Chapter 16: The Eyes in the Dark
Darkness was no longer a threat. It was a certainty.
The night after the Ember Covenant was forged, the skies changed again. Not with fire, but with silence. The stars disappeared, one by one, like candles snuffed by invisible hands. The air turned thick, like something ancient and unseen pressing down on the world.
Ajay woke in a cold sweat.
He'd dreamed of chains—massive, rusted ones stretching across voids wider than worlds. And behind those chains, something watching. Waiting. Not Amarika. Not a god of fire. But something far older, more patient, and infinitely hungrier.
He gathered the Circle immediately. Selene and Ruvan were already awake, swords in hand. Mira stood at the Sanctum window, staring into the dark sky. Kael, whose ember staff always glowed, found its fire dimmed for the first time in years.
"What is this?" Selene asked.
Ajay closed his eyes, recalling the dream in fragments. "She's afraid. Amarika. I could feel it inside me. Something is coming that even she fears."
Mira turned sharply. "You mean she spoke to you again?"
"Not in words," he said. "In instinct. Panic. This isn't her doing. It's something else. Something deeper."
A low, unnatural wind swept through the Sanctum. No windows were open, and yet flames trembled. Ruvan's wings tightened around him. "Something is watching."
Then came the message.
It wasn't brought by a messenger or carried by wind. It simply appeared. Burned into the wall of the council chamber in old Celestial Script:
"The Chained One stirs. When Flame forgets its name, Night devours the sun."
Ajay reached out. The symbols burned but didn't char the stone. Mira studied them with a scholar's eye and paled.
"That's a prophecy fragment from the Lost Tablet of the First Flame," she said. "It's a warning. The Chained One... that's not Amarika. That's the one who chained her."
A silence settled over them, heavy and sacred. Kael spoke softly, breaking it.
"Then what do we do now?"
Ajay looked to them, no longer the uncertain boy they once followed, but the Warden of Flame. "We find the First Flame. If there is a truth that can fight this darkness, it will be where all flame began."
But first, they needed a guide.
Beyond the Emberlands, past the Weeping Glade and across the Sea of Eyes, was the Shattered Range—once the spine of dragons, now ruins inhabited by ghosts and ancient guardians. If the First Flame still burned anywhere, it would be deep within those mountains.
And only one creature had ever returned from there alive: a half-mad seer named Uroth.
They found him beneath the ruins of a forgotten cathedral, surrounded by mirrors and bones.
Uroth was blind, his eyes sewn shut with golden thread. Yet he greeted them before they spoke.
"I wondered when the Flame Prince would come. Too late, as always."
Ajay stepped forward. "You know me?"
"I knew your mother," Uroth rasped. "She lit my eyes on fire so I could see truth. It cost me sight, but gave me purpose."
"We seek the First Flame."
Uroth laughed, a dry, broken sound. "Then prepare to walk where gods have died. The First Flame isn't a place. It's a trial. You don't find it. You survive it."
He lifted a bone staff and traced a symbol in the air—a sigil older than language. It hovered briefly, then burned into Ajay's skin without pain. A new brand, a map of sorts. A marker to the path ahead.
"You will be hunted," Uroth said. "Not just by beasts, but by your own doubts. The Flame tests truth. Lie, and you burn."
The journey to the Shattered Range took eight days.
The land became cruel. Trees that bled smoke, rivers that whispered memories. One night, Mira saw her dead brother weeping in the flames of their fire. Ruvan heard his old warlord shouting commands from the wind. Ajay saw his mother—again and again—burning, reaching, vanishing.
The Flame was already testing them.
At the base of the tallest peak, the ground cracked and opened. A stairway of light and obsidian formed before them. The moment Ajay stepped onto it, fire burst from the sky, spiraling into the entrance.
Selene gripped his shoulder. "Whatever happens in there, remember us. Remember who you are."
Ajay nodded. He descended alone.
The Trial of Flame was not a place.
It was a memory given form.
Ajay found himself in his childhood home. But it was twisted. The walls pulsed. Shadows spoke. His uncle stood at the doorway, smiling with black eyes.
"You were never meant to live," the figure said. "You're a mistake."
Ajay stepped forward. The house ignited. He didn't scream. He didn't run.
"I know who I am," he said. "I am fire. I am fang. I am born of love, not error."
The scene melted. He was in a battlefield next. His Ember Circle dead at his feet. Amarika standing beside him, whispering, "You did this."
Ajay dropped to one knee, tears blinding him. But he clenched his fists. "Then I will make it right. Even if it kills me."
A voice deeper than flame spoke:
"Then rise, Warden of the First Flame."
Ajay stood in a chamber of fire. Floating above a pool of gold flame was a heart—not of flesh, but of star-stone. It pulsed with ancient power. He reached out.
The moment he touched it, the power surged into him. Not Amarika's shadowfire, but true flame. Uncorrupted. Divine.
His scars faded. His breath steadied. When he opened his eyes, he no longer saw just the world—he saw the threads beneath it. The patterns of fate. The lies in truth. The strength in grief.
He was no longer just a Warden.
He was a Flamebearer.
He emerged from the Trial transformed. The Ember Circle fell silent as they saw him. His eyes burned with truth. His skin bore ancient runes. The Stone of Origin reformed at his chest, blazing.
Ajay spoke, his voice layered with echoes.
"The Chained One stirs. Amarika fears him. But the First Flame does not. And now, neither do I."
Then, from the mountains behind them, the sky cracked.
A black monolith rose from the horizon, taller than any tower. Upon its surface were thousands of eyes.
They blinked.
One word echoed across the land.
"Ajay."
The war had begun.