors rippled.
From them emerged echoes—not twisted reflections like the Mirror Queen's, but fragments of moments past. Children's laughter. Her mother's voice. The scent of rain on fire-slick stone.
Then the echoes turned, faces blank, mouths open.
And they screamed.
The air split.
The Shadow stepped forward—not a beast, not a form. But absence. A hole where light dared not exist.
> "You made a pact," it whispered. "And now you pay the price."
Seris raised her flame.
The Shadow recoiled—but only slightly. "Fire burns. But echoes bind. You carry too many, Sovereign. You remember too much."
Kaelen stepped in beside her. "You're not touching her."
"Oh, I already have," the Shadow crooned. "She burned the Mirror Queen. But forgot the mirror's lesson—what we destroy, we inherit."
Seris's hands trembled.
Not with fear.
With memory.
The girl in the orchard. The voice of her dying brother. The scream she gave when the Flame Sovereign fell.
All the pieces she never grieved.
And in her hesitation, the Shadow surged forward.
But Ashra was faster. A pulse of earth-light cracked the ground, forming a barrier of living stone. Arin fired bolts of stabilizing magic into the rift, anchoring their world for just a heartbeat more.
"Seris!" Kaelen shouted. "Don't fight it! Feel it!"
And she did.
For the first time, Seris stopped trying to burn the pain away. She let it rise. The guilt. The grief. The loss. The echo of everything she had ever been—and everything she had never let herself mourn.
The fire turned white.
Not destructive.
Not angry.
Just real.
And as it wrapped around her, it didn't lash out—it drew in.
The Shadow shrieked as it was pulled into the flame—not consumed, but mirrored. Shown what it truly was. A remnant. A wound.
Not a god.
Just a ghost.
And it fled.
The echoes collapsed into silence.
And Aelryn breathed again.
---
They lit no celebration fires that night.
Only lanterns.
Soft ones.
In memory.
Arin sat polishing his gauntlets. Ashra spoke quietly with the village elders. Kaelen found Seris near the well, alone.
She didn't turn as he approached. "I remembered my brother today. His laugh. The way he used to call me flame-sister."
"I remember," Kaelen said. "I was there when he fell."
She finally looked at him. "I never cried for him. Not once. Until today."
He reached out, brushing a tear from her cheek. "That's what makes you Sovereign. Not the crown. Not the pact. But the heart that still breaks."
Seris smiled, barely.
"Then I'll let it break a little more. If that's what it takes to heal this world."
He pulled her into an embrace.
And this time, they didn't kiss.
They simply held on.
Because some nights didn't need fire.
Only warmth.