CHAPTER FOURTEEN - In the House of Forgotten Flames

There are places memory dares not go.

Rooms locked inside the mind, sealed behind grief or mercy, or both.

To enter them is to risk being consumed by what was… and what can never be again.

Kael was willing.

He would walk through fire if it meant she'd see him again—not just the man in her halls, but the boy in her laughter, the storm in her heart.

---

The Dreambinder

Naima, for all her fury, still believed in Eira's soul.

"If you're sure," she said, eyes hard as hammered onyx, "we'll need a Dreambinder."

Kael blinked. "What's that?"

Naima knelt beside a cracked floor tile in her study and whispered something that made the walls tremble. A section of the floor fell away, revealing a glass orb held in twisted bronze—veins of gold running through it like living roots.

"A relic," she said. "Older than the empires. It lets one soul walk into another's dreaming."

Kael looked down at it, throat dry. "And if I fail?"

Naima stood. "You get lost. Or burned. Or worse—she forgets you twice."

Kael touched the orb.

And chose to risk it.

---

Eira's Mind

The dream took shape like slow ink in water.

Kael blinked into darkness at first… until he saw her.

She was running.

Down a corridor made of fire and wind and memories—flickering along the walls like half-remembered tapestries.

A flash of her laughing in the snow.

Another, of her curled in Kael's lap, reading aloud in the shade of a peach tree.

Then the night she almost died—when she screamed his name like a prayer and a curse.

She passed them all.

Didn't see them.

Didn't remember.

Kael chased her.

"Eira!"

She didn't turn.

---

The Memory Room

He found her at the edge of a sea.

The water was silver. The sky was black. And Eira stood barefoot on the shore, staring at a castle floating in the distance, upside down and shrouded in ash.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked, stepping beside her.

Eira didn't look at him. "It feels like everything I lost."

Kael's voice cracked. "It's us. It's every moment we had before the forge."

Finally, she looked at him.

And her eyes shimmered with something like mourning.

"Why does it hurt to hear your voice?"

Kael stepped closer, slowly. "Because your heart remembers me, even if your mind doesn't."

He took her hand.

And pressed it to his chest.

"Feel that?"

A heartbeat.

Her eyes widened.

"I know this," she whispered. "You. You were…"

"Yours," Kael said. "I was yours."

---

The Ripple

A single tear slid down Eira's cheek.

And the sea rippled.

The memory-castle began to fall upward—reversing, rewinding, pulling itself together.

She gasped, clutching her head.

"I remember…" she choked. "The peach orchard. The fire in the river… Kael… your eyes…"

He grabbed her as she swayed, fire flaring behind her eyes.

"Yes—yes, Eira—"

But her body tensed.

"No," she breathed. "Something's wrong."

And the sky split.

---

The Intruder

She wasn't alone in the dream anymore.

A shadow stepped onto the shore.

Tall. Cloaked in bone-white. And its face was…

Kael.

But not her Kael.

This one's eyes were black.

"Step away from her," the real Kael growled, shielding Eira.

The imposter tilted its head. Smiled.

"You gave up your soul to save hers," it said. "Would you do it again?"

Kael bared his teeth. "I don't trade with ghosts."

"Pity," it whispered. "Because she's already mine."

The shadow lunged.

Kael met it head-on.

Fists clashed. Sparks flew. And Eira—gasping, shaking—reached for the shattered castle above them and screamed.

The entire dreamscape ignited.

---

Waking

Kael bolted upright, choking on smoke that wasn't there.

Naima stood over him, face pale.

"You were gone for too long. I had to pull you out."

He gasped. "Eira?"

Naima stepped aside.

Eira sat across the room, cradling her head. Drenched in sweat. Breathing shallow.

But when her eyes met Kael's—really met them—they widened.

And she whispered, "Kael."

He crossed the room in three strides and dropped to his knees before her.

"You remember?"

Her fingers touched his cheek, reverent.

"I remember everything."

And then she kissed him.

Hard.

---

Elowen's Move

Far away, in the Queen's chambers carved from obsidian and hate, Elowen screamed.

The mirror shattered.

The tether—cut.

She turned to her generals.

"Kill them all."