Chapter 5: The Last Flame : The Ember Wall Breached
779 Words
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The Ember Wall rose like a scorched monolith from the red earth, its ancient carvings glowing faintly in the light of dawn. Glyphs of warding and remembrance shimmered across its surface, flickering with the collective embers of generations. For centuries, it had stood as the last line between the heartlands and the forgotten darkness. Today, it would be tested.
From the southern rise, Lyra and the Reforged Flame beheld the devastation below. The Hollowborne host blanketed the valley beyond the wall—thousands upon thousands of twisted forms: shadows of men with eyes like dying stars, beasts forged from fear, and at the center, a throne of bone and ruin carried by ten faceless titans.
Upon that throne sat the Hollowking.
His presence was not just seen—it was felt, a pressure behind the eyes, a voice without sound whispering doubt into every soul who looked upon him. He wore a mantle of voidflame, a mockery of the First Ember, and his crown dripped black ichor that burned into the ground.
Lyra turned to her commanders. "He means to break the wall not with siege, but with despair."
Kalen gritted his teeth. "Then we remind him what hope forged in fire feels like."
They descended to the base of the wall, where remnants of the Emberguard and surviving wardmagi fought to hold the final line. The air crackled with raw energy. Caelin ran her fingers along the wall's lowest glyphs, her ember responding.
"They’re unraveling the wards from within. The Hollowking is feeding on the ember threads themselves."
"Can we stop it?" Lyra asked.
Caelin closed her eyes, focusing. "Not stop. But delay. If we channel enough of our ember into the wall’s heartstone, we can reignite its shield for a time."
Rurik stepped forward, soot-stained and resolute. "And give you a path to him. A duel. Champion to tyrant. Old ways."
Lyra nodded. "Then that’s what we do. Kalen, prepare the left flank. Caelin, the right. Hold them back. Rurik, get me to the throne."
The Reforged Flame surged into action. As embermages fed the heartstone and the wall pulsed to life, a golden dome shimmered into being—just long enough for Lyra and a dozen elite to break through the lines.
Toward the Hollowking.
Toward the end.
Or the beginning.
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2: Path of Ash and Flame
The path to the Hollowking’s throne was a corridor of nightmares.
The ash-choked valley twisted under Lyra’s feet, the ground shifting like breathing skin. Screams echoed through the air—some real, some illusions spun from despair. The Hollowborn moved like a tide, but the Emberguard vanguard cut through them in a burning wedge, Lyra at the tip like a flame-driven spear.
Rurik, grunting through every hammer swing, crushed a Hollowbeast to black dust. Caelin’s light flared far behind them, keeping the right flank from being overrun. Kalen’s archers sang death from the ridgeline.
Still, the closer they drew to the Hollowking, the thicker the shadows became.
Lyra could feel it: the ember within her recoiling.
The throne now loomed above, a jagged mass of shattered emberstone and bone, carried by beings she could barely comprehend—hulking, eyeless figures with arms like tree trunks, each step cracking the earth beneath them.
The Hollowking stood. He descended.
His voice, when it came, was not sound—it was memory, pain, and hunger made into language.
"You burn so brightly... for nothing. What you fight to preserve is already ash."
Lyra stepped forward alone, her sword igniting at her side. "Then let this be the blaze that ends you."
He raised a hand and voidflame answered.
The sky split open.
The duel began.
He moved like a storm. Shadows solidified into blades, wings of fireless black spread behind him. Lyra dodged, rolled, struck back. Flamewrought clashed with voidflame, sending shockwaves through the valley. Her ember flared, clashing against the creeping cold of his abyss.
They circled, two titans of opposing wills. The Hollowking struck with despair; Lyra countered with defiance. His form shifted, sometimes man, sometimes beast, sometimes a silhouette of everything lost. But she saw the truth beneath it all:
He had once been Emberbound.
His flame had gone out.
And he had never forgiven the world.
Lyra drove forward, flame trailing in her wake. She called upon the voices of the Beacon, the strength of those who answered. Each step, each strike, echoed with names of those who burned beside her.
"We are not ash," she cried. "We are the spark that remains."
With a final cry, she plunged Flamewrought into his chest.
The Hollowking screamed.
The throne cracked.
And the world began to tremble.
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