The letter arrived in the middle of the night.
Soaked in rain. Torn at the edges. Written in a trembling, smudged hand.
Kael found it near the edge of the Emberwood, tied to the leg of a half-dead messenger hawk.
"It came through a storm," he said grimly, handing it to Ariya.
She unfolded the paper slowly. The ink bled in places, but the message was clear:
They attacked.Houses burned.We are hiding near the Vale.They asked for the girl with the fire.Please. If you're real. Come. Flamebearer. Help us.
Her hands shook slightly.
Lyra stepped closer, reading over her shoulder. "The Whispering Vale. That's hours east."
"No one should be there," Kael said. "It's cursed ground. Not even bandits camp there."
"Which is exactly why this feels like a trap," Lyra muttered.
"Still," Ariya whispered, voice heavy, "people are dying."
Jax scratched his head. "Sooo, let me get this straight. You wanna walk straight into ghost forest death-trap land because a soggy note asked nicely?"
"Yes," Ariya said without hesitation.
The debate that followed was long and loud.
Kael argued for strategy. Lyra worried about magic barriers. Jax voted for food first.
But Ariya's mind was already made.
"They called for me. Not some warrior. Not some rebellion leader. Me."
She held up the dagger — her mother's flame-wrought gift.
"If someone's using my name to draw me out, I'll answer it. But on my terms."
Kael studied her for a long moment. Then, finally, he nodded. "We do this together. As a team."
Lyra sighed. "I'll start packing. Jax, no more bombs."
"You hurt me with that assumption," Jax grinned, clearly hiding a bundle of explosives behind his back.
They left before dawn.
The Whispering Vale was a jagged stretch of forest wedged between old mountains — mist-covered, dark, and nearly silent. The trees grew in twisted arches. The ground was soft and wet. Birds refused to sing.
As they stepped deeper into the woods, the air thickened. Ariya's mark burned faintly, pulsing like it sensed something watching them.
"Anyone else feel like we're walking into a story that doesn't end well?" Jax whispered.
Kael didn't answer, but his hand never left his sword.
They moved carefully, sticking to old trails and broken paths, until they saw it—
Smoke.
Thin plumes rising above the trees.
The remains of a village sat ahead — houses blackened with ash, fences shattered. Someone had burned it recently.
And just beyond the ruins, a child's voice called out—
"You came."
Ariya rushed forward, finding a young girl curled beneath a collapsed beam. She was scratched and shaking, but alive.
"They said the Flamebearer would come," the girl whispered, tears streaming down her face. "You're real."
Ariya knelt beside her, flames dancing gently from her fingertips to warm the child's hands.
"We're here now," she said softly. "You're safe."
But in the trees above them, eyes watched.
High in a frost-covered tower, Ruvan leaned forward, watching through a shard of mirror.
She had come. Just like he knew she would.
"She's kind," he said quietly. "Soft in the right places."
His general bowed low behind him. "Shall we trigger the second phase?"
Ruvan smiled — slow, cold.
"No. Let her save them. Let her believe this is victory. Then… we break the illusion."
He stepped down from the dais, cloak sweeping behind him like mist.
"She deserves to feel hope before I shatter it."
Back in the Vale, Ariya stood in the ruins with soot on her cheeks, a fire-warmed child in her arms, and a storm gathering just beyond her reach.