Semua Bab The Healer's Bond : Bab 241 - Bab 250

The flame did not burn. It pulsed. It not only pulsed, it existed with a sentient life of its own. It seeked for connection with any being that had an affinity to fire. It was the first flame.It was one of the first fires that burned into existence and it was as old as time itself. Winds and storms have passed and yet it flared with a silent strength and shined through time and evolution. Even when the first virus struck and civilization fell, it burned brighter than ever. The flame represented the spirit of civilization itself and for as long as great minds with brave heart existed, it would continue to burn. Soft and white, cradled in the center of the first pedestal like a sleeping heart. The White Flame of Memory, they had called it in the etched walls above. A fire not meant to sear flesh or ignite war—but to anchor who you are, even when the world tries to make you forget.

Paths appeared—five of them.Each led to a choice.Each held someone she had saved.And at the end of each path… stood an Emma. A different version. A different life.---Path One – The Solitary SaviorEmma walked alone down the first path, leaving Steve behind momentarily.She stood before a version of herself—dressed in white healer robes, hands aglow with curing light.Behind her, villages stood healed. No disease. No famine. No frost.She was alone.Always alone.Her eyes were tired. Her smile was practiced.She had given everything.Even Steve.“I made a world without death,” this Emma said. “But I lost every reason to live in it.”Emma stepped back.And the vision dissolved.---Path Two – The Flame QueenThe second path shimmered with gold and crimson.A regal Emma stood at the head of a flaming city, her Ember Heart grown massive, her hair a crown of living fire. She wielded the Heartfurnace like a divine beacon, and cities bowed at her feet.Steve was there.But not beside he

The fourth pedestal sat further from the others, recessed into a basin of carved obsidian stone, almost as if the chamber itself had recoiled from it. And in the center of that basin—barely flickering, barely visible—burned the Blue Flame of Wisdom.Emma approached it slowly.The air didn’t feel hot this time.In fact, it felt… cold. Like still water in a sealed cave. The silence pressed down on her like weighted cloth. Even her heartbeat felt loud.Behind her, Steve stopped at the final marble step.“I can’t go any farther,” he said. “Can I?”“No,” Long murmured, stepping beside him. “This trial is taken in solitude. Even the Sovereigns of old faced it alone.”Sarah added, “Blue is the color of insight. Ice that does not numb. Flame that doesn’t warm. It’s not a trial of the body or of fury. It’s what you know, Emma.”Emma exhaled slowly and stepped forward.---Crossing into the BlueThe moment her foot touched the basin, the sound of her companions disappeared.No more voices.No m

Irsi’s body changed with every village lost. She grew taller, spindlier. Her tongues were now blades of living parchment, inscribed with names scratched out in black ink. They fluttered in the wind like cursed scripture. Where once she whispered, now she howled. Her mouth no longer split once or twice—it cracked across her entire face, revealing rows of memory-threaded teeth. When she smiled, history screamed. She wasn’t harvesting identity anymore. She was unraveling reality. --- The Plan Emma had survived because of the flame that bound her to others. To Steve. To Sarah. To the old dragon, Long. So Irsi would attack the world’s memory of Emma, not Emma herself. She would cut Emma out of history.

Snow crunched under Emma Adam’s boots, though no real wind stirred the air. The silence inside the Frost Citadel was unnatural—not peaceful, not dead, just expectant. Like the walls were listening.The great corridor ahead of them stretched impossibly far, its arches taller than any cathedral she’d seen in the old world. Icicles hung like daggered chandeliers, suspended mid-melt but never dripping. Magic stilled time here. Or tried to.Long walked ahead, spear in hand, every movement precise. Steve walked beside Emma now, close enough that she could hear the subtle rasp in his breath. He still wasn’t fully healed, despite the Ember Heart’s efforts. The cold had embedded itself too deep.Sarah trailed behind, muttering calculations under her breath and watching the crystalline glyphs etched into the frosted walls. They pulsed faintly with blue light—as if reacting to their presence.“It’s reacting to you,” Sarah finally said, pointing to the glowing runes now mirroring the steady throb