The Sleeping Flame
1147 Words
The next morning, the Emberwood was still. The sky above the trees had turned silver, as if dawn itself was holding its breath.
Addie and Kael sat beside the ashes of the campfire, quietly gathering what little they had. Neither spoke much. The battle had changed something between them—woven a silent thread they both felt but didn’t yet understand.
Kael flexed his fingers. The dark veins were fading, but not gone. “That thing inside me—it's not quiet. Just... waiting.”
“We’ll keep it waiting,” Addie said, tightening her gloves. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”
She pulled out Corren’s map, now marked with a new detail: a mountain temple east of the forest, known only as Virelya. It was said to house a guardian who had never awakened.
A sleeping Lightbearer.
Kael pointed to the mark. “You think the third one’s there?”
“I know she is,” Addie said. “When I touched the locket last night… I saw her face. A girl surrounded by fire that didn’t burn.”
Kael arched a brow. “That’s oddly specific.”
“She was singing,” Addie added, almost dreamlike. “The fire was listening.”
---
By mid-afternoon, they reached the foothills of the ancient range. The peaks towered above like the bones of giants, half-shrouded in mist and stormclouds. Crumbling stone stairways led up the cliffs, carved centuries ago by hands long forgotten.
Virelya lay at the summit.
The climb was slow. Hard. Every step was shadowed by silence—no birds, no wind, just the low, pulsing hum of old power. Addie felt it in her ribs. So did Kael.
“I don’t like this,” he muttered.
“You don’t like anything that doesn’t punch back,” Addie teased.
Kael smirked. “Fair.”
At last, the stairs ended in a wide plateau. At its center stood a shattered doorway—massive, ancient, and sealed with glowing runes.
Addie stepped forward. The moment her foot touched the threshold, the ring on her finger flared gold.
The runes melted into light.
The doorway groaned open.
Inside was a vast chamber, filled with heat. Not fire—but pressure, like the air itself held its breath.
At the far end of the hall, floating above a pedestal of stone and ash… was a girl.
Dark skin, shaved head, hands crossed over her chest. Fire circled her in the air like living threads—never touching, never burning. Her body was asleep. But her light—
It was awake.
Addie’s heart pounded. “That’s her.”
Kael took a step forward. “Then let’s wake her up.”
But as he moved—
A voice echoed through the chamber.
“She does not belong to you.”
From the shadows stepped a figure cloaked in smoke. No face. No eyes. Just darkness—and a faint outline of armor long lost to time.
Kael instinctively reached for his blade.
But Addie recognized the energy. Cold. Ancient. Twisted.
“A fallen Lightbearer,” she whispered.
The figure pointed toward the floating girl.
“She carries more than light. She carries the end of your line.”
Suddenly, the fire surrounding the girl began to flare. Wild. Unstable.
Kael raised his sword. “We need to get her out of there.”
Addie’s flame lit in her palms. “Or wake her before the dark does.
Ash and Memory
The fire in the chamber flared wild and blinding.
Addie and Kael stood at the threshold, the heat pressing against their skin like a wall. The floating girl—her body still untouched—began to tremble in the air. Threads of flame around her snapped and cracked, turning from golden to red.
“She’s slipping,” Addie said. “Something’s pulling at her light.”
The shadowed figure stepped forward, still cloaked in smoke. “She was meant to burn. She chose to stay. You will not undo what the flame has sealed.”
Kael growled. “Watch us.”
But Addie raised a hand to stop him. “No. Not with a sword. Not yet.”
She stepped into the fire.
Kael reached after her—“Addie!”—but she was already through the ring of flame. The heat didn’t scorch her. It parted, like it knew her name.
She stood before the floating girl, close enough to see her face. Calm, strong, but strained—as if she were fighting something inside even in her sleep.
Addie reached for her hand.
The moment they touched—
Everything changed.
---
Addie stood in a memory not her own.
A vast battlefield burned before her. Skies red with ash. Mountains broken. And in the center of the chaos, the girl—but older, wrapped in flame, screaming as her light consumed everything.
Addie watched as the girl fell to her knees, sobbing, flames devouring the world around her.
“Make it stop,” the girl whispered in the memory. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to.”
Addie stepped closer, even inside the vision.
“You’re not alone anymore,” she said. “You don’t have to carry the fire by yourself.”
The girl looked up at her.
“You… remember me?”
“I do now,” Addie said. “Your name is—”
“Nira,” the girl finished. “You called me Nira, Lightborn of the Flame.”
The vision shattered.
---
In the real world, the fire roared one last time—and then vanished.
Nira collapsed into Addie’s arms, gasping, alive.
Kael rushed to them. “Is she—?”
“I’m awake,” Nira said hoarsely. Her voice was cracked, but steady. “And I remember both of you.”
The smoke figure hissed, retreating toward the shadows. But before it could vanish, Nira raised a hand. A small spark flicked from her fingers—landing at the figure’s feet.
The flame grew fast, wrapping around the darkness like a net. The figure shrieked, dissolving in a whirlwind of ash and echoes.
Silence followed.
Kael let out a slow breath. “Okay. She’s terrifying. I like her.”
Nira grinned, but there was pain in her eyes. “The fire tried to eat me from the inside. I barely held on.”
Addie nodded. “You didn’t let go. That’s what matters.”
Nira stood fully now, shaky but strong.
“One of us remains,” she said. “The last Lightbearer. The one who turned.”
Kael and Addie exchanged a glance.
“The Shadowed One,” Kael murmured. “The one who betrayed us.”
Nira’s flames flickered low.
“If we find him… he might kill us.”
Addie’s voice was calm. “Then we remind him who he used to be.”
- Writer
