The First Flame
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The tomb had no pulse. Yet the world around it began to breathe.
Aedric stood frozen as the white light within the cracked sarcophagus pulsed with a rhythm deeper than magic—older than any rune etched in the annals of Ithrael. It was not warmth that radiated from it, but memory. The kind of memory that could set a man's soul ablaze.
Beside him, Lyara stepped back cautiously, her voice barely a whisper.
> "You shouldn't have come alone…"
Aedric didn't answer. His eyes remained locked on the tomb as the light within coalesced—forming the outline of a figure. Tall. Armored. Hooded in ancient flame.
And then it spoke.
Not in words.
But in burning thought.
> You bear the Heartbrand… and yet you know not its price.
Aedric's mouth was dry. The fire on his skin flickered uncertainly.
> "Who are you?"
> I am what they buried to protect you.
> I am what they erased to empower you.
> I am the First Flame… and I am your undoing.
---
The light dimmed—and in its place stood a man cloaked in fire and shadows.
His face was carved with age and fury, skin blackened like cooled magma, yet alive with ember veins that glowed red beneath. His eyes—those were worst of all.
Because they were his.
Aedric's.
The man stepped forward. No dust stirred. No sound echoed.
> You wear my crown. You wield my ruin.
> And you do not understand what it cost me to lose it.
Aedric's voice finally returned, low and raw.
> "What are you saying?"
The man touched the Heartbrand on Aedric's chest—and it screamed.
Not physically.
But deep within him, the soul-forged sigil reacted violently.
> Because it remembers me. Because I am the one who forged it, boy.
> I was the first to rise. The first to burn. The first to fall.
> And now... my failure has made you.
---
Lyara was trembling now. She had heard tales in the Blackglass Citadel—of the Ember-King, the lost Valtoris who tried to burn through the walls of reality itself. Who tried to reclaim the sun from the gods.
But she never believed he was real.
Never believed he would rise again.
> "Aedric," she whispered. "We need to leave."
The Ember-King turned toward her, his eyes narrowing.
> Ah... the dagger-tongued daughter of Hollowgate. You're not supposed to be here yet.
And with a flick of his finger, the flames around them ignited, forming a ring that trapped them both.
> But fate, I see, remains a disobedient bitch.
---
Aedric reached for the Heartbrand, but it flickered.
Unresponsive.
Dead.
The Ember-King saw the hesitation and smiled—not with cruelty, but with sorrow.
> You think it belongs to you? You think you earned it?
> You are but a flame cast from my own ruin.
> Everything you are, everything you've done—it was never your choice.
Aedric snarled. "I make my own fate now."
The tomb pulsed behind him.
> Do you? Then let's see if your will burns brighter than mine.
And he lunged.
---
What followed wasn't a battle.
It was inheritance in fire.
The chamber exploded in red light as two Valtoris collided—one born in this age, the other forged in an age so old it had been erased. Swordless, Aedric fought with sheer will, channeling every memory, every pain, every lie that brought him here.
But the Ember-King was not flesh.
He was not man.
He was a fragment of a truth long denied.
> This is not power. This is not strength.
> This is what it means to be a flame eternal. Burning even when forgotten.
He struck Aedric across the chest, and the Heartbrand cracked.
A scream burst from Aedric's lips—not just his voice, but voices layered beneath. His ancestors. His future selves. Echoes of what he could become.
Lyara tried to help, but the flames repelled her.
Until—
> "ENOUGH!"
With a final surge, Aedric stood, arms ablaze. He wasn't casting magic. He was becoming it. The ground shattered beneath his feet, and the Heartbrand flared—not red.
But white.
> The color of soulfire.
---
The Ember-King paused.
Then smiled, faintly.
> Ah. So the Ashborn lives after all.
> Then perhaps there is hope.
And just like that, he dispersed.
A gust of ash. A lingering warmth.
A lesson.
---
Silence returned to the chamber.
Aedric collapsed to his knees, breathing raggedly. The Heartbrand no longer glowed, but a new mark had appeared beside it—a circular brand, pale and unfinished.
Lyara ran to him, helping him up.
> "You alright?" she asked.
He looked at her.
> "I don't know."
But deep down, something had changed.
Not just his power.
His bloodline had awoken.
---
Far away, in the heart of a ruined continent, a woman cloaked in thorns opened her eyes.
> "He met the First," she whispered.
And behind her, a thousand dead turned their heads toward the flame that now rose on the horizon.
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