– Ira’s Awakening
The dream came without warning. Ira was standing in the center of the Circle, alone. The glyphs were gone. The stones had crumbled into ash. Above him, the sky churned with fire and shadow, two great forces locked in silent battle. The ember in his chest pulsed—not with fear, but with need. He looked down. A thread of light curled from his chest, weaving through the ground like a root. He followed it, barefoot and unafraid, down a stair of embers that formed beneath each step. The air grew thick, like the breath of something vast and sleeping. At the bottom, he found a door. It was carved from obsidian, etched with spiraling runes he could not read but somehow understood. Here sleeps the emberforge. He reached out. The moment his fingers touched the door, the ember in his body expl
- Writer
