"Fire has no true name. Because it once had one… and that name was stolen."
— The Scorched Codex of Veyr-Haal, locked beneath thirteen tongues
I.
The sea boiled.
But not with heat.
With memory.
The Hollow churned with thoughts not spoken in millennia — old oaths, forbidden syllables, languages not learned but remembered through pain.
And in the eye of the storm, aboard the Emberfang, Reginal knelt on the deck — hands trembling, breath ragged, the ghost of the corpse-throne still burning in his mind.
Kammy stood guard, blades drawn.
Milo crouched, sniffing the wind like a hound catching something ancient.
Then it came.
A voice.
From beneath the water.
From inside their bones.
II.
It did not speak words.
It spoke fire itself.
And fire… obeyed.
The sails of the ship caught flame — not consuming, but illuminating. Symbols etched in forgotten alphabets danced across the fabric.
Kammy dropped her blades.
They floated.
Milo's bloodhowl tattoos sang.
And Reginal… began to remember things that never happened to him.
A tower of black stone built in a world that no longer exists.
A god who named the first flame — and cursed it to forget its name.
A war where fire betrayed itself to serve kings instead of chaos.
The voice took shape — not as a form, but as a presence:
The Nameless Flame.
The origin of fire.
The will behind every war, rebellion, and heartbeat ever born in heat.
It spoke one sentence.
"You carry my name, Fangborn… but you have not earned it."
III.
The sky cracked.
The Hollow Sea parted.
And from the depths rose a creature that shouldn't exist — not beast, not god, not machine — but a storm wearing a crown of broken suns.
It had no face. Only a void of shifting flame.
Every sailor went blind.
Kammy shielded Reginal with her body.
But the Nameless Flame was not here to destroy.
It was here to test.
IV.
The ship disappeared.
Not wrecked — removed from the world.
Reginal now stood in a plain of cinders beneath a red sky, alone.
Before him stood every version of himself that could have been:
The child who starved in silence.
The tyrant who killed Milo for power.
The king who abandoned Kammy to save a city.
The god who watched the world burn and laughed.
Each one drew a blade.
Each one attacked.
V.
He fought them all.
Not with power.
But with choice.
Every time he struck, he chose not to become what they were.
Not the coward. Not the conqueror.
Not the king of ash.
At the end, only one remained:
A version of him crowned in gold, loved by the world, unscarred.
"They will love you if you kill your fire," it whispered.
"They already fear me," Reginal replied.
"That's more honest."
And he drove Velkrath through its chest.
VI.
The Nameless Flame laughed.
Not cruelly.
But relieved.
"You are the first to remember…
that fire is not born to serve."
"Take your name, Ashveil."
"You are now the one who names the flame."
A crown of living ember formed in the air.
It did not touch his head.
It hovered above it, like it knew he didn't kneel to anything — not even fire itself.
VII.
Reginal awoke on the ship.
The Hollow Sea was still.
Kammy was crying.
Milo was praying for the first time in his life.
Reginal stood.
And where he walked, the wood of the ship burned just enough to remember.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Next: Chapter XIV – "The Dragon Who Forgot His Name"
In the ancient mountain range of Yr'Thalos, a dragon stirs — not out of hunger, but recognition. For the first time in a thousand years, he smells a king he might kneel to… or destroy.