Kairo did not sleep much.
Not since his Awakening.
The fire burning within him was usually too intense for slumber to be effortless. But this evening, after the monster in Hollowlight was defeated and the Circle mourned their fallen, sleep at last took him.
And with it… a memory that was not his.
He stood in a room carved of obsidian, walls written in runes so old they wept light. Candles floated midair, unburned. The silence was crushing, like breath held too hard.
In the center, a child knelt—barefoot, trembling, dressed in rags.
No more than six.
It was him.
But younger.
Much younger than he remembered.
A voice boomed out across the darkness: deep, old, not harsh—but cold.
> "You should not have survived the trial."
A gentler voice, but one he knew.
> "He did. You saw it yourself. He held the flame without screaming."
---
> "Then he must be hidden. Not even the Circle can know."
---
The dream rippled.
Kairo could sense his body grow heavy—his fire weak. As if something was holding it back, trapping it.
> "The Flameborn line ended generations ago," the booming voice said. "If this is what we think…"
> "Then the prophecy was wrong," stated the second voice. "Or half right."
And then the child shifted.
Looked directly at him.
And spoke.
> "You are the fire that forgot its own name."
Kairo woke panting, sweat greasy on his skin.
He sat up in the Emberhall quarters, racing heart. The fire lanterns throbbed as if they knew. The Cradle was off—observing.
"Another vision?" Sera asked from the doorway.
He shook his head, slowly. "I think I saw where I came from."
Virella leaned forward, out of the shadows. "That's a first."
"It wasn't just a memory. Someone stuck something in me. Sealed it."
"Sealed what?"
Kairo glared down at his hands, and for one moment—merely a blink—the flames in the air around them burned white instead of gold.
> "Power. And something worse.".
She listened, then flung open the long-forgotten vault under the Cradle—a chamber no one had set foot in for generations.
They descended in silence, past murals of ancient Flameborn kings chiseled into stone, past relics preserved in ashglass.
At the end of the hall was a pedestal, and on it, a blade.
Or what remained of one.
The metal was warped. Scorched. Hummed with something ancient.
Elin spoke softly. "This is Arkan's Flameforged sword—the last of the Flameborn kings."
Kairo's hand reached out.
The sword ignited.
White fire flooded the room.
Kairo's body spasmed, sight splitting, as a voice roared in his mind:
> "Blood remembers."
Flash images tore through him like a lightning bolt.
A burning tower. A woman who had eyes like his. A crying child as soldiers in black robes dragged her away. A burned, gloved hand reaching down and pulling him from the fire.
> "Hide him," the voice whispered again. "Before the Ash King finds out what he truly is."
Kairo fell to his knees.
The sword dissipated.
He took deep gulps of air, clutching his chest.
Sera pulled him into her grasp. "What did you see?"
"Mother," he gasped. "She died protecting me."
Elin's voice was rough. "The line of the Flameborn… you're not just born into it."
"I am it," Kairo replied.
"I was hidden away for what I would be."
The Circle met that night.
Taut. Silent.
Intimidated not of Kairo—but of what he represented.
The Ash King had spent decades eradicating the bloodlines of old, claiming the fire as his own to own. If Kairo was Flameborn, then the Ash King's dominance was built on a lie.
It meant that the fire had never been in the dark.
"He'll come after you now," Virella said. "Not to kill you—but to use you. To warp your birthright."
Kairo nodded. "Let him try.".
But what do we do?" Elin asked. "The Cradle can't be surrounded."
Kairo stood up and turned towards the window, where stars flared against the black like spilled fire.
> "Then we go to the First Pyre. We kindle the ancient flames."
Sera frowned. "The First Pyre's myth.".
No," replied Kairo. "It's in the Hollow Expanse. Lost since the Flameborn fell. But I saw it in the vision. The sword showed me the way."
Elin took a deep breath. "If the First Pyre is out there, and you light it—every Awakened in the world will feel it."
"Exactly," replied Kairo.
> "It's time the fire called all of us home.".