Tame The Flame

The First Flame – Part III: The Weight of Dawn

The first true dawn after the births broke slowly. Not in blazing color, but in a slow, rising gold that clung to everything it touched. Light slid down the edges of the stone towers, bathed the sigil-marked windows, and filtered softly into the nursery where the three miracles slept.

Keal stood at the window of the war room, but there were no maps beneath his hands this time. No movement of armies, no circles of runes. Only quiet. Only breath.

Behind him, a new council had begun to gather.

Seraphina. Ava. Lima. And beside them, the nursemaid assigned to each child. Not warriors, not generals. Mothers. Witnesses to the impossible.

“We need to choose,” Keal said. “Not just how we protect them. But how we let them live.”

Lima nodded, crossing her arms. “The ritualists have started speaking of prophecy again. Some want to bind the children to old roles. Reforge the Pantheon. They already call Kaelen the Skybreaker.”

“They won’t brand my daughter a weapon,” Ava said sharply. “Nyra is more than their fear.”

“She’s more than ours,” Seraphina added. “They all are.”

Keal turned. “Then we must set the tone. Before the world decides for them.”

Each day brought signs.

Siora’s flames bloomed into symbols that no one could read. The crystal wards embedded in the walls began to reflect her moods. She caused the sunrise to delay once—an entire seven minutes.

Kaelen’s powers grew with precision. He built miniature realms in his sleep—dream worlds of glowing lattice and orbiting light. Lima caught him walking through one. He didn’t wake up.

Nyra’s gifts were subtler. She watched people’s words as if they were music. Corrected arguments with two words or one look. One night, she walked into Keal’s chamber and said, “She is already here.”

“Who?” Keal asked.

But she had fallen back asleep in his arms.

On the twelfth morning, the Ether itself rippled.

The Ash Prophet had arrived.

Not at the gates. Not with fire and blade.

But as a whisper.

A messenger stood outside the fortress. His body cracked with Etherlight, his mouth sewn shut with gold thread.

Keal, Ava, Seraphina, and Lima watched from the tower.

“He’s not alive,” Lima said.

“Not dead either,” Seraphina added.

Keal descended alone.

The man—if he could still be called that—knelt when Keal approached. Then raised his hands.

They held a scroll.

Keal took it.

It burned his fingers.

That night, the scroll was opened.

The Prophet had spoken. Not in threats. In certainty.

“The children are not yours. They are echoes of something stolen. Return them to silence. Or I will.”

The scroll dissolved into ash before it hit the table.

In the days that followed, Keal trained again. Not with sword or spell, but with stillness. He stood watch over the nursery every night, his presence the only ward he trusted.

The others prepared in their own ways.

Ava practiced knife forms while nursing. Lima etched protective codes into the very walls. Seraphina summoned flame spirits to sing lullabies.

Together, they forged not a barricade, but a home that dared the world to try.

The children turned one month old.

And on that day, they all stood. Unassisted.

In perfect silence, they faced the courtyard.

And the sky broke open.

A rift tore through the heavens, like a second Etherfold collapsing. From within came not soldiers or beasts—but silence, cold and infinite.

Then the Prophet stepped through.

Tall. Masked. Wreathed in cloaks of dust and starlight.

He raised one hand toward the children.

Keal stepped between them.

“You will not take them.”

The Prophet spoke without mouth.

“You already gave them away.”

Seraphina’s fire rose in a storm. Ava’s daggers flew like comets. Lima’s glyphs blazed blue.

But none struck him.

He raised a finger—and time stopped.

Everyone froze.

Except the children.

Nyra walked forward. Kaelen followed. Siora burned brighter.

They stood before the Prophet.

Then Nyra raised her hand.

“You are not the end,” she said.

The Prophet faltered.

Kaelen drew a symbol in air. Siora screamed once—and the scream split the rift behind him.

With one motion, the Prophet was pulled backward, into his own void.

The sky sealed.

Time returned.

Keal knelt, breathless, stunned.

The children returned to him.

They didn’t speak.

But he knew.

The world had changed.

Not because of war.

Because of what was born.

Because of what chose to stay.

That night, Keal held all three of them.

And whispered:

“Let the stars bear witness. The flame lives. And it will not be extinguished.”