The map on the wall was older than the war itself.
Aaron stood before it, his eyes scanning the parchment's faded lines and gilded names—Takoba, Gizana, Hollowmere, Nareth, and the Vellun Coast. Each name carried a whisper, and the whisper grew louder as his fingers traced the roads between them.
Behind him, Frankfurt spoke.
> "Maro is not what it was. It never was."
Aaron turned slightly. "What does that mean?"
> "What you call a kingdom," Frankfurt continued, "was once a prison built by kings afraid of fire. Your ancestors weren't nobles. They were rebels with stars in their blood."
Aaron stared at a symbol etched near the mountains of Nareth—a shattered crown circled in fire.
> "What's this?" he asked.
Frankfurt's eyes darkened. "The Pyre Gate. The place where the first Skyborn were burned alive. They say their ashes still whisper in the wind. Some say… they never died."
---
Later that evening, Aaron sat with Ashen in the private quarters of the western tower. The child held a book with no title. When he opened it, images moved across the pages like memories trapped in ink.
> "Did you know about Nareth?" Aaron asked him.
Ashen didn't look up. "It's where I was supposed to die."
Aaron froze.
Ashen's voice was distant, but steady. "I was taken there when I was little. They called it a 'testing ground.' They burn children like me there. To see if the flame comes out clean… or cursed."
Aaron clenched his fists. "And you escaped?"
Ashen looked up with those pale, eternal eyes. "No. Someone set me free. But I never saw who."
---
Down below, in the Hall of Chains beneath the Pierce estate, Kain entered with a torch.
Frankfurt stood waiting beside an iron coffin suspended in a circle of rune-stones. Frost covered its edges, and yet blue fire pulsed faintly from within.
> "Is that… a Skyborn?" Kain asked.
Frankfurt nodded. "The last confirmed one before Aaron. Burned in the year of the Black Sun. But her heart never stopped glowing."
He looked at the torch in Kain's hand. "Bring Aaron down tomorrow. He needs to see this."
---
That night, Aaron dreamed of Nareth.
Not the place as it was, but as it burned.
He stood atop a mountain of white ash, surrounded by towering statues of flame. The sky cracked open, and from it descended figures with fire in their veins and wings of soot.
> One of them looked at him and said:
> "We are the fire you forgot."
---
He awoke gasping, the bedsheets scorched at the edges.
Ashen stood at the door, eyes glowing faintly. "You saw it too."
Aaron sat up. "Saw what?"
Ashen stepped forward. "The call. The mountains are waking. And they remember your name."