Before he was called Serian, he was known by another name — forgotten by the stars, erased from history by choice, and feared by those who remembered the fire he once wielded.
He was the First Flamebearer.
Long before the realms shattered, before Lyra's rise or Kaelen's fall, Serian was chosen by the Starflame. A prodigy among the Celestial Vanguard, he wielded the flame with a grace no one could match — not even the gods themselves.
But Serian was never content with grace.
He craved understanding.
Power.
Control.
In the great days of the Unified Realm, Serian sat at the foot of the Aeonstar Throne. He had walked the Ember Veins, danced through the Flamewrought Paths, and even glimpsed the brink of the Celestian Verge — the edge of known reality.
He believed the Starflame wasn't just a source of power — it was a living entity. A consciousness scattered across shards and memories, reborn again and again in different vessels.
He theorized that one day, someone would rise to unify it all.
But he didn't want to wait.
He wanted to become the flame itself.
The war began not with swords, but with silence.
Serian vanished.
And when he returned, the Celestial Vault burned. Seven cities crumbled in one night, devoured by a sentient inferno — the Ember Crown, forged from a forbidden fragment of the Starflame, one that Serian carved from the realm between realms.
He stood atop their ruins and declared a new truth:
"The Starflame belongs not to destiny, but to will."
The Vanguard branded him a heretic.
Lyra, then still a guardian-in-training, was part of the fleet sent to stop him.
She succeeded.
But only because Serian let her.
In exile, Serian wandered the Outer Reaches — forbidden zones lost to time and madness. He built alliances with shattered gods, forged pacts with dimension-borne horrors, and found the Seven Generals in the ruins of forgotten worlds.
Each was broken.
Each became his.
The Seventh General — the first to kneel — was a child of the Voidspire, twisted into shadow by Serian's flame. The Fifth was born from flame itself, a being made of pure combustion.
But it was never about power.
It was about preparation.
He was waiting.
Waiting for Lyra to rise again.
Waiting for the fragments to be gathered.
Waiting for the final flame to awaken — the one hidden deep inside Lyra's soul.
Now, on the Moon of Embers, Serian stood in his obsidian sanctum — a room without light or reflection. The Ember Crown floated behind him, pulsing in rhythm with Lyra's newly claimed shards.
He could feel it.
"She's close," he whispered "She remembers."
He turned to the Fifth General, cloaked in smoke and fire.
"Deploy the Ash Choir," Serian commanded "Let her see what becomes of those who forget their true purpose."
The Fifth General bowed, vanishing into flame.
Serian sat on his throne — not of gold, but bone, forged from the remains of past timelines.
He closed his eyes.
And for a moment, he saw her again — not as a warrior, not as a flamebearer, but as the girl who once looked at him with hope.
"You should've ruled beside me," he whispered.
But hope… was the first thing he burned.