Chapter 180: The Ashborne

The fire didn't flicker that night.

It stared.

Long, unblinking. A single, molten eye in the center of the camp, reflecting everything and nothing. Elias stood beside it, tense, while Serena stared at the man who had once been Darian.

He looked the same—bones sharp, jaw clenched, hair curled at the edges like it had been caught in a storm of ash.

But there was something missing.

His shadow.

It was faint. Not gone, but faded—as though the world no longer remembered where he truly stood.

“I saw it,” he said, voice low. “Beneath the ash. Beneath the Scar. Beneath even her.”

“Imara?” Serena asked.

He shook his head.

“No. Something older than her. The one she tried to forget.”

Silence fell around the fire.

Caine leaned forward. “Are you saying Imara hid something?”

“I’m saying she buried something. Deep enough that even memory couldn’t reach it. But the fire... remembers everything.”

Kiva whispered, “Then why now? Why are you back now?”

Darian looked at Serena.

“Because she’s almost unlocked it.”

Serena stood slowly, her spine tingling with heat.

“The mark?”

Darian nodded. “It’s not a gift. It’s a key. And when it turns fully, it won’t open something—it will unseal someone.”

Elias stepped closer, placing himself slightly in front of Serena.

“And who is that?”

Darian’s gaze moved past them, unfocused.

“The Ashborne.”

The name landed heavy on the camp like a sudden drop in pressure.

Kael’s voice broke the silence.

“I’ve read that term in the Ember Vault scrolls. Once. No context. Just a phrase beside a name no one dared speak.”

“What name?” Serena asked.

Kael hesitated. “Isheth.”

Serena’s mark flared—suddenly, violently.

She gasped, stumbling back. Elias caught her before she fell.

The fire leapt in the circle.

And the child, half-asleep, screamed.

They gathered in the command tent as dawn broke.

Serena sat wrapped in a thick cloak, her back still pulsing with the mark’s heat.

Elias remained beside her, his hand hovering at her spine, not touching—but guarding.

“The name triggered it,” Kiva said. “But the reaction... that was more than fire. That was memory resisting.”

Serena’s voice was low. “Because the name Isheth was erased. On purpose.”

“By Imara?” Caine asked.

Serena shook her head. “No. By the Gate.”

Darian stirred in the corner. “It’s not just a Gate. It’s a tomb.”

They turned to him.

“What’s inside it?” Elias asked.

Darian stared ahead.

“Not a what. A who.”

The fire that night was small. Controlled.

But the feeling wasn’t.

The air around the Scar had thickened. The roots glowed from underneath, not visibly—but through sensation. The earth pulsed under their feet.

Serena sat with the child, tracing circles in the dirt. The child’s fingers shook.

“I see them when I close my eyes now,” they whispered.

“Who?”

“The Ashborne.”

“What do they look like?”

The child’s eyes filled with tears.

“They look like us.”

Later, Serena found Elias staring at the edge of the Scar, hands clenched.

“You feel it too,” she said.

Elias didn’t look away. “The fire’s pulling at something in me. Not violently. Like a... reminder.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. But it feels like I’ve heard my name spoken before I existed.”

She stepped beside him, slipping her hand into his.

“Then we find out what it’s trying to say.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Not if it takes you from yourself.”

She turned, eyes shining faintly gold. “Maybe it’s not taking. Maybe it’s returning something.”

That night, Serena dreamed of sand and stars.

She stood at the edge of a great dune, fire rippling through the sky above her like ribbons of silk. A figure walked toward her—tall, cloaked, faceless.

When it reached her, it held out a hand.

In its palm sat a stone, identical to the one bearing her mother’s name.

But this one had a new name glowing on it.

Her own.

Not Serena.

“Isareth.”

She woke gasping, drenched in sweat.

The mark on her back had changed again.

A new curve. A new line.

A new name etched into her skin.

Kiva examined the mark by lamplight.

“It’s morphing faster now. Almost like it’s responding to an internal clock.”

Serena wrapped a shawl around herself, her body humming like a struck bell.

“I dreamed a name. Not mine. Not really.”

Elias looked up. “What name?”

“Isareth.”

The child, half-asleep on a mat nearby, bolted upright.

“I’ve heard that name,” they said. “But not from the fire.”

“From where?”

The child pointed toward the Scar.

“From underneath it.”

By midday, Darian had drawn a symbol in the sand—a spiral intersected by nine flames.

“The Gate doesn’t seal power,” he said. “It houses voices. Each flame wasn’t a weapon. It was a speaker. A memory made flesh.”

Serena traced the shape. “And the Ashborne?”

“They were the first listeners,” he said. “They absorbed what fire could no longer say. And when the war turned, they offered themselves to become the fire’s final message.”

“Then why erase them?”

Darian looked at her, solemn.

“Because they weren’t controllable. They were too human.”

Elias pulled Serena aside later.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

She nodded. “Because I’m starting to forget.”

“What?”

“My name. My memories. Not completely. But they’re slipping, like smoke. Like the fire is overwriting me.”

Elias held her tightly. “We stop here. We don’t go deeper.”

She shook her head. “We have to. If I stop now, everything we’ve built will be for nothing. The Gate will open without understanding. Without mercy.”

He cupped her face.

“Then let me go with you.”

Serena’s breath caught.

“Even if it changes you too?”

Elias kissed her softly.

“I already changed the moment I chose you.”

That evening, Serena stood before the fire alone.

She whispered the names one by one—the ones they’d remembered, the ones buried in journals and echoed in dreams.

And then, finally, she whispered:

“Isareth.”

The fire didn’t roar.

It bent forward—like a body bowing. Like a soul remembering a promise.

And Serena heard it—not in sound.

In her bones.

“Come back to us.”