Flames That Know Your Name
873 Words
Cael
The nights grew shorter.
Or maybe it only felt that way—because sleep had become dangerous.
The flame relic whispered now, not only in words, but in dreams. Sometimes Cael woke with smoke on his hands and the taste of ash on his tongue.
They were halfway through the Vale of Glass—a valley of white crystal trees that sang when the wind passed through—when the attack came.
It was just after midnight.
No warning.
A scream, sharp and cut short, shattered the stillness. Then steel rang against steel, and the scent of burning pine filled the air.
Therin leapt up, his staff already glowing with fire sigils.
Cael reached for his relic, but before he could summon it, shadows surged from the trees—five figures in charcoal robes, each masked in white. Not Seekers. Not Flamebound.
Something else.
“They’re Scorchborn!” Myra shouted, drawing twin blades.
Cael didn’t have time to ask who that was.
One of them lunged—blades curved like sickles, moving too fast.
Cael raised his hands—“Ignis!”—and fire leapt to obey, a wall of flame splitting the air.
But this wasn’t a spell he knew.
It consumed.
It roared outward, uncontrolled, snapping through the crystal forest. Trees shattered. One of the attackers screamed as fire wrapped around their limbs.
And then the flame twisted inward.
Cael collapsed to his knees.
The fire coiled in his chest like a serpent waking in hunger.
From the blaze stepped the fireshade—his projection, his mirror—its eyes glowing brighter than before.
“Not ready,” it whispered.
Then it struck him.
Cael screamed as the fire flared against his ribs, searing—not physically, but at the soul.
The shade was consuming him from within.
Suddenly—Myra was there.
She plunged her blade through the projection’s chest. Not harming it—but disrupting it.
The shade shattered like ash in a storm.
Cael collapsed, coughing smoke.
Myra knelt beside him, breathing hard. “You idiot.”
“You saved me,” he gasped.
“No. I delayed it.”
She pulled back—revealing blood at her side.
She’d been cut.
Badly.
Therin arrived seconds later, already muttering healing words, flames wrapping around Myra’s wound to cauterize.
Cael could only stare at his hands.
“I nearly killed you,” he whispered.
Myra met his eyes.
“And you’ll do it again, if you don’t learn to choose.”
Cael didn’t answer.
Because deep inside him, the flame still whispered:
“Burn, or be burned.”
⸻
Liora
The blood wasn’t warm.
It felt cold as it trickled down her wrist and into the flame bowl, mixing with the herbs and sigils Elun had prepared.
The ritual chamber was carved from obsidian, lit by a single floating lantern.
“Speak your name into the blood,” Elun instructed.
Liora hesitated.
Then: “Liora Sen. Daughter of Tera.”
The bowl ignited.
But not in gold or red.
Blue.
The flame danced soundlessly, casting no shadow.
Then—images.
Not flickers. Not dreams.
Memories.
She was standing on a high mountain balcony, watching a city of flameglass and iron below. Cloaked in silver. A crown of smoke above her head.
Then—a war. Swords clashing. Voices crying “For the Oath! For the Fire!”
A name spoken through centuries:
“Aelion of the Flameblood. The First Vowbearer.”
Elun gasped. “That’s not from our records.”
Liora was shaking. “That was me. Or… someone in me.”
“The blood carries memory,” Elun whispered. “You’re a descendant of the Vowbearers.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are not just tied to the Crown. You were part of what sealed it.”
Liora staggered back. “Then I’m its enemy?”
“No,” Elun said. “You’re its keeper.”
Liora’s thoughts reeled.
If Cael was the key to the Ember Crown, and she was one of the locks—
What happened when they met again?
⸻
Cael
They buried one of the horses the next morning. The others had fled during the attack.
Myra walked, limping but silent. She refused to let Cael help her.
Therin said nothing.
They were supposed to reach the Ember Forge by dusk—but the pace had slowed.
Cael walked behind them, haunted by fireprints no one else could see.
They weren’t just traveling toward power anymore.
They were walking toward a choice.
And Cael had no idea which side of the fire he’d land on.
⸻
Liora
When night fell, Liora knelt beside the bowl of extinguished blue flame.
She touched the ash, and her hand came away marked.
Not with burn.
But with a sigil.
The same one Cael bore.
Elun appeared beside her.
“You must find him,” she said.
Liora looked up. “Why?”
“Because the fire is waking faster than it should. If the relics reunite before the bearers are ready—”
She didn’t finish.
She didn’t have to.
Liora understood.
The fire was not a gift.
It was a test.
And the world had already failed it once.
- Writer
