The climb shattered time itself. Each step Lira took up the obsidian stairs dragged her deeper into a realm that defied logic, a place beyond mortal comprehension. The atmosphere thinned until breathing felt like drawing air through crushed glass. With every heartbeat, the world twisted—light refracted, shadows deepened, and gravity spun in silent spirals. Time frayed. Sound died. She was alone, utterly and absolutely. Each stone step echoed with the weight of memories she didn't know she carried.
Kael had stayed at the base of the Skyvault. Arion too. Not because they lacked the strength, but because the call was not for them. The gods had summoned her. Their fear had shaped the path, had sealed the gateway. But what gods feared, they could not contain. Lira was no longer a creature of prophecy—she was an answer to a question the gods had dared to ask: What if fire refused to be tamed? What if flame remembered it was once a godkiller?
At the hundredth step, the universe bent. The sky turned itself inside out. What had been above became below. Stars spilled like blood from torn seams in the heavens, their light weeping down into the spiral of obsidian. The world unstitched at the seams, and still she climbed. Her bones hummed with pressure. Her veins burned with remembering.
She passed thrones—six in all. Sculpted of ash and ruin, each throne cracked, each empty. Their designs were vastly different: one jagged like a broken sword, another curved as though grown from bone. These were seats of ancient judgment, now long abandoned. From their ruins rose whispers, not in words but in shivers down her spine. Echoes of gods who had once shaped fate and fallen by their own hubris. The air stank of silence and power that had turned inward and devoured itself.
"Do you remember us?" asked one voice—ancient, female, filled with embers, heavy with disappointment.
"No," she answered truthfully. There was no fear in her voice, only clarity.
"You were one of us," the voice continued. "Before you chose the fire."
A form emerged, shaped from ash and drifting light. Tall and fierce, regal and furious, golden eyes framed by soot. Her presence echoed like forgotten thunder. She carried herself like ruin wearing a crown.
"You were not born of the world," the ash-figure said. "You were carved from its rebellion. You were the answer to a question we never dared ask. You were not meant to kneel."
"Then why was I made to forget?" Lira asked, stepping forward, fists clenched, jaw tight.
The figure faltered. "Because even gods can fear what they create."
And like that, the form broke apart, reduced to dust that spun in the timeless air. The ashes curled around her like a dying storm, whispering names that no longer mattered.
She turned from the ruin. One more step took her to the door—the final one. It wasn't made of stone or flame, but memory. Her own. Its surface pulsed with images: her mother consumed by fire, Arion crumbling under a blood-red sky, Kael walking away into endless dark. Every regret, every terror. It wasn't a barrier.
It was a test.
She reached forward and laid her hand upon it.
The door didn't open. It shattered.
The chamber beyond had no shape. No sun warmed it, no wind stirred it. It was a stillness older than gods, a void filled with pressure, waiting. Even her breath felt unwelcome here. The silence was heavy—not peaceful, but watchful, as if the space itself was holding judgment.
And in its center sat a throne—sculpted from emberglass, lined with veins of molten bone. It pulsed softly, like it breathed. It was beautiful and terrible. It called to something in her deeper than memory. It spoke in the voice of temptation.
A figure rested on that throne.
Not a god.
Her.
Or rather, a version of her. Fire-eyed, iron-voiced. A version of Lira that had never loved, never cried, never fallen. She rose now, a perfect echo. Her smile was the curve of a blade, her stare a burning question.
"So," said the other Lira, head cocked, eyes gleaming. "You made it after all."
"Is this the end?" Lira asked.
The echo smiled. "No. This is the decision. You can take the throne. Become what they fear. Absolute. Eternal. Alone. Or you can reject it. And become something new."
Lira stepped closer. Her hand hovered over the throne's armrest. She saw herself reflected in its surface—not just who she was, but who she might become. Fire didn't lie. It only revealed.
She remembered Kael's fierce loyalty. Arion's quiet guidance. Eris's broken truths. She remembered those who had bled for her, not for power—but for hope. She was more than this fire-forged image. More than wrath and flame. She was what followed destruction: renewal.
"I am not your echo," she said.
The other Lira smiled, not cruelly—but with relief. And vanished.
Lira turned. And she set the throne alight.
The fire erupted not in anger, but in will. It didn't destroy—it transfigured. The chamber cracked, the void split open, and light poured in. Not divine light, not borrowed flame—but human light. Born from defiance. Born from choice. It filled every crack, every scar. It rewrote what had been written in blood and smoke.
She wasn't claiming a seat. She was breaking the cycle. The flame didn't crown her. It released her.
Below, Kael looked up as the sky went gold, as the vault burned like a sun reborn. The light touched his face and he knew something had changed—not just in her, but in the world itself.
"She chose us," he whispered, and in his voice was awe.
And in their scattered, shattered halls, the gods—immortal, eternal, untouchable—felt something impossible:
They trembled.