The boy woke screaming.
It wasn't the sound that struck Evelyn hardest, but the cadence—something between terror and music, as if his cries tried to mimic a tune she couldn't quite grasp. She knelt at his side, hands trembling. The ember of the shard inside her pulsed, brightening until the heat threatened to sear through her ribs.
"Shh," she whispered. "You're safe now. Breathe."
He didn't hear her. His mouth was wide, screaming still, but his eyes were locked upward, watching something that wasn't there. Or perhaps it was—just beyond the edge of waking.
"Torren," she hissed.
Torren, half-wrapped in his cloak and resting against a fractured beam, snapped to his feet. "What's wrong with him?"
"I think…" Evelyn reached again for the boy's hand. His skin had gone clammy, and the black dust that ringed his eyes had begun to shift—curling, spiraling in strange geometric patterns.
She'd seen those shapes before. In the fire-visions. In her dreams.
Vareth—still awake, still watching—stepped out from the shadowed edge of the ruined hall, staff in hand. "It's begun in him. The echo."
Torren moved between them, blade half-drawn. "You said he'd survive."
"I said I ran." Vareth's voice carried no shame, only weariness. "And I told you what I saw before the fire came. Those who heard the song… some burned. Some changed. And some, the unlucky ones, kept hearing it."
Evelyn looked down at the boy. His lips had stopped moving, but the sounds still echoed—faint now, like a hum beneath her thoughts.
No. Not a hum. Words.
She couldn't understand them, but she felt them, like they were being spoken to her soul rather than her ears.
And she knew—knew—that if she reached out with her will, the shard would respond.
Just like it had in the dreamscape.
Just like it had when she saved the boy's life.
She stood slowly. "I'm going to draw it out."
Torren's head snapped toward her. "What?"
Vareth raised an eyebrow. "Dangerous idea, Flamewalker."
"Don't call me that."
He grinned. "Too late."
"I saw this before—in the fields, in the Breachdream. I can touch whatever's inside him, whatever's pulling. If I don't, it'll consume him."
"And if you do?" Torren's voice was tight.
Evelyn looked at the ember-shaped scar on her palm. "Then it consumes me instead."
No one stopped her.
She knelt again, placed her palm to the boy's chest, and breathed.
The shard flared.
This time, it didn't hurt—not at first. It felt like stepping into warm smoke. The air in the room stilled, dust lifting around her like motes of starlight. She saw—no, felt—a thread unspooling from the boy's core. Something old. Broken. Beckoning.
Then the wind screamed.
She wasn't in the ruined hall anymore.
Stone walls rose around her, smooth and curved. Light came from burning glyphs that danced along the floor, shifting like oil. And at the center of the chamber stood a figure wrapped in flame—not burning, not consumed. Alive.
Silver eyes locked on hers.
The woman from the dream.
"You've walked too far," the figure said, her voice layered with echoes. "And not far enough."
Evelyn tried to speak, but the air was thick—choking. "Who are you?"
The figure tilted her head. "You know me already. You've carried my name since the fire first touched your mother's thoughts."
A pause. The silver eyes narrowed. "But you do not yet understand it."
The shard inside Evelyn pulsed again.
Behind the figure, the chamber cracked—splintering like shattered stone. Wind poured through the broken seams, howling with words she still couldn't understand but felt in her blood.
The song.
The voice.
The command.
"Not yet," the woman said. "You are not ready."
The vision snapped.
Evelyn gasped, collapsing forward.
Torren caught her. "You're back."
She blinked hard. The boy lay unconscious—but breathing. His color was returning. The marks had faded. The spiral was gone.
She turned slowly toward Vareth.
He didn't smile this time. "So. You are one of them."
"One of who?"
He tapped his temple. "The ones the Guild feared would rise again."
Torren shifted. "The old Warden-Keepers?"
"No." Vareth's voice was quieter now. "Worse."
The wind outside picked up, scattering ash and the charred remains of Vaelbridge's banners.
Somewhere out in the wild, Evelyn could feel the shard thrum in rhythm with a larger beat—something vast and stirring.
And once again, her name echoed in a language she had never learned… but understood.