The mountain did not sleep. Not truly. Beneath its roots, ancient heat stirred—a slow, rumbling throb like a heart half-awake. And as Lira ascended from the Soulfire chamber, the rhythm of that subterranean pulse echoed inside her ribs. Each step away from the trial left a burn that was more than just memory. It was power. It was decision.
They walked in silence. Eris ahead, her steps brisk. Kael beside her, shoulders tight. Arion followed, gaze unreadable. No one spoke of what had happened. Not yet. But the air between them crackled like kindling before flame.
It wasn't until they reached the upper sanctum that Arion finally stopped.
"She rewrote the trial," he said, voice low, more to himself than the others. "That hasn't happened since the Sundering."
Lira turned. "Was I not supposed to?"
"You weren't supposed to survive it that way."
Eris leaned against the archway. "She didn't just survive. She reframed the law. You know what that means."
"Others will see it as rebellion."
"Or prophecy," Kael said quietly.
The word hung there. Heavy. Daring.
Lira didn't deny it. Couldn't. The fire in her veins pulsed hotter now. Not wild. Not reckless. Focused.
The Emberwake was not a place. It was a rite.
On the seventh night after Soulfire, Lira stood atop the black spire of the Ember Fortress, robed in threads woven from ash-silk and emberglass. Below her, the gathered Orders formed a sea of glinting armor, banners lifted in the molten wind. All had come to see if the flame would claim her. Or consume her.
Kael stood at her right. Eris at her left. She wore no crown. Bore no blade. Only the pendant that had begun to pulse like a second heart.
Arion raised his staff.
"Step forward, Flameborn."
Lira obeyed.
A great brazier stood at the spire's center. Cold now. Waiting. She approached it, unflinching.
The sky roared. Not thunder. Something deeper. A rumble that split clouds.
A spark dropped from the heavens. Fire struck the brazier like a falling star. It erupted—not red, not gold, but white flame, pure and searing.
Lira stepped into it.
The fire did not burn. It peeled.
Layer by layer, illusion melted. Fear cracked and fell away. Doubt shriveled. Pain bled out. What remained was her—bare, radiant, raw.
Visions cascaded:
A city in ruin. A god in chains. Her own hands lighting the sky with justice. Her voice calling armies. Her love, split between two, anchoring her to herself.
The flame reached her core.
And from that center came a voice. Not divine. Not foreign.
Hers.
"I am the fire that remembers. I am the will that chooses. I am not your weapon. I am not your queen. I am the one who wakes."
The fire flared. Then vanished.
Lira stood in silence.
No ash. No scorch.
Only light.
The Orders bowed.
One by one. Without command. Without precedent.
Kael exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Eris looked away, her jaw clenched, eyes glassed.
Arion knelt.
And in the highest vault of the gods, a mirror cracked.
"She remembers," one god whispered.
Another replied, with venom and fear:
"Then we must make her forget."
Far below, unaware of the divine eyes sharpening, Lira turned to face the world.
The Emberwake had answered.
And the war was coming.