Tame The Flame

Beneath the Silence

The morning air was heavy with fog, drawn low over the crystalline ridges that lined the coast. The once-raging light of Ether storms had gone still for now, as though the world itself held its breath. Even the great runes carved into the stronghold's stones dimmed to a sleepy pulse, echoing the rhythm of a house no longer at war, but not yet at peace.

Keal stood on the edge of the inner garden terrace, a cup of untouched tea in hand. Below, the training grounds lay silent. The laughter of children—his children—was absent, replaced with the rustle of leaves and the call of distant birds. It should have been peaceful. Instead, it was suffocating.

He hadn't told them everything about the vision. Not yet.

Not the fire. Not the twisted futures. Not the child with his eyes who never was.

He clenched his jaw. They deserved peace, and truth. But he couldn't give them both.

Behind him, soft footsteps approached. He didn't turn.

"You’ve been up for hours," said Lima, her voice unusually gentle.

"Sleep felt distant," Keal replied.

She stepped beside him. In the gray light, she looked tired—but serene. Her usual battle-ready stance softened. She placed a hand on her belly, barely beginning to round.

"Two months," she said quietly.

He turned then, startled.

"Two months?"

She gave a small, almost amused nod. "You’ve been so distracted preparing for the unknown... you didn’t even notice."

His gaze dropped to her hand. Then back to her eyes.

"Lima..."

"I don’t expect you to make promises. Not now," she said, cutting him off gently. "But I thought you should know. Our future isn’t just about the war. It’s growing inside us."

Before Keal could find the words, Ava appeared in the hallway arch, arms crossed, expression guarded as always.

"I guess that makes three of us then," she said bluntly.

Keal blinked. "Three?"

Ava approached, not as the warrior he trained beside, but as the woman who had held him during long, silent nights when death hovered near. Her hand pressed to her side.

"I’m just past ten weeks. I waited to be sure. You know I don’t speak on hopes lightly."

Lima looked surprised for a breath, then nodded, a flicker of camaraderie passing between them.

Keal stepped back, overwhelmed. His gaze flicked from one to the other.

"All this time… I thought I was protecting what was. But it’s already changing. Becoming something else."

"Something better," Ava said softly.

"Or something more fragile," Keal replied.

"Both," came a third voice.

Seraphina stepped into view, smiling gently. Her hands rested on her belly, not yet rounded, but already claimed with pride. She did not yet carry Siora in her arms—but within her.

"I didn’t want to say anything until I was certain," Seraphina said. "But the healers confirmed it yesterday. I’m carrying our child."

Keal’s breath caught.

Seraphina reached for his hand and placed it softly against her stomach.

"It’s a girl. The visions whispered her name to me even before the healer spoke it. Siora. She’s already fire and light, Keal."

She smiled, radiant and defiant.

"This is Siora. And she is ours. She will be born in peace—but never be soft. She will know the storm and walk through it."

Keal’s knees nearly buckled.

Four children already born of this strange new peace. Now three more, yet to arrive. The world wanted to burn, and somehow, they were building more life inside it.

"I don’t deserve this," he whispered, almost inaudibly.

Seraphina crossed the space between them and placed Siora in his arms. The toddler immediately curled against his chest.

"None of us do," she said. "But we fight for it anyway."

Lima sat on the bench beside the garden wall. Ava stood by the flowering tree. Seraphina beside him. All of them touched now by life. By future.

Keal looked at them. At the garden, the house, the sky beyond.

Then he spoke.

"I’ve seen what’s coming. In visions. In dreams. And it’s darker than we’ve ever faced."

They said nothing. They didn’t need to. Their eyes held the same truth.

"There’s a being—the Ash Prophet. And he’s not after kingdoms. He’s after us. Our children. Our blood."

He looked to the sky.

"I saw futures where you died. Where our children were stolen. Futures where I became something I couldn’t recognize."

Ava stepped forward. "Then you’ve also seen the paths where we win."

"Yes," Keal said. "But they require sacrifice."

Lima stood. "Then we’ll sacrifice. Together."

Seraphina kissed his cheek. "But not our children. Never them."

Keal nodded slowly.

"Then it begins. We prepare. We learn. We protect what we built. No matter what it costs."

Later that evening, Keal knelt in the sacred garden, the place where Etherstream ley lines crossed beneath the roots of the first tree they had planted together after the war. He placed his palm to the soil and whispered:

"I see you now. You who whisper in the void. You who hunger for legacy. I see your hand reaching. But you will not take them. Not my daughters. Not my sons. Not the women who carry them. Not this time."

The tree answered with a pulse of light. The runes along its bark shimmered like waking eyes.

He stayed long after the moon climbed high.

The stillness around him was vast, and for the first time in weeks, he welcomed it. He needed the silence—not because he feared sound, but because it helped him remember.

The first time he met Seraphina, her fire had nearly scorched through his armor. The first time he truly spoke with Lima, she'd seen through him like glass. And Ava—Ava had never spoken much. But she’d stood between him and death more than once, never asking why.

These women weren’t just warriors or queens. They were the keepers of his legacy. The mothers of what might be the last hope this fractured world would know.

He whispered another promise to the stars above.

"Let me be strong enough. Not for the war. But for them. For the quiet days. For the hands that will soon hold mine."

From somewhere deep within the land, something ancient stirred—not hostile, but curious. As if the world itself had paused to listen.

When Keal rose, dawn had begun to bleed across the sky.

Back inside the stronghold, the world had changed again.

Siora was humming to herself as she drew glowing suns on the wall with her fingers. Kaelen had assembled a miniature tower of rune-stones in the span of minutes, each one balanced impossibly. And Nyra... Nyra simply watched Keal enter, then gave a soft nod. As if she knew the night he had endured.

They were already more than children.

They were echoes of something divine.

Keal smiled at them, but it was a warrior’s smile. Resolved. Heavy.

Soon, he would need to tell them everything.

But not yet.

For now, beneath the silence, life was blooming.