## CHAPTER 26: _"The Flame That Spoke in Tongues"_
The sky over Elira turned violet, laced with veins of fire that didn't belong to stars. Something ancient stirred—a language not heard in lifetimes but felt in every bone.
At the heart of the Flamebound sanctuary, Lysia sat before the Eternal Pyre, the enchanted fire that never died. Its flames rose higher than before, shaped not by wood but by memory.
The thread from the spirit-world still pulsed around her wrist, glowing in rhythm with her heartbeat. Across from her, Arien sat, mirroring her posture, his expression tense but awestruck.
> "It's trying to speak," he murmured.
Lysia nodded. "And I think I can hear it."
---
The fire began to whisper—not in words, but pulses. Heat and rhythm. Symbols burned briefly in the smoke, then vanished.
> "It's a language," Lysia said. "One written in pain, memory... and fire."
They stared in silence until the symbols formed full sequences. Not letters. Not runes. Emotions. Moments.
> "It's telling a story."
> "Ours?"
Lysia shook her head. "No. One older. The story of the curse itself."
As the fire danced, they saw visions—of a kingdom long dead, ruled by a queen with fire in her blood and a scribe who loved her in silence. The same scribe who would become The Archivist.
---
He had written her fate the night she chose another. Written it in ink made from her tears and ash. He had cursed all her bloodline to burn if they ever loved freely again.
But the flame refused to obey.
> "He wrote it in fear," Arien said. "Not truth. That's why it breaks."
> "Because love isn't afraid," Lysia whispered.
The fire flared, and they both fell back, gasping as searing light exploded into the chamber.
When it cleared, a figure stood before them—half-flame, half-flesh. Her eyes glowed with sorrow.
> "I am the Queen of Fire," the spirit said. "My name was erased, but my story remained."
> "You were cursed."
> "No," the Queen said. "I was *rewritten*. But flame remembers. And now, so must you."
---
She lifted a hand, and from her palm rose a fire-script only Lysia could read. Words etched into her blood.
> "You carry my memory," the Queen told her. "You are the last to hold the full tongue."
> "What do I do with it?"
> "Speak it. Not just with mouth—with fire. With choice. With love."
---
Suddenly, the fire began to ripple violently.
A new force entered.
Black flames coiled in the air like serpents.
The Archivist's shadow.
> "You meddle with stories that don't belong to you," his voice boomed.
> "They were never yours to begin with," Lysia snapped.
The shadow lunged.
Arien stood in front of her, sword drawn.
The Queen of Fire raised her arms. "Let the girl speak the flame."
---
Lysia stepped forward. She opened her palm. The fire-script burned into her skin, wrapping around her arm.
She screamed—but not from pain.
From *release*.
Words spilled from her lips in a language no mortal had spoken in a thousand years. The tongue of fire. The voice of the First Flame.
> "You rewrote our names."
> "You tried to silence our pain."
> "But flame does not forget. Flame writes truth."
> "And I am the truth you tried to erase."
The shadow screamed and cracked. The black flames dissolved, leaving ash that could no longer bind.
---
Arien caught her as she stumbled.
> "You just spoke the world awake."
> "I just reminded it who we are."
The Queen of Fire faded, leaving behind a single burning feather.
> "Take it," she whispered. "When the war comes, you will need to write your own ending."
---
Later that night, around the Eternal Pyre, Lysia taught the Flamebound the fire-script. One by one, they branded its words into their blades, their banners, their breath.
They didn't just prepare for battle.
They prepared to tell the world their story. In a language no curse could silence.
Because fire no longer burned to destroy.
It burned to remember.
And now, it spoke in tongues.