The Nightingale cruised quietly above the ruins of the Hollow Planet. Debris drifted lazily across the void, and within the silence, an envelope of old flame glowed against Lyra's quarters door — sealed with an unfamiliar sigil.
She hadn't touched it.
But Kaelen had.
Because it was addressed to him.
And the symbol on the wax?
It hadn't been seen in centuries.
The insignia of the Cradle of Embers.
The birthplace of the first flamebearers.
His birthplace.
Kaelen sat in his room, fingers tightening around the old parchment. The handwriting was elegant — sharp strokes with slight flame-bleeds at the edges, meaning whoever wrote it had control. Mastery. And the greeting was written in the old tongue:
"To the boy who left, and the fire he locked away — your exile ends not in silence, but in reckoning."
His heart beat slower as he kept reading.
"Kaelen of the Hollow Sigil, do you remember the oath you broke?"
He did.
And that was the problem.
Years ago — before the Void, before the war, before Lyra — Kaelen had stood before the Council of Flamebound in the Cradle's highest pyre tower.
He wasn't chosen.
He was born to bear the Ember Chain — a lineage even the Warden once honored.
But he did the unthinkable.
He severed the bond.
He left.
Because he had seen the fire's future.
And it scared him.
Lyra knocked once before entering.
He didn't hide the letter.
"You knew," she said softly "That the Ember Keys existed."
Kaelen nodded "Not all of them. But I knew there were pieces. Pieces not meant to be found."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because when I held the First Key, it burned everything I was. And when I tried to give it back… it refused."
She stepped closer "So you ran."
"Yes."
Lyra sat across from him "What was the oath?"
Kaelen's eyes flickered with something ancient. "That I would carry the flame until death… or until it demanded too much."
"And it demanded too much?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he handed her the rest of the letter.
At the bottom, it read:
"The Ember Tomb has opened. And the ones who were burned for you are waking."
"Come home, Kaelen."
"Face what you left in the Ashmirror."
The Ashmirror.
Not a realm, but a pocket space.
A prison where failed flamebearers were locked — those who were twisted by fire, or whose flames devoured them from within. It had been closed for a hundred years.
But now?
Someone had reopened it.
And they wanted Kaelen to see what became of the ones he left behind.
Later that night, Lyra stood alone on the deck.
Kaelen joined her quietly.
"They'll come for me."
She nodded "Then let them."
"You don't understand. These aren't soldiers or beasts or generals. These are echoes of me. Twisted versions of what I could've become."
Lyra turned, eyes blazing "Then we burn them together."
He looked at her flame.
It was stronger than anything he had seen in the Cradle.
Stronger than anything the Warden ever warned about.
"You're not just a flamebearer," he murmured "You're the fire the Cradle feared would come."
She smiled faintly "Then I guess it's time to meet my ancestors."
Far away, in the Ashmirror, the Tomb cracked open.
And from its core stepped a woman wreathed in pale flame, eyes empty, smile cruel.
"Hello, Kaelen."
"Did you forget your sister?"