The road to the Flame Archives was paved in ruin.
Not metaphor — the literal stone path bore marks of ancient scorchings, soot melted into its bones, as if fire had once rewritten history there and no one had dared to clean the ash.
Elara tasted the heat before she saw the gates.
A dry, metallic bite on the wind. Magic old enough to bleed. It made her skin itch.
Cassian walked beside her, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, the other clenched in thought. He hadn't spoken much since the Heart Gate — since the Loom had turned them into something... more.
Elara still wasn't sure what that meant.
She wasn't sure she wanted to be sure.
The Archives were buried in a dead volcano, lit from within by ever-burning braziers — fire that asked questions with every flicker.
Kaelen called them the Kindled Memories.
"They don't burn," he warned as they approached. "Not unless they recognize lies."
Cassian smirked. "So we're safe, then."
Lyra shot him a look. "Speak for yourself, prince."
Inside, fire lit the walls like breath.
The rooms were circular, built downward like a spiral of questions. No books. No scrolls. Only flame and stone, and voices that echoed even when no one spoke.
At the center, a flame-touched being waited.
Her skin glowed like lava. Her eyes were obsidian pools. She bore no name but was known to all as the Ash-Ward, Keeper of Forgotten Fires.
"I see weavers in my halls," she said, voice a crackle of coal. "What fate do you seek to burn?"
Elara stepped forward. "The truth behind the Ashen Coil. Their beginning. Their name."
The Ash-Ward tilted her head. "Truth is not free. In fire, it costs memory."
Cassian stepped beside Elara. "Take mine."
Elara's breath caught. "Cassian—"
But it was already done.
He stepped into the flame.
The fire licked up his boots, his legs, his arms.
He did not scream.
He remembered.
Visions surged like lightning.
A city in the sky, ruled by a boy born under an eclipsed moon.
A forbidden library, filled with stories that could undo time.
A child — star-born — raised by monks who feared what he could become.
That child had a name: Veyne.
Not born into darkness — but made by it.
Raised among a sect of Celestial Archivists, Veyne had once been the Loom's greatest student. But when he uncovered the flaw in the weave — that some lives were allowed to suffer for the sake of symmetry — he broke.
He didn't want to unmake the world.
He wanted to unchain it.
But power twisted purpose.
And Veyne became the first flame of the Ashen Coil.
Cassian staggered out of the fire, eyes wild.
"He thought he was saving us," he rasped. "He still does."
Elara steadied him. "Then we have to show him the cost of what he's doing."
Lyra frowned. "You want to redeem him?"
"No," Elara said. "I want to understand him."
The Ash-Ward's fire dimmed.
"You have what you came for," she said. "But the weave tightens. You have two paths now."
She extended her arm.
From her wrist floated two sparks.
One gold.
One black.
"Follow the golden thread, and you will find the Moon Well — the final key to severing the Coil's grip. Follow the black, and you will find Veyne before he finishes the Binding Ritual."
Kaelen stared at the black spark. "If we go to him now, it's a war."
Cassian looked at Elara. "But if we wait... it might be too late."
Elara stared into the flame, into the two paths the world offered.
Fire did not give answers.
Only choices.
And consequences.
She reached out — and closed her hand around the black spark.
No one questioned her.
Not even the flame.
They left the Archive before dawn, the wind at their backs and ash in their lungs.
Elara felt the thread in her chest tighten — a pull toward the mountains where night didn't end. Where Veyne waited, not as a villain, but as a believer, certain of the fire he'd set.
Lyra checked her blades.
Kaelen whispered to the air, his staff humming.
Cassian walked beside Elara without a word.
She turned to him as the first star blinked awake in the sky.
"You still trust me?" she asked.
He didn't hesitate. "Always."
And somewhere deep in the flame, the Loom turned once more.