Elara had never liked fire.
It reminded her of loss—her childhood home, burned in a freak lightning strike; the scar on her left calf from a candle knocked over during a thunderstorm; her mother's voice over and over: "Don't touch, Elara. It bites."
But fire here wasn't just flame.
It was memory. Weapon. Bloodline.
She stood now in the Hall of Echoes, deep beneath Lunareal's central spire. The air was warm, dry—smelling of old stone and charred spellwork. Around her, symbols glowed faintly on the walls: constellations, etched into basalt, pulsing with unseen rhythm.
Cassian watched from the edge of the room, arms folded. Tyrene stood at her side with a steel rod, flames flickering at its tip.
"I thought you said this wasn't going to be combat training," Elara said, eyeing the weapon.
"It isn't," Tyrene replied. "It's worse."
Elara sighed. "Wonderful."
Tyrene's tone softened, just slightly. "This is about control. The Constellant Flame reacts to will, not strength. It won't burn if you don't want it to."
"And if I do want it to?"
"It will burn everything."
She stepped back. "Show me your stance."
Elara raised her hands, mimicking the form Tyrene had shown her: left foot forward, arms loose but ready, eyes focused.
"Good. Now call it."
Elara frowned. "How?"
Tyrene tapped her chest. "Want it. Mean it. Don't ask it to come—command it."
Elara inhaled.
She closed her eyes.
And thought of the Ruins of Aevir.
Of the Ashen Coil. Of the birds' shrieks, the flames devouring stone, the knowledge she couldn't protect them yet.
She opened her eyes—and her hands were full of light.
Not fire—light.
It flickered like flame but moved like water, twisting into a ribbon that curled up her arm, brushing her cheek.
Cassian straightened.
Tyrene blinked. "That's… not how it's supposed to look."
Elara looked down, heart thudding. "It doesn't feel like fire."
"No," Cassian said quietly. "It feels like you."
For the next three hours, she trained.
Tyrene ran her through formations: defensive spirals, offensive bursts, containment arcs. The flame responded—sluggishly at first, like a cat testing its new handler. But slowly, it grew more confident. More fluent.
It wrapped around her like armor. It licked at her fingertips when she got frustrated. It pulsed warmly when she laughed after accidentally singeing the hem of her sleeve.
By dusk, she collapsed onto the stone floor, breathless and sweat-drenched.
Cassian handed her a canteen. "You only caught fire once. That's an improvement."
She glared, half-grinning. "I meant to catch fire."
"Of course you did."
She drank deeply, then leaned back, staring at the domed ceiling above, carved with a swirling galaxy. The stars shifted slowly, as if marking real time.
"Do you think I'll ever be ready?" she asked.
Cassian sat beside her. "I don't think readiness is a state. I think it's a choice."
"Spoken like someone who's never panicked mid-fight."
"I've panicked plenty. I've just gotten better at hiding it."
She turned toward him. "What did the last Fulcrum do? The one Ithiriel mentioned?"
He hesitated. "She tried to reshape the world. In doing so, she broke the Pact. She saved lives. And destroyed millions."
Elara swallowed hard. "And they think I'll do it again?"
He didn't answer.
That night, she couldn't sleep.
The flame still danced beneath her skin. Not painfully, but insistently—like it wanted her attention.
So she rose, wrapped a cloak around her shoulders, and climbed the Spiral Stair to the highest spire of Lunareal.
The wind howled around her. The stars overhead were crystalline and sharp, more real than they ever looked on Earth.
And there, on the edge of the stone ledge, stood a figure.
Not Cassian.
Not Tyrene.
A man she didn't recognize—cloaked in silver, his hair like drifting snow, his eyes completely black.
"You're not supposed to be here," Elara said.
He smiled. "Neither are you."
She stepped back, flame flaring in her palm. "Who are you?"
"I'm a memory," he said. "Like Ithiriel. Only… older. Much older."
"Elaborate."
He tilted his head. "They call me Silvan. I was the first to warn the starborn of the Ashen Coil. I was the one they didn't listen to."
"And now?"
"Now I linger. In cracks. In echoes. Waiting."
"For what?"
He stepped closer. "For you."
Elara stiffened. "Why?"
"Because you're the first Fulcrum who doesn't want a throne. Who doesn't seek godhood. You want answers. That makes you dangerous. And necessary."
He reached into his cloak and pulled out a small orb—glass, with stars flickering inside it.
"When the Coil rises fully," he said, "this will show you where they begin."
She took it, hesitantly. "Why help me?"
Silvan's eyes softened. "Because I failed. But maybe you won't."
And just like that, he stepped backward—into the wind—and vanished.
By morning, Elara told Cassian everything.
He didn't doubt her.
He simply stared at the orb, jaw tense. "Then we're running out of time."
"You think the Coil will make a move soon?"
"They already have. There are reports—outposts burned, sigils defaced, children going missing near starpools."
She gripped the orb tighter. "Then let's move."
"Where?"
She looked down at the map glowing on the orb's surface—five points, blinking in red.
The first: a city called Velisane. On the edge of the world.
She met his eyes.
"There."