The Hollow had never felt more alive—or more fragile.
Golden torches lit the paths between tents and towers, not out of necessity, but reverence. People whispered songs instead of orders. Warriors traded war stories not to boast but to remember what they'd survived.
And at the heart of it all, two shards rested side by side:
The golden shard of memory. And the dusk shard of silence.
Kaelin stood between them, her palms flat against the altar stone, feeling the way their pulses beat out of rhythm—yet did not conflict.
They were not opposite forces.
They were unfinished thoughts.
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The woman who had been called the Last Flame now walked among the people of Ashmark without name or title. Myrra had given her the provisional name "Nira," meaning ember’s end in the old tongue. She acce
