The Girl in the Flames

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The forest beyond the ruins was colder than it had any right to be.

Mist clung to the ground like breath that refused to leave. Every branch cracked louder than it should've. Every birdcall felt like a warning that came too late.

Riven walked ahead of the others, the sentinel's last words still echoing in his head.

Find the girl… before they seal her…

Liora followed close behind, cross-checking half-burnt scrolls and reconstructed arcane trails from the ruins' archives. Beside her, Lyssa moved in silence, her power tightly wound, skin humming with residual magic.

Kael trailed at the rear, swords ready, scanning the treeline.

The path twisted as the hours passed, leading them down into a ravine choked with fog and shadowroot vines. The trees leaned too close here. The sky seemed farther away.

"Here," Liora said suddenly, stopping at a bend. "There's residual sigil flux—strong. Someone used blood-forging magic here in the last twenty-four hours."

Kael wrinkled his nose. "You can smell it?"

"I can feel it," she said.

They pushed forward until the ravine widened into a ruined stone clearing. Scattered pillars jutted out like teeth. At the center stood a half-collapsed shrine with bloodstains soaked into the altar.

And at its base—a sigil.

Fresh.

Incomplete.

"It's the same symbol from the sentinel," Riven said, crouching. "They're not done yet."

Kael examined the surroundings. "Tracks. A lot of them. And… someone was dragged."

"North," Liora confirmed. "They're still moving her."

Lyssa stepped closer. "Why not finish the ritual here?"

Riven's gaze narrowed. "Because she resisted. She fought back. Whatever they're trying to seal into her—it's not stable yet."

Kael clicked his tongue. "So we've got a hostage, a living Seal, and a half-finished ritual being dragged through cursed terrain."

"Standard day," Lyssa muttered.

Riven stood. "We find them. We stop it. No matter what."

---

The trail led them north through a patch of dead forest.

No birds. No wind. Only silence.

Then—movement.

A blade flashed out from the trees. Riven parried just in time.

Mercenaries. Three of them. Not Eclipse cultists—worse.

Hollowbound.

Magically leashed killers paid in soulcraft—mercenaries whose memories had been sliced and rebuilt to serve blindly, endlessly.

Kael swore as one lunged at him. "Hollowbound! They don't feel pain!"

"I noticed," Riven growled, stepping inside the strike and snapping the attacker's wrist before slamming his pommel into the man's temple.

The Hollowbound went down—but didn't stay down.

His body twisted mid-fall, jerking unnaturally, and flung a spell from his palm—a black pulse of void energy.

Riven caught it on his blade, redirecting it with a channel of wind.

Lyssa moved next, melting into shadow, then reappearing behind another mercenary and driving her flame-wrapped elbow into his spine.

Liora protected their flank, raising a rune barrier to block incoming blasts from the treeline.

Kael danced with his opponent, fast and brutal. But something was wrong.

The Hollowbound weren't fighting to win.

They were stalling.

Riven saw it too late.

A flare of energy burst northward—far ahead of them.

"They're finishing the ritual," he shouted. "We're being delayed!"

He broke from the fight, bolting into the trees. Kael followed a heartbeat later. Lyssa vanished into shadow again and reappeared beside Riven, running in sync.

They burst into a clearing—

Just in time to see her.

The girl.

Chained to a slab of obsidian, her eyes wide and glowing. Her body pulsed with wild, uncontrolled magic—fire and frost, light and shadow rippling out of her in erratic waves.

She couldn't have been older than fourteen.

And she was screaming.

Around her, three cloaked figures stood in a triangle, arms raised, chanting.

The Seal—no longer just carved into stone—was branded onto her chest, pulsing with light.

Riven didn't wait.

He dove into the center.

His blade cut clean through the first cultist's focus crystal before the man could finish the incantation. The second turned too late—Lyssa's flames consumed his robes before he got a word out.

The third completed his spell—but Kael's throwing knife silenced him a second later.

The light around the girl swelled—then burst outward in a shockwave.

Everyone was flung back.

Riven hit the dirt hard, skidding near the base of a tree. His ears rang. The world spun.

He forced himself up.

The girl was still chained—but the Seal on her chest flickered.

Fading.

Unstable.

She looked at him. Her voice was a whisper, but it echoed through the clearing.

"Kill me… before it finishes."

Riven froze.

His blade trembled in his grip.

The others stood back—watching, waiting.

The girl wept silently, body wracked with magical spasms. "They said I was chosen. They burned it into me. I don't want it. I don't want to be this…"

She looked up. "Please…"

But Riven saw something else.

Not just pain.

Not just fear.

Will.

"You're not done," he said quietly. "And neither am I."

He reached for her—not with his sword, but with his Seal.

He poured his mana into hers. Risked everything.

A blinding surge of backlash hit him like a wave. Her magic bucked, twisted, resisted—but he held on.

And slowly… the Seal began to crack.

Not from pain.

From refusal.

And then—it shattered.

The obsidian beneath her crumbled. The chains broke. And the girl collapsed into his arms, unconscious but breathing.

The others rushed in.

Kael knelt beside them. "You stopped it."

"No," Riven said, voice hoarse. "She did."

Lyssa stood still, looking at the broken Seal rune.

Liora's voice was quiet. "This was their test. They didn't want her. They wanted to see if one of us would finish the ritual when pushed."

Kael looked at Riven. "And if you had?"

Riven didn't answer.

He just looked at the girl.

Then at the mountains ahead.

And knew the war was shifting.

------

Then at the mountains ahead.

And knew the war was shifting.

The wind stirred the edges of his cloak as Riven knelt beside the girl, who now lay still but no longer writhing. Her chest rose and fell in uneven breaths, and the sigil—the Seal they tried to forge into her—was gone. In its place, faint scarring shaped like fractured runes shimmered like faint burns.

"She's stable," Liora said after laying a hand gently over the girl's brow. "Barely. But there's… something inside her magic. It's layered. Like someone wove a cage out of her own mana and then shattered it mid-construction."

"She held it back," Lyssa murmured, arms folded. Her voice was quiet but heavy. "That kind of resistance from someone her age… She was fighting them long before we ever got here."

Kael ran a hand through his hair, then scowled at the shattered ritual stones surrounding them. "And they would've let her die, just to see if we'd finish the job for them."

Riven stared down at the unconscious girl. "They're not forging Seals anymore. They're forging monsters. Or… weapons."

"They're testing you," Liora added softly. "All of us. Seeing what we'll break for. Who we'll choose to sacrifice when it's not clear-cut."

Lyssa looked away. "And one day, we'll make the wrong call."

Riven didn't answer that.

Instead, he rose slowly, lifted the girl gently into his arms, and turned toward the path they came from.

"We bring her back to the ruins," he said. "Liora—you said something's inside her magic. When she wakes up, I want you there."

Liora nodded. "There's something fractured in her flow. Not evil… but familiar. Almost like your Seal's signature."

Riven's jaw clenched.

He'd suspected it the moment the mirror shattered.

There was a connection forming. Between the Seals. Between him and whatever was buried beneath this war. And it wasn't just legacy anymore.

It was choice.

---

By the time they returned to the sanctuary of the ruins, the wind had shifted.

The sigils etched beneath the old sanctum had dimmed again. The glow that had stirred in the academy's bones after Lyssa unlocked her Seal was gone.

Like the world itself was holding its breath.

They laid the girl inside one of the preserved tower halls—on the only cot not yet claimed by training bruises and sleepless nights. Liora worked quietly, drawing faint stabilization runes on the edges of the sheets. Lyssa stayed nearby, watching.

Riven stood by the window, eyes on the distant hills.

Kael entered, wiping blood from a long cut on his shoulder.

"You didn't kill her," he said. "You could've. You didn't."

Riven didn't turn. "She didn't ask for any of this."

Kael folded his arms. "Neither did you."

Riven said nothing for a moment. Then:

"Would you have done it?"

Kael exhaled slowly. "I don't know. Maybe. Depends on the stakes. Depends on who else was on the line."

"And that's the problem," Riven whispered. "We're all being pushed to that edge. Sooner or later, one of us will fall."

Kael looked over at the girl. "Let's make sure she doesn't have to."

---

That night, Riven didn't sleep.

He sat beside the girl, studying the faint rune-burn scars across her chest.

Just after midnight, she stirred.

Her eyes blinked open—glowing faintly. She gasped, trying to sit up, and Riven gently steadied her.

"You're safe," he said. "We stopped the ritual."

She looked at him, confused. Disoriented.

Then whispered, "You… were in the memory. In the fire."

Riven's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

She closed her eyes, shaking. "When they chained me… they poured visions into my mind. Not dreams. Not illusions. Memories. But they weren't all mine."

Riven felt the weight of her words settle in his chest like a stone.

"They showed me a city," she continued. "A Vault hidden beneath red stone. A name I couldn't pronounce. A gate sealed by a bloodline… yours."

Riven stood.

"Where is it?"

She pointed east. "Beyond the Ebon Heights. Past the forest of bones. The gate whispers your name."

Riven stared into the shadows, jaw tight.

Another Vault. Another forgotten piece of the Sealed Order's long game.

And now he knew for sure: they weren't just hunting Seals.

They were awakening them.

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