Chapter Six: They Who Hunt the Flame
1532 Words
I woke before the sun.
The world was still wrapped in that strange gray between night and day. The kind of stillness that made you feel like you were the last person alive.
The fire beneath my skin had gone quiet, but it hadn’t gone cold. It never did anymore.
I sat at the chapel’s edge, just outside the cracked doorway. My hoodie wrapped tight against the chill. My fingers clenched the pendant like it might explain something—anything.
Last night’s dream still clung to me like soot.
Me, laughing in flames. Kael, kneeling. Eyes in the dark.
You are the flame reborn.
“I heard you scream,” Kael said behind me.
I didn’t turn. “I didn’t.”
He stepped beside me, arms crossed. “You didn’t use your voice. But you screamed.”
I exhaled shakily. “They were watching me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Eyes. Everywhere. The dream felt... real.”
Kael’s jaw tensed. “It probably was.”
I finally turned to him. “You think someone sent it?”
“I think you’re being pulled in two directions now. Something is waking—and the ones who want to control you are already trying to reach you in ways that bypass protection.”
I touched my pendant. “Can dreams be invaded?”
He nodded. “By witches. Or by something older.”
“Like what?”
Kael hesitated. “The Elders.”
The name alone made the air colder.
“The ones you said are coming?”
“They don’t come themselves, not unless they think the threat is real. But they send shadows. Testers. Watchers.”
“To test what?”
“To see if you're ready to break the world. Or save it.”
I swallowed. “And what if they decide I’m not either?”
Kael’s silence was all the answer I needed.
He handed me a satchel. “Eat. Train. Then we move.”
“Move where?”
“Deeper. The wards around this place are weakening. They were made to hide the Carriers, not protect them once awakened.”
“Can’t you reinforce them?”
“They only respond to Del-ray blood.”
I blinked. “So I have to do it.”
“Yes. Later.”
He passed me a small roll and a flask. “For now, you need focus. We’re not alone anymore.”
We trained until my arms felt like lead.
Kael pushed harder than yesterday. Shadow bolts, speed strikes, misdirection illusions. All of it meant to knock me off balance. To make me react instead of think.
But something was changing.
The fire came faster now. Not from rage, but from rhythm.
My body was starting to remember what my mind didn’t yet understand.
At one point, Kael stepped behind me and adjusted my stance—his hand light on my hip, the other guiding my wrist.
“You’re leading with fear again,” he said near my ear.
I tensed. “How do you know?”
“Because you flinch before you strike.”
“I don’t flinch.”
He said nothing, but I could feel the weight of his gaze.
That heat that wasn’t just flame.
Afterward, we sat beneath the chapel’s broken spire, breathing heavy.
“I want to know more about them,” I said. “The Elders.”
Kael’s expression closed off instantly. “Why?”
“Because they’re watching me.”
“They always watch.”
“But what are they?”
Kael took a long breath. “Once, they were just the oldest of the races. The first vampire. The first witch. The first wolf. The three who forged the Covenant to avoid total war. They stood above kings. Above councils.”
“And now?”
“They’ve become what they feared—gods without names.”
“And Ever work for them??”
He looked away. “No one works for the Elders. You’re used. Or erased.”
I stared at the trees beyond the chapel ruins.
It felt like something was breathing out there—quietly, waiting.
“They’ll come for me,” I whispered. “Won’t they?”
“Yes,” Kael said. “One way or another.”
“And you’ll protect me?”
He didn’t answer right away.
Then—
“I’ll do what I can.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
We packed what little we had. Food. A few knives. Kael’s strange, rune-etched book that glowed when I touched it. He never let me read it.
The pendant hung warm around my throat now, pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
The trees grew darker as we moved. The forest thickened. The air changed.
By midday, the sky had dimmed to a gray-violet hue even though the sun was still up.
Kael kept looking over his shoulder.
“They’re here,” he muttered.
“Who?”
“The Watchers.”
We stopped at an old bridge made of black stone. A river cut beneath it, rushing fast, the water too dark to reflect anything.
Kael drew a line of blood across his palm and pressed it to the archway.
Nothing happened.
“Why didn’t it work?” I asked.
He turned to me. “Because this gate was built for your kind.”
“My kind?”
“Del-ray blood. You have to open it.”
I hesitated. “With blood?”
He nodded. “Just a drop.”
I stepped forward, heart racing, and pulled out the dagger Kael had given me.
When I pricked my fingertip and touched the stone, the arch flared to life.
Flames shot up the sides—violet and gold.
The bridge vanished.
In its place, a gate of light.
Kael’s eyes widened. “You’re stronger than I thought.”
I looked down at my finger, where the flame still glowed faintly in the blood.
The mark on my shoulder flared in response.
“I don’t feel strong,” I whispered.
“Then hold onto that.”
He stepped through the gate.
I followed.
On the other side, the forest was… different.
Quieter. But not peaceful.
It was like the air had forgotten how to breathe.
Twilight pressed in from every direction.
The trees here were bone-white and twisted like the limbs of corpses.
Kael was tense.
“This place is called the Hollowwood,” he said.
“It’s where the Elders first tested their power.”
“Why bring me here?”
“Because this is the one place they can’t enter directly. Their essence lingers, but their influence… flickers.”
“And that’s supposed to comfort me?”
“No,” he said. “But it gives us time.”
We walked in silence until the ground curved inward and revealed a clearing—circular and lined with stone runes.
Kael froze.
So did I.
Because we weren’t alone.
A figure stood at the center of the clearing.
Tall. Shrouded in gray robes. No face. No features.
Only eyes—thousands of them—floating in the folds of its cloak, blinking in perfect silence.
My blood went cold.
“What the hell is that?” I breathed.
Kael stepped in front of me. “A Shade of the Elders.”
The figure didn’t move.
But its voice slithered into my mind without sound.
“Jewel Del-ray.”
I flinched. “It knows my name.”
“It knows your soul,” Kael whispered. “Don’t speak to it. Don’t let it in.”
But the voice persisted—soft, patient, horrifying.
“The flame rises. The mark burns. The world turns toward your choosing.”
I clutched the pendant.
The air around the Shade shimmered. I felt heat, cold, then heat again.
“Will you destroy what remains? Or will you kneel?”
I stepped forward.
Kael grabbed my wrist. “No.”
“I want to hear what it wants.”
“They don’t want anything. They want everything.”
The Shade lifted a hand.
In it, a scroll of white ash.
Kael swore under his breath. “That’s a bond offer.”
“A what?”
“A pact. A claim. They’re trying to take your allegiance.”
“Like a contract?”
“Yes. And if you accept it, they own you.”
The scroll floated toward me.
Kael moved to intercept—but the scroll burned in mid-air, splitting open.
I saw words written in flame.In blood.In something that looked like my dreams.
I saw a future not yet written—
Me in a black crown.Kael bleeding beneath my feet.The world bowed.
“No,” I said aloud.
The scroll curled inward. The fire turned black.
The Shade withdrew its hand.
“So it begins.”
And then it vanished—leaving only the echo of a heartbeat behind.
Kael didn’t speak.
Neither did I.
We just stood there, in the ashes of the choice I hadn’t made, watching the forest hold its breath.
Then finally, he said—
“They’ll try again.”
And I whispered back—
“Let them.”
- Writer
