The temple walls trembled again—dust rained from the ceiling, and the braziers flickered as if in fear.
"They're here," Eren muttered, drawing a slender twin-bladed glaive from beneath his cloak. "Sentinels of the Dread Flame. Soulless warriors. They won't stop until the Mark is snuffed out."
Kael stepped forward, his sword already drawn. Lyra stood beside him, daggers shimmering in both hands.
A thunderous crack split the air as the front doors exploded inward. Smoke poured in. And from it, they emerged—clad in black flame armor, faceless and silent.
Six of them.
Kael's heart pounded. "Can we hold them?"
Eren didn't answer. He moved.
Faster than Kael could blink, Eren launched forward, his glaive spinning like a flame-dancer's ribbon. The first Sentinel didn't even raise a blade before it was cleaved in two. But more poured in—ten, then twelve.
"Kael!" Lyra shouted. "Now would be a great time to unlock whatever ancient power you're hiding!"
Kael growled, his Mark burning against his arm. One of the Sentinels lunged, blade aimed for his throat—but Kael met it, metal against metal, and this time—the Mark flared.
WHOOOSH!
A blast of blue flame surged from Kael's body, sending the Sentinel flying backward into a crumbling pillar. Kael stared at his hands in disbelief as embers flickered off his skin like stars.
"What was that?" he gasped.
Eren parried a blow, turning slightly. "The Flame remembers. You're beginning to tap into it."
Kael swallowed hard. "Then how do I control it?"
"You don't control fire," Eren said. "You become it."
The battle raged.
Kael fought beside Lyra now—back to back, the way they had learned. She was fast, sharp, lethal. He was raw, but powerful—his strikes fueled by instinct and bursts of memory-fueled fire. The Mark glowed brighter with each heartbeat.
A Sentinel charged him—and suddenly Kael saw more than the fight.
He saw the battlefield of a forgotten war, saw his past self—a man in a crown of burning gold, wielding a blade shaped like light itself.
The flame inside him surged.
Kael raised his sword—and the fire formed a second blade along its edge. When he swung, the Sentinel was obliterated in a flash of light and ash.
Silence fell.
The last of the Sentinels crumbled to dust, the smoke thinning.
Eren lowered his weapon. "You're awakening, Kael. The First Flame didn't choose wrong."
Kael collapsed to his knees, panting. "This power... it's like it's alive."
"It is," Eren said, kneeling beside him. "You carry the flame's memory. And it carries you."
Lyra crouched next to them, wiping blood from her cheek. "So what now?"
Eren looked toward the far wall. A hidden door had cracked open from the energy of the Mark. Beyond it lay stairs—leading deeper into the mountain.
"We follow the fire," he said. "And Kael begins his real training."
.....
.....
The air in the lower chamber was thick—like breathing smoke without fire. Kael stood at the center of a circular room carved with glowing runes. Torches lit themselves as he stepped in, casting flickering shadows across the stone walls.
"This is where the old Flamebearers trained," Eren said, his voice echoing. "It's where you'll begin to master the flame, or be consumed by it."
Kael didn't respond. His fingers still tingled from the last fight. The Mark on his forearm pulsed with a low heat, as if whispering.
"I can feel it," Kael said softly. "It wants to burn everything."
"That's not power," Eren replied. "That's memory. Every bearer left a piece of themselves in the Mark. You carry centuries of fire and pain—and if you let it control you, it'll destroy you."
Lyra leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. "Encouraging."
Kael smirked faintly but stepped forward, nodding. "Then let's start."
Hours turned into days in the sacred chamber.
Eren pushed Kael to the edge—mentally and physically. He forced him to channel flame without rage, to call fire not from hate, but focus. When Kael lost control, the chamber's runes burned hot and red. When he succeeded, they pulsed gold.
Each time Kael opened his mind to the Mark, flashes came:
A city turned to ash.
A girl with golden eyes smiling at him—then fading into flame.
The same sigil repeated across each vision: a shattered sun eclipsed by a crown of thorns.
"What is that symbol?" Kael asked one evening.
Eren didn't answer immediately.
"That is the mark of the Black Flame King. He was the last to wield the corrupted flame... and the one who broke the world."
Far away, in a land choked by smoke and shadows, he stirred.
In a throne room made of obsidian and bone, a cloaked figure stood before a massive black flame that swirled unnaturally, whispering voices trapped in its fire.
"My lord," the figure said. "The Mark has awakened."
From the flame stepped a towering man—his body wreathed in flickering darkness, a crown of thorns burned into his flesh. His eyes glowed with a sickly red light.
"The boy… lives."
His voice was like a blade sliding through stone.
"And with him… hope."
The Black Flame King raised one hand, and flames black as night curled around his fingers.
"Then we must burn that hope before it grows."
Back in the temple, Kael stood tall. He summoned fire to his hands—clean, blue, controlled.
Eren gave a rare smile. "You're ready for the next step."
Kael turned to Lyra. "Then let's find what's left of the Flamebearers."
"And stop whoever's hunting us," she added.
But as they climbed back toward the temple's surface, neither of them noticed the final torch dim behind them…
And the shadow it cast moved on its own.