Lyra’s Fire Begins to Speak Back
Setting: Surface Camp near Ghostwater Coast
Time: Just before sunriseStatus: Five Flames underwater. Lyra left above to recover.Alone? Not anymore.
The sun had not yet risen.
But Lyra felt warmth in her chest—too warm.
Like her flame was shifting,reaching for something not present.
She sat by the shoreline,watching the sea.
Then, without warning—
Her flame spoke.
Not in her mind.
Not in her soul.
But out loud.
"Lyra…you were meant to burn brighter than him.Why do you follow?"
Lyra froze.
She'd heard her flame before—flickers of instinct, warmth, comfort.
But never like this.Never with words that sounded like…
doubt.
"He holds judgment, silence, dream…but he cannot hold you."
"You are meant to lead, not follow.You are meant to blaze a path without a shadow behind you."
The Flame Within or the Flame Beyond?
Lyra clutched her chest.
Her flame flickered gold-red…but a thread of pale white coiled within.
Her voice trembled.
"Who are you… really?"
The answer came not in sound—but in a memory that wasn't hers.
A field of fire.A girl standing alone.Kael—older—kneeling before her.
"Burn me. It's the only way to save them."
And she did.
Lyra screamed.
The image faded.
She had never lived that moment.
But it felt like something real.
Infection Point: Pale Influence Detected
The Radiant Sovereignty Kael gave her had burned away the Sovereign Seed…
But not all of it.
A shard remained.
And that shard had grown teeth.
"I don't want to hurt him," Lyra whispered.
"Then don't.Just take the fire back.Be the flamebearer you were meant to be.Not someone carried…but someone feared."
Meanwhile: Kael Feels the Shift
Far beneath the ocean, in the depths of the dream temple,Kael falters during the exit ritual.
His link to Lyra wavers.He hears nothing.
But Aira does.
"She's shaking," Aira murmured."The flame inside her… is splitting."
Lyra's Choice
Standing alone, flame burning brighter than ever,Lyra feels her mind divide.
Two voices now:
One is hers, soft but unsure.
The other is her fire, bold, wild, ancient.
And in the distance, footsteps.
Someone is approaching from the woods.
Not Kael.
Someone who smells of ash and snow.
The first Pale Herald arrives.
"You've heard it now," the figure says."And soon… so will he."
He tosses her a blade made of flameglass.
"He saved you from burning once.What if that was the mistake?"
Lyra clutches the blade.
The fire inside her pulses.
And she hears it again:
"If you don't end him…he'll end you."