Chapter 49: The First Flame

The woods past the Hollow were silent — too silent. No birds. No wind. Just the crunch of their booted feet on dew-drenched leaves. Even that seemed too loud, as if sound had weight now. The way the Hollow still held on to their skin.

Serena spearheaded the procession, boots squelching soppily down the trail. Lucian walked next to her again, and Elias lingered a few steps back, one hand pressed to a shallow weapon wound on his arm. The sun struggled between the trees, soft gold in the leaves, but she didn’t feel warm. Not yet.

It was as though everywhere they went, the Hollow dragged a shadow behind them.

“We need to find shelter,” Lucian said quietly. He had sounded authoritative next to me, but now he was anxious.

“There’s an outpost,” Elias said, scanning the woods. “Old one. Once a watch tower during the Border Wars ‘bout two miles away.”

Serena nodded, not quite listening to them. The wolf in her was restless. It wasn’t angry. Not afraid. Just… watching.

The Shepherds voice still lingered in her bones. Your war has only just started, then.

She didn’t know what war yet. But she touched its edge coming closer, like thunder in the earth.

The outpost, rolling into view only when the sun seemed to reach its zenith. Ivy and time had nearly consumed it. The timber tower had mostly collapsed inward, but the stone skeleton below still maintained its virtue — stout, square and time-stained.

Elias kicked open the door. Dust welled in a tired breath. There were old bunks lining the walls inside. In the middle was a long-cold hearth. The debris was scraps — armor, a rusted shield, a toy for a child.

Elias said, “This place creeps me out.”

Lucian ignored him and got to work. He checked windows, doors, the roof. Satisfied it was safe, he lit the hearth. Flames crackled to life, and for the first time in hours, Serena felt something like warmth.

She sat near the flame. The others followed.

For a long time, no one spoke. Then Elias broke the silence.

“That tree in the back there,” he said, staring into the fire. “The crystals. All that screaming. Was that all… real?”

“Yes,” Serena said.

Elias blinked. “That’s… insane.”

Lucian stared at her. “You saw more than you said. Didn’t you?”

She nodded slowly. Her voice was quiet, as if she were speaking to herself. “I looked at a child… who had golden eyes. And a woman who resembled me. She was singing. She said a few words, and it ignited the whole room.”

Lucian leaned forward. “Do you remember the words?”

Serena closed her eyes. The memory came like a spark. Not a picture. A sound.

“Verash elen’dor. Rise what was never undone.”

Elias’s face turned pale. “That’s old tongue. Really old. Magic speech. “We haven’t laid a hand on it since … the fall of the First Flame.”

Lucian stood. “We need answers. Fast.”

Serena stood too. “Then we find the Flame.”

“The First Flame?” Elias looked between them. “That’s a myth.”

“Until yesterday,” Serena said cool-headed, “I was a myth.”

They left the outpost at first light.

The directions had come not from maps, but from Serena’s memories — memories that had been unlocked by the crystals. She did not know the way, but her feet knew. Her bones did. The wolf guided her.

They sped in and out of hills that turned into cliffs that turned into cracked red valleys. They walked on ancient roads that cracked under them. Rivers reflected and evaporated for miles. In here, time felt strange somehow — like it was leaping forward and backward at the same time.”

They discovered it on their third night.

A wall of briar and stones blocked the mouth of the cave. But as Serena drew nearer, the roots shook. The stones shimmered. And a shape formed in the cliff — a door of flame.

No heat came from it. Just light.

Golden argent of the Hollow, just like always.

Lucian's sword hilt brushed against his hand. “Is it another gate?”

“No,” Serena said. “It’s a memory.”

She pressed her hand to it.

The flame didn’t burn her. It opened.

The cave spiraled down into its darkness. That wall was slick — too slick, he believed. As if something primordial had written them in one movement. Footsteps echoed and shadows danced on the walls.

At the end of the trail, they entered a bowl-shaped chamber. And there, in the middle of it, was a brazier. Empty. Dead.

But the stone above it was inscribed with thousands of names. Etched deep, in some runes, and some tongues that have long since left.

“What is this place?” Elias whispered.

Lucian walked the circle at a sedate pace. “A tomb. But not for bodies. For stories.”

Serena stepped over by the brazier. Her hand hovered over it.

And then there was an involuntary inhale.

A part of her inside responded.

A spark lit.

The brazier burned not with flame, but memory. It wasn’t showing images, but sensations. Fear. Triumph. Loss. Love. And through it all, one face:

The woman from her vision. The one with the kind of eyes that Serena has.

It echoed through the chamber like wind through a storm.

“You who carry the wail of the Onyx. Você é o último suspiro da Chama. You are the flame we did not ignite.

Lucian froze. Elias stumbled back.

Serena stood, trembling. “Who are you?”

“I am Elan’ra. Queen of the Flameborn.”

The brazier dimmed. Silence fell again.

Serena’s heart was racing. Not with fear. Not with grief. But a strange kind of peace.

Lucian’s voice was quiet. “So what now?”

Elias looked around. “We found the First Flame. What do we do with it?”

Serena touched the brazier. “We relight it.”

“And if that starts a war?” Elias asked.

Serena stared at the old stone. At the names. At the real truths left to be told.

“And then we stop running, anyway,” she added. “We light the Flame. We let the world remember what it didn’t remember.”

She looked down at her hands, which were now softly luminous. Like the fire lived there.

Lucian stepped beside her. “Then we burn away the lies.”

Serena nodded.The past could no longer be denied and neither was she.