Chapter 33: Trials of flame
When Elliot touched the throne, the world disappeared.
Not with fire.
Not with light.
With silence.
The kind that presses against your chest like grief. The kind that feels like an old god breathing down your neck — but saying nothing. Just watching.
He tried to pull his hand back.
He couldn't.
The throne had taken him.
---
He stood now in a world without ground or sky.
Only heat.
Only pain.
A realm that pulsed like a heartbeat around him, red and gold and alive — and inside it, his thoughts peeled apart like paper in a storm.
---
He heard a voice.
His own.
> "You think your pain makes you special."
Another voice — colder, ancient, too close:
> "It makes you useful."
---
Images burned into the air.
His mother's face. Blurred. Afraid.
The girl he loved — the one who betrayed him — whispering his name while handing him to the Order.
Kaelith, standing over his body, crying through clenched teeth.
Liora, covered in blood and smiling, whispering: "You're almost there."
And finally, himself, crowned in fire, eyes glowing with something not human.
---
> "This is what you are," the voice said.
"A throne for wrath. A furnace for war."
> "You will never be just a boy again."
---
Elliot fell to his knees.
The fire didn't burn him.
It judged him.
Every memory. Every lie. Every time he wanted to give up.
He saw all of it.
The parts he hated. The ones he buried.
The time he let another child die to save himself.
The time he thought about burning everything and walking into the sea.
The time he almost killed Kaelith... when the flame got too loud.
---
> "You think this is a gift?" the voice hissed.
"It's a curse with sharp teeth. A crown made to cut you."
> "And you love it."
> "Don't you?"
---
Elliot stood slowly.
Trembling.
Broken open.
And yet…
Still burning.
He clenched his fists, voice cracking:
> "I don't love it."
> "But I'm not ashamed of it anymore."
> "I'll carry it. I'll burn. I'll bleed."
> "Because this…"
He placed his hand over his chest, over the Mark.
> "This fire is mine now."
---
The world shattered like glass.
He gasped — back on the mountain.
The throne behind him, still bleeding, still breathing.
Kaelith was screaming his name, shaking him.
Liora stood off to the side, watching. Waiting. Not smiling this time.
Elliot blinked up at them, dazed.
> "You were gone for hours," Kaelith said. "You weren't breathing—"
He pulled her close.
Not because he needed comfort…
But because he'd seen what he could become if he ever lost her.
And he didn't want that world.
---
Later that night, when the fire crackled and sleep came slowly, Elliot whispered to himself:
> "The throne didn't choose me."
> "It dared me."
And I said yes.