Chapter 15: A City Beneath the Ash

The days passed like smoke—fast and hard to hold.

Ashen trained from dawn to dusk under Kael's brutal guidance. He learned to summon fire with intent, to shape it into shields and spears, to burn without losing control. But he also learned something more important:

That the flame listened.

Not to commands, but to purpose.

Still, beneath the discipline, there was tension in the air. Whispers moved through Solmere like cracks in dry stone.

Something was wrong.

---

One evening, after training, Ravel found Ashen sitting on the edge of a rooftop near the Emberlight Hall. The city below shimmered in the heat of its own machines.

Ravel sat beside him in silence for a while, then spoke.

"You ever heard of the city below Solmere?" he asked.

Ashen frowned. "Below?"

"Yeah," Ravel said. "There's a ruin beneath this mountain. Older than Solmere. Older than even the Emberlight Council."

Ashen turned to him. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because something's moving down there. Something… old. And the council is pretending it doesn't exist."

---

That night, Ashen couldn't sleep.

He kept thinking about the voice in his dreams. The one that talked about ruin. About burning what was already dead.

He rose quietly and slipped out of his quarters. His footsteps echoed through the stone halls until he reached a sealed door guarded by an emblem of fire.

The flame-shaped symbol on the door glowed faintly as he raised his gauntlet.

To his surprise, it responded. The door rumbled open, revealing a narrow spiral staircase descending into darkness.

He hesitated.

Then stepped through.

---

The descent was long.

Cold replaced heat. Dust replaced steam. And the air grew heavier with each step.

Finally, he emerged into a vast cavern—lit only by the glow of ancient symbols carved into obsidian walls. Crumbled structures jutted from the ground like broken teeth. He had reached it:

The City Beneath the Ash.

And something… moved.

Ashen crouched, his instincts flaring. The gauntlet pulsed, reacting to something nearby. Then a voice echoed through the chamber—not a whisper, not a roar.

But a song.

A deep, hollow hymn sung in a language he didn't understand. It came from everywhere. And nowhere.

From the shadows stepped a figure—tall, draped in tattered robes, its eyes burning with dim orange light.

"You carry what was never meant to be found," it said. "The Last Flame. The Final Ember."

Ashen stepped back. "Who are you?"

The figure tilted its head.

"I am the memory of fire. The echo of what came before. And I've waited a long time… for someone like you."