They walked in silence for miles.
Even Kael, usually quick with a warning or grim insight, said nothing. Selene kept glancing at Aric as if she didn't recognize him—or perhaps feared she was beginning to.
The skies had returned to their sickly gray. The rift that had torn open with the stranger's appearance had long since vanished, but the scent of burnt ozone lingered. Something had changed, and not just in Aric.
He could feel the difference under his skin—an itch, a pulse, a rhythm that didn't follow his heartbeat. The power he'd unleashed in the last battle still crackled faintly in his blood, like embers waiting to ignite again.
But it wasn't his.
Not completely.
They reached the edge of a cliff overlooking the Vale of Echoes. Below, the once-green valley was a wasteland of broken trees and charred earth. Pools of obsidian glass dotted the terrain—places where fire had burned so hot it melted the ground. And at the valley's center: a monolith of black stone, rising like a jagged tooth.
Kael spoke first. "That's where the Third Flame sleeps."
Aric turned sharply. "How do you know?"
Kael didn't look at him. "Because I've been here before. A long time ago. And I barely got out alive."
Selene stepped forward, eyes narrowing at the monolith. "That thing down there… it's not natural."
"No," Kael said. "It's not."
Aric felt it calling to him. Not with words this time, but with memory—visions not his own: fire raining from a sky choked with screams, a lone figure standing in the center of it all, arms raised, as cities turned to ash.
He stumbled backward, clutching his head. Selene grabbed him. "Aric—"
"I'm fine," he lied.
But he wasn't.
The closer he got to that monolith, the more he remembered things that had never happened. Like the flames knew him. Like they were waiting.
Kael finally turned. "We shouldn't be here."
"I have to go," Aric said. "I need answers."
"What you need is control," Kael snapped. "You barely survived the Second Flame. The Third will burn away what's left of you."
"Then I'll burn," Aric said.
Selene's expression twisted. "We came to fight Malrik, not tear Aric apart piece by piece."
"Maybe that's the same thing," Kael muttered.
They camped that night on the cliff's edge. Aric sat apart from the others, staring at the monolith below, firelight flickering against his tense features. Selene approached quietly and sat beside him.
"You scare him," she said softly. "Kael. He sees what you're becoming and he's terrified it's something he'll have to stop."
"Do you feel the same?" Aric asked.
Selene hesitated. "I feel something breaking loose inside you. But no, I don't think I'll ever try to stop you."
"Why not?"
She smiled faintly. "Because I think whatever you become… you'll still choose us. In the end."
Aric looked back toward the monolith.
And deep within him, something stirred.
Not the throne. Not Malrik.
Something older.
Waiting.