Chapter 177: Beneath The Ash

The sun barely rose that morning.

Its light was dim—filtered through layers of fog and ember-streaked mist.

Serena stood shirtless before a basin of cold water, her skin bare under the still air. Mira stood silently behind her, watching the fire-marked sigils now burned across her back.

It hadn’t been there when she slept.

But when she woke, the ache had been deep—bone-deep. And Mira had gasped when she peeled back the blankets.

“I’ve seen battle wounds,” Mira whispered. “But this… this isn’t damage. This is design.”

The sigil curved like a vine of light over Serena’s spine—glowing faintly golden, etched in symbols no one else recognized. Not even Caine.

But Serena felt it.

Like a second spine. A memory becoming bone.

Kiva ran her fingers over the parchment, cross-referencing ancient maps and runes Caine had unsealed from the Ember Vault.

“I think it’s the original mark of the Scarbinders,” she said at last. “But this version is different.”

“How?” Elias asked.

“This one doesn’t just bind. It translates.”

“Translates what?”

“The fire.”

Later that evening, Elias found Serena near the edge of the Scar.

She was silent, eyes fixed on the horizon, where the tree’s glow pulsed like a heartbeat—slow, steady, unnerving.

“You’ve been distant since the mark appeared,” Elias said.

Serena didn’t look at him. “Because I’m afraid it’s not done changing me.”

Elias stepped closer, took her hand gently.

“You are changing,” he said. “But you’re not becoming something else. You’re becoming more you.”

Serena laughed under her breath. “You always say things like that, and it sounds true even when it terrifies me.”

“Good. Truth should scare us a little.”

She turned to him slowly, her eyes warm but distant. “I think the fire’s not only speaking through me now. I think it’s choosing new paths. New people.”

Elias felt a sudden heat climb up his forearms.

He hissed, pulling back his sleeves—revealing faint red lines glowing beneath his skin.

Serena’s eyes widened.

“It’s touching you.”

Caine examined Elias that night in the quiet of the healer’s tent.

“I’ve never seen it transfer,” he muttered. “Not like this.”

“It’s not transfer,” Serena said. “It’s recognition.”

Elias’s veins lit with heat, but there was no pain. No burning. Only a sense of awareness—as if the flame was asking him a question he hadn’t yet answered.

“What does it want?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Serena said slowly, “it wants to trust someone besides me.”

Caine looked troubled. “Or maybe it’s preparing a second gate.”

The camp held its breath in the following days.

Serena didn’t sleep. Not properly.

Each night, the fire inside her deepened—its voice becoming clearer, stronger. It spoke not in words, but sensations: old grief, bone-deep love, pain stretched across generations.

And then, on the fourth night, the child screamed.

Serena ran through camp with Elias at her heels.

They found the child in their tent—eyes wide, mouth open, skin glowing from within.

But it wasn’t the child’s voice that filled the air.

It was hers.

Imara.

“She’s here,” the child rasped.

Serena knelt beside them. “Where?”

“In me,” the child whispered. “But only a piece. She gave it to me before she vanished. She said I needed to hold it for you.”

“For what?”

The child’s hands shook. “For when it begins again.”

Suddenly, Mira stumbled into the tent, pale and breathless.

“You need to come outside. Now.”

They stepped into the open—and gasped.

The Scar tree was glowing.

Not with flame.

With shadow.

Its branches had gone black. The roots pulsed like veins.

Caine ran forward, eyes wide. “Something’s wrong"

And then Theren screamed.

He dropped to the ground, convulsing, his eyes rolled back.

Serena rushed to his side—but as she reached for him, his body stilled… and his voice changed.

“You left us beneath the ash.”

Not Theren’s voice.

The Gate’s.

“You took our names. Our pain. Our dreams.”

Serena’s breath caught.

Elias stepped forward, hand on sword.

Theren rose slowly, but not fully conscious. Something was riding him. Wearing him.

“We slept because of her. We wake because of you.”

Serena stepped between Elias and Theren. “Let him go.”

“He volunteered.”

“What?”

“You all did. You just don’t remember.”

Theren collapsed.

Caine and Lyra rushed to his side.

Serena stared at the tree, her hands trembling.

It wasn’t dormant anymore.

It wasn’t just watching.

It was deciding.

That night, Elias stood beside Serena in the circle of sentries.

He touched her shoulder.

“We can’t fight the fire this time.”

Serena’s throat was dry. “Then what do we do?”

“Maybe we guide it.”

“Where?”

He looked up at the stars.

“To somewhere it can rest.”

The child returned to her the next morning with the stone.

But now it bore a third name:

Elias

Serena stared at it, unable to speak.

The fire had chosen its balance.

Its next bearer.

And she had to choose whether to let it go.