Chapter 176: A Name In The Ash

Night in the valley was no longer black.

It was ash-colored. Gray and soft like the smoke of old prayers. And under that sky, Serena lay awake, the fire within her no longer raging, but quietly watching.

She could feel it now—always watching.

The Scar no longer clawed at her veins. But it hadn’t left her untouched either. She wasn’t sure what she had become. Only that the thing inside her had shifted. Softened. Not gone. But something else.

She sat up just before dawn.

The camp was silent, cloaked in unease. People moved quieter now, more reverently. Like survivors. Like witnesses.

Then she heard it—

A soft knock on the tent flap.

“Come in,” she said.

It was the child.

The child looked different today.

Paler, as if drained by something internal. Its eyes shimmered faint gold—not entirely her power, but borrowed echoes. Its fingers trembled as it handed her something wrapped in cloth.

A weight.

A message.

Serena unfolded it slowly, expecting something like parchment. A letter. Maybe a mark.

Instead, she found a stone—warm to the touch, smooth as glass. Blackened around the edges, as though pulled from a long-dead fire.

She turned it in her hand.

Two names were burned into the surface—not carved. Branded in light.

The first she recognized instantly:

Halros

But the second one made her heart stop.

Imara

Her mother’s true name.

“How do you know this name?” she asked.

The child sat cross-legged. “I dreamed it. Over and over. Your name… hers… together in fire.”

Serena’s chest tightened. “That name was never spoken aloud. Not even by her. It was hidden.”

The child nodded solemnly. “Because it wasn’t just a name. It was a warning.”

Serena’s flame flickered along her wrist involuntarily. “Explain.”

“She disobeyed,” the child whispered. “The fire told me. She chose a path the others feared. And they erased her.”

Erased. The word rang like a bell in Serena’s bones.

Her mother had always been careful. Always watching shadows. Always listening more than speaking.

She had known something.

Kiva was pouring over ancient glyphs when Serena burst into her tent with the stone.

“I need to know what this means,” Serena demanded. “Imara—my mother—was she one of the first Flamebound?”

Kiva’s hands trembled slightly as she took the stone and studied it.

Then she looked up with wide, horrified eyes.

“She wasn’t just Flamebound,” Kiva said. “She was one of the Scarbinders.”

Serena reeled. “That’s not possible.”

“She helped seal the original rift. Not with violence, but with grief. She believed memory could tame fire. That if you remembered it, you could bend it. She was cast out for it.”

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Because they made it so she couldn’t. The Order rewrote the scrolls. Burned her records. Changed your name.”

Serena felt something crack inside her.

Everything she’d built—every identity she’d shaped—was built on a lie.

Not a weapon.

A legacy.

Not fire’s servant.

Its daughter.

Theren collapsed near the base of the Scar by midday.

Caine and Mira found him barely breathing. His skin was streaked with black veins pulsing with unnatural heat. His mouth frothed faint gold.

They carried him into camp as Serena rushed toward them, fear curdling in her throat.

“Theren—” she knelt by him, cradling his face. “What happened?”

His eyes fluttered open.

“I saw her,” he rasped.

“Who?”

“Imara.”

Serena froze.

“She’s not gone. Not fully. The fire saved her. Buried her in its core. She’s waiting—at the true Scar, below the roots.”

Serena’s pulse pounded in her ears. “How do I reach her?”

He coughed violently, then whispered, “Burn deeper.”

That night, Serena stood at the fire’s edge, alone.

Elias found her there, his presence warm even before he spoke.

“She’s down there,” she said. “My mother.”

He said nothing at first, then quietly: “If you go, you might not come back the same.”

“I’ve already changed.”

“I mean more.”

She turned to him. “I have to know. I have to see her.”

He touched her hand. “Then I’ll wait. As long as it takes.”

Serena’s breath caught.

“I’m not afraid of burning anymore,” she said.

“Good,” Elias said. “Because you are the flame.”

And in that moment, they weren’t soldier and weapon, nor legend and myth—just Serena and Elias, bound by choices made in fire.

Before sunrise, Serena approached the Scar.

This time, she went alone.

No escort. No fanfare.

She carried only the stone and the truth written into her skin.

The Scar pulsed once as she approached, its branches creaking like an ancient throat preparing to speak. Its bark split along the base—an opening forming where no door had existed before.

Serena stepped in.

And the world fell away.

She dropped into shadow and heat.

Not fire.

Memory.

The air here was thick with it. Sorrow, joy, betrayal. All sensations layered over one another like wet parchment.

She moved downward, deeper and deeper, through tunnels formed not by nature, but by feeling—carved by every thought her mother had sealed in flame.

And then—

Light.

The chamber opened like a wound.

At the center stood a figure, dressed in scorched silks, her back turned.

Serena felt it before she spoke.

The blood. The voice. The flame.

“You found me.”

Serena’s heart cracked.

“Mother.”

Imara turned.

She was radiant and ruined. Older than Serena remembered. Yet her face bore the softness of remembered lullabies. Her flame curled around her wrists in gold and red. Not wild. Alive.

“Not many make it this far,” she said gently.

“I needed to know why,” Serena said. “Why you hid. Why you left.”

Imara approached slowly, cupping her daughter’s face.

“I didn’t leave you. I left them. I left the war, the lies. I tried to teach you to survive it, not inherit it.”

“You knew they would erase you.”

“I did it anyway.”

Serena blinked back tears. “Then why didn’t you teach me who I was?”

“Because you had to choose your fire. Not carry mine.”

Serena’s knees buckled. Imara caught her.

They embraced for the first time in over a decade.

And the fire did not burn.

It healed.

Imara showed her the truth.

The Scar was not a prison.

It was a witness.

Each Gate, each tear, had memory—echoes of choices, blood, names spoken and silenced.

“You were never meant to seal it again,” Imara said. “You were meant to teach it how to sleep.”

Serena whispered, “But it dreams of waking.”

“Then give it better dreams.”

When Serena emerged hours later, blinking into the sun, Elias was already there.

He didn’t ask anything. Just pulled her to his chest and held her.

She whispered into his collarbone, “She forgave me.”

“You didn’t need forgiveness,” Elias said.

Serena nodded, lips against his neck. “But I needed to hear it anyway.”

And in the distance, the Scar tree glowed faintly.

Not in warning.

But in recognition.