The Ashbringer stood at the edge of the sanctuary, his staff trembling in his grasp. For the first time since they had seen him descend like flame from the ruined sky, he *hesitated*.
Elara stepped forward again, the Heart blazing in her hands like a second sun. The pulsing wasn't random anymore—it was rhythmic, *deliberate,* like a voice trapped in light, beating from deep within.
"There's still a part of him inside," she said, more to the Heart than to the others.
Rin's hand moved subtly to the hilt of his knife. "You think he can be reached?"
"I think," Elara replied, "he's trying not to be."
The Ashbringer's mask tilted slightly, as though he had heard them—but his fire did not advance.
Sira didn't lower her blades. "He slaughtered the Circle of Stone. Burned the Moonvale Library. Don't mistake stillness for peace."
But Rin, silent until now, stepped forward too, eyes narrowed.
"Your name," he said, not asking, but *remembering*. "It wasn't always Ashbringer."
The flames faltered. Not gone—but flickering, as if unsure of themselves.
Elara pressed on. "The Heart remembers you. It doesn't *fear* you. It *grieves* for you."
The staff in the Ashbringer's hand sank slightly.
The sky above cracked with distant thunder—no stormcloud, but something deeper. Elsewhere was pressing through the seams of this world.
"You were a Keeper once," Rin said. "Before the fall. Before the Gate."
"And you were called Kael," Elara whispered. "Weren't you?"
The name echoed strangely in the grove.
The Ashbringer froze.
The silver mask split down the center—not a break, but a *release*. Behind it, only shadow\... but the fire at his feet turned from crimson to blue.
"I was Kael," he said. "But Kael died with the last door we closed. The others—your mentors, your elders—left me in the fire and called it a sacrifice."
His voice shook, raw now. Human.
"But *you*," he said, turning to Elara, "you bring that fire back. You carry what should have been buried. And now you offer it to me—as if I have not bled enough for it."
"I'm not offering it," Elara said. "I'm *protecting* it. From what you've become."
For a long moment, the flames circled them, caught in a silent battle between history and memory.
Then the Heart flared again—this time projecting something.
An image: A younger Kael. Laughing with the other Keepers. Reading by moonlight. Holding the Heart—not as a weapon, but as a light in the dark.
The projection flickered... and then faded.
The Ashbringer staggered.
He dropped the staff.
And from behind him, the forest caught fire—not from him, but from something *else*.
Another presence.
From the broken branches above came a voice colder than frostbite and older than fire.
"You've grown soft, Kael. Let me remind you what you are."
A woman in a dress of ash and thorn stepped into the clearing, her eyes pitch-black and her hands glowing with voidlight.
Rin swore under his breath. "The Hollow Queen."
The Ashbringer didn't turn.
He just whispered, "Run."
But Elara stood her ground, Heart burning bright. "We're not running anymore."