The Seventh Flame

The air tasted of iron and frost.

Ash sat against a rock, breath fogging in the cold morning wind. His spell had cost him, and though the ember still flickered within, it felt... thinner now. Worn.

Across from him, Luin stared into the canopy, expression unreadable.

The others had begun to move, Ren scouting the ridge, Nia sketching a containment circle around their makeshift hideout, Kael quietly sharpening two blades at once.

Only Luin remained utterly still.

Finally, Ash broke the silence. "You remembered anything else?"

Luin's irises shimmered—not blue, not gray, but a stormy blend of silver and green.

"I remember fire," he said. "A room filled with voices. I was held down. Chained. Not physically. With words. Oaths."

Ash leaned forward. "What kind of oaths?"

Luin turned toward him, slowly. "The kind you die to break."

Wanderers in the Wildlands

The forest surrounding the Cradle, known only as the Mirewood, was supposed to be impassable.

Its paths warped. Creatures whispered in unvoiced language. It had been used for centuries to keep the Cradle safe from intrusion, or escape.

But Ash's group weren't normal students.

They were fire-touched.

Bound by something older than the Cradle itself.

And now, they were on the run.

"We'll make for the Bastion Ruins," Nia said as they trekked along a crumbling path marked by broken columns and half-buried bones. "There's a safehouse, an old rebel hideout from the War of Shards. Sealed to Root tracers. We can rest there."

"How far?" Kael asked.

"Three hours if we don't stop. Five if the forest turns again."

Ren, who had been quiet since morning, finally spoke. "It's already turning. I felt it. The trees are listening."

Ash frowned. "To what?"

Luin's voice was almost a whisper. "To her."

They all stopped.

Nia narrowed her eyes. "You mean the Cradle?"

"No," Luin said. "The Seventh."

Meanwhile – Temple of Ice and Mirrors

The girl named Iskra stood barefoot in a chamber that shouldn't have existed.

Carved from obsidian ice, its walls shimmered with illusions, alternate realities looping like film reels, showing moments that never were. In one, she sat beside Ash at a feast. In another, Kael bled out on a battlefield, staring at her with betrayed eyes.

And in all of them, Luin stood with his back turned.

Refusing to look at her.

She moved toward the center of the room, drawn by instinct.

An altar stood there.

On it: six names carved into stone.

Ashen Vale

Nia Featherburn

Kael Rivers

Ren of the Hollow Wind

Luin

Her fingers touched the blank space.

It burned into place.

7. Iskra, the Mirrorborn

She flinched. "I don't want this."

A voice from the darkness: "But you are this."

A figure emerged. Cloaked. Rootless. Wearing a mask of polished bone.

"Seven sparks rekindle the Spiral. If you do not stop them, the Cycle begins anew. The world burns again."

Iskra clenched her fists. "Then I'll stop them."

Back in the Mirewood

Nia led the way through narrow gullies, across hidden runes carved into the forest floor. Luin walked now, slower than the rest, but gaining strength with every hour.

Ash kept an eye on him.

He wasn't sure what scared him more—the fact that Luin had been erased from the Cradle's memory, or the fact that his power felt limitless... but tightly bound, like a god sealed in wax.

They reached the edge of the ruins by dusk.

A shattered tower jutted from the trees like a broken fang. Vines wrapped it. Ancient sigils still pulsed faintly along the base.

"This place looks cursed," Kael muttered.

"It is," Nia replied. "But it hates the Cradle more than it hates us."

Ren cracked a smile. "A shared enemy. How poetic."

They entered.

Inside the Bastion

The interior was colder than the forest. Not physically—spiritually. Ash could feel the weight of old memory pressing into his bones.

"This used to be a library," Nia said. "Now it's a shelter. The Root can't track inside these walls."

Ash helped Luin to one of the benches. "You'll be safe here. For now."

Luin looked around slowly. "This place is familiar."

Kael raised an eyebrow. "You lived here?"

Luin shook his head. "I died here."

Everyone went still.

He continued, voice distant. "During the last Spiral. This was where we made our last stand."

Ash felt his throat go dry. "What do you mean, last Spiral?"

Luin met his eyes. "This has happened before. The six of us. The Seventh. The Cradle. The war."

Nia sat down slowly, brows furrowed. "That's impossible. There are no records."

"There wouldn't be," Luin said. "Because we lost."

A Memory Reclaimed

Ash saw the ember flicker again.

The world shifted.

He was no longer in the Bastion.

He stood in a field of burning silver grass. Above, the sky twisted with stars and screaming light. Towers fell like dominoes. Flames devoured cities.

In the center: six figures, backs to each other.

Facing off against a seventh, cloaked in mirrors, holding a blade of ice and light.

She spoke with a voice that echoed through Ash's soul:

"You were supposed to protect the world."

And Ash—himself, yet not—replied:

"We failed. But we won't let you reshape it."

The Seventh raised her blade.

"Then die with it."

The vision snapped.

Ash staggered.

Kael caught him. "Ash—!"

"I saw it," Ash gasped. "Us. Before. Fighting her. The world burning."

Luin nodded. "That was the end of the last Cycle."

"And we lost?" Ren asked.

"No," Luin said. "We broke the Cycle. But breaking it shattered us. Scattered our memory. We were sealed into rebirth."

Nia whispered, "Until now."

Nightfall – The First Attack

They didn't get to rest.

The attack came just after midnight.

Wraiths. Cradle-forged. Shaped like shadows, wearing the faces of students. Programmed to retrieve, not kill—but they didn't feel pain, didn't stop.

Kael met the first with steel.

His blade passed through the wraith, but the force scattered it for a moment, long enough for Nia to cast a trap glyph that rooted it in place.

Ren's wind howled, creating a pressure wave that knocked three more into the walls.

Ash ignited the ember.

But Luin stepped forward.

"No," he said. "Let me."

He raised both hands.

The space around him warped.

And then, a pillar of pure, unformed Root exploded outward, disintegrating every wraith in a 10-meter radius. The magic didn't resemble any known spell. It was raw intention, shaped by memory, forged by pain.

Ash stared, stunned.

"That was…" Kael shook his head. "Not human."

Luin collapsed.

Ash rushed forward. "Are you alright?"

"I'm not stable yet," Luin murmured. "But I'm waking."

Nia helped him up. "We need to move again. If they found us here, they'll find us anywhere."

Ash nodded, tightening his fist. "Then we find the last one before she does."

Far North – Iskra's Mission

Iskra walked barefoot across a glacier that hadn't seen sunlight in a century.

The voice echoed beside her, though she was alone.

"They will come for the Eighth."

"I thought there were seven."

"Always more than memory allows."

She stared at her reflection in a broken shard of ice.

"I won't let them repeat the mistake."

"Then burn them first."

The Spiral turns again.

Seven sparks awaken.

And somewhere, beyond history and flame, an Eighth stirs in silence.