The Fire That Was Forgotten

Virelya: The Threshold Below

The staircase wound downward beneath the Temple of Origin, cut from obsidian shot through with veins of soft gold that pulsed faintly under Aldric's touch. This was no ordinary descent—it was a spiral into the memory of the city itself, into a place even Maerlyn had only ever spoken of in half-truths.

The Vault of the Twin Flame.

"I've never been down this far," Rowena whispered, her voice barely more than breath. Magic clung to the air—dry and waiting, like a lantern unlit for centuries.

Aldric led them, hand outstretched, the warmth in his palm guiding them like a compass.

"The city remembers," he murmured. "This place was carved by the first Dreamers. When the flame first fell from the sky."

Kaelin moved quietly behind them, his blades sheathed but ready. The silence down here made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

After what felt like hours, the stairs ended in a vast obsidian arch.

Symbols glowed faintly along its frame—half-moon runes, markings of the Flameborn's original tongue. Aldric's breath caught as he read them aloud.

"Here lies the flame that turned its face from the stars."

He pressed his palm to the seal.

It answered.

With a soft exhale like the sigh of sleeping stone, the arch opened inward, revealing a cathedral carved into the earth, lit by floating motes of ancient fire. Vast pillars soared into the black, and in the center of it all was a cradle of charred stone, within which rested a dormant flame, barely flickering.

Rowena stepped forward.

"This is it."

Aldric stared at the flame. "The Forgotten Fire."

Kaelin frowned. "Is it alive?"

Rowena closed her eyes, listening. "It's dreaming."

And then the wind shifted.

A presence stirred in the darkness behind the flame.

The Flame's Memory

Aldric stepped forward, and as he did, the ground around the cradle changed.

Stone peeled back like pages of an old book. Images surfaced—shimmering phantoms of memory, not quite vision, not quite dream.

They saw a time before Virelya.

A city made of sky, floating above a sea of stars.

Twin flames born of a single comet—one to light the path, the other to guard the gate.

And two figures: one bathed in sunlight, the other cloaked in silver and sorrow.

Sister flames. One chosen. One hidden.

Then, war.

The Starlit Court falling from the heavens like knives. The Devourer crawling up from the Deep.

And in the final hour, the second flame was sealed beneath the earth, guarded by oaths and ash.

Rowena whispered, "They buried her."

"She chose it," Aldric murmured. "To protect the line that would come."

He turned back toward the cradle.

And from the shadows behind it, a voice spoke.

"You wear her light… but not her burden."

The Guardian of the Forgotten

The figure stepped forward—female, ethereal, cloaked in threads of smoldering moonlight.

She was not fully alive, and not entirely dead.

Her eyes glowed with ancient fire, and her voice was the crackle of dying stars.

"I am Elyrian," she said. "Last Warden of the Twin Flame."

Kaelin instinctively shifted toward Aldric, but the figure raised no weapon.

Rowena stepped forward. "We came seeking the other half of the flame."

"You did not come," Elyrian corrected. "You were called. And now you must choose."

Aldric squared his shoulders. "Choose what?"

The guardian tilted her head.

"To wake the Twin Flame is to awaken what she remembers. The wars. The betrayal. The reason she buried herself. If she rises again, so too will the First Betrayer."

Kaelin narrowed his eyes. "Who?"

Elyrian's gaze fell heavy on them.

"The one who forged the Devourer's crown. The one who taught the stars to bleed."

Rowena's breath hitched.

"You mean—?"

"Yes," Elyrian said. "The Silver King. The first of the Starlit Court. He is not dead. He is sealed… in the same dream where she sleeps."

Aldric turned to the cradle.

The flame pulsed once.

"Then we wake her," he said, voice iron and fire.

"She's waited long enough."

The Awakening

Elyrian stepped aside.

Rowena and Kaelin formed a triangle around the cradle.

Aldric reached forward, and the moment his fingers brushed the flame—

—light exploded outward.

Not harsh. Not wild.

Warm.

Terrible.

Beautiful.

The vault cracked.

Dreamfire surged through the walls.

In the heart of the flame, a shape stirred. Wings of light. A face carved from moonstone. Eyes opening after an age of sleep.

A being rose.

Not a god.

Not a monster.

But something older than both.

The Twin Flame.

She looked at Aldric, then Rowena.

And she wept.

"I remember you."

Above: The Devourer Stirs

Far above, in the blackened sky beyond Virelya's edge, something moved.

A ripple of void.

A shadow beyond shadows.

And the broken stars whispered:

"She wakes."

The Devourer turned its head.

And the final seal began to break.