The air grew colder the deeper they went.
Cinder's steps echoed like thunder in a tomb. The tunnel walls pulsed with veins of glowing stone—Soulflame Quartz, once thought extinct. Each flicker revealed forgotten murals: dragons twined with stars, Riders falling into light, others swallowed by black voids.
Kael said nothing. He felt the silence closing in, pressing on his chest like stone. Even the bond between him and Cinder felt… fragile.
"Where are we?" Kael asked at last.
Cinder's voice was quiet, reverent."We stand at the edge of the first memory. The birthplace of dragons. The vault of all that came before."
The Mirror Gate
At the bottom of the descent, they reached a stone arch—ancient, carved with a symbol Kael didn't recognize. Not a Rune. Not an element.
It was a spiral, infinite and recursive. The Mark of the Spine.
As Kael stepped through, the world changed.
No longer stone—sky.
He stood atop a floating platform, surrounded by a shattered horizon of clouds, stars, and ruins of forgotten wings. Below: endless darkness. Above: a swirling aurora of memories.
Cinder was gone.
"Cinder!" he called. No response.
Then, the voice came—not his dragon's, not his own.
"You seek rebirth?"
From the mist stepped a figure.
It was… Kael.
But not as he was. This version wore imperial armor, his Rune of Flame glowing like a brand. His eyes were gold, cruel, powerful.
"What would you become if you abandoned everything for strength?" the vision asked.
Trial of the Self
The False Kael raised a sword of black fire.
Real Kael barely drew his blade in time to block the strike. Sparks flew. Each clash echoed with past voices—Finnel's warnings, Lira's laughter, Raven's betrayal.
"You're not real," Kael growled.
"No?" the vision hissed. "But I am what you could be. What you wanted to be. No fear. No loss. No weakness."
Kael faltered.
Images swirled around him—his mother's blurred face, the village burning, Raven walking away. Then…
Cinder falling, wings torn.
"No!" Kael shouted, rage cracking from his throat.
"I would rather be broken beside those I love, than a god standing alone!"
He drove his blade through the vision's chest.
The false Kael smiled as he crumbled to dust.
"Then you may proceed."
The Heart of the Spine
Kael fell to his knees.
A low tremor pulsed beneath his feet. The sky above twisted, bending in on itself like a heartbeat. Light poured upward from below, and a vast dragon's silhouette coiled in the stars.
A dragon without flesh. Made of memory.Eyes older than time.
It looked into him.
"You are not yet ready to rise. But you are willing to descend. That… is enough."
Cinder reappeared.
But something had changed. His scales had darkened to obsidian and ember, with lightning veins beneath. His wings were broader, older — like they had seen lifetimes.
Kael reached out. "Cinder…?"
The dragon blinked.
"I have been reforged, Kael. I have seen the First Flame."
Together, they stepped back onto the stone path — and the Vault behind them sealed shut.
Scene Shift – Raven's Awakening
Far to the east, Raven opened his eyes within a vault of echoing black stone.
Vraxion loomed nearby, whispering in forgotten tongues.
Raven's hand trembled.
His fingers were cracked with black veins. His memories flickered like shattered glass.
He had taken the Rune of Echo.
But now… he couldn't hear his own thoughts anymore.
"Kael is falling," he whispered."But I… have already fallen."