Chapter 187: The Flame's Eclipse

Chapter 187: The Flame's Eclipse
Adira’s POV

At noon, the sky grew dark.

As the sun was completely engulfed, I stood at the edge of the Flame Hall and looked up. Stars winked out like dying embers, one by one. The flames that used to dance along the sky-temples dimmed, sputtered, and eventually died all around me.

"Elowen?" I turned and called. The child was standing close by, staring at the gloomy sky. Her silver hair fluttered like smoke in the wind.

She didn't respond. She didn’t blink.

She only said, "It’s beginning."

And suddenly the ground trembled.

Like lightning, cracks sped over the marble floor. The air became chokingly heavy. Something old, waking up, rather than thunder, caused a deep moan to reverberate across the heavens.

I called forth my flame, and my hands clenched into fists. It came slower than usual. Dimmer.

No.

I exerted more effort.

After a brief surge, the fire sputtered once more.

I sensed it everywhere in the realm—flames waning, drawn toward the sky.

The quiet was then broken by a sound.

A breaking, jagged boom.

My eyes shifted to the moon.

And observed it break.

Exactly at the centre.

Something huge unfolded from the shattered center. A mouth full of spinning teeth, a body of shadow, and tendrils of smoke without stars. Not a face. Just hungry.

It screamed, a sound akin to everything being torn apart.

Now the parasite had a shape.

And it was falling right toward our globe.

I gave the council a call.

The remaining Flamekeepers, the remaining rebels, and the new councillors of the Ember Era swiftly crowded into the rooms. Fear filled their faces as they huddled around the table forged by embers.

I remarked, "The parasite has crossed into form." "The eclipse has arrived."

Solenne had a pallid face. "All flames will go out if it roams our world. Even yours.

I kept my doubts hidden from her. I was unable to pay for it.

I remarked, "We won't fall without standing." "Get the sky-sentinels ready. Light each altar. Keep the ember vaults safe.

One of the elders remarked, "We don't have much time." "Can we even be protected now by the Eternal Flame?"

I was about to respond.

However, then—

I heard it.

A murmur.

Not outdoors. Not from the room.

From within me.

“You’re burning out,” it said.

“You were never chosen.”

“You will fall like all before you.”

My hands trembled. I looked down.

At my fingertips, the flame flared madly.

Dimmed after that.

Flickered.

I clenched my jaw and made it steady.

No. Not right now. Never.

However, I was aware at the time:

The parasite had started talking to me in whispers.

Ash faced the beast far above.

With the ember tightly gripped in his fingers, he glided by himself into the fading clouds. The parasite's form grew colder as he approached it. Breath by breath, as if the fire within him were being stolen.

Once more, the beast screamed.

Ash continued.

He pushed the ember in front of him.

With a trembling voice, he said quietly, "Burn."

Blinding silver light burst from the ember.

The shadow flinched. It hissed and withdrew for a moment, the light piercing the layers of nothingness.

Then it happened.

Ash shouted as a tendril of darkness struck his chest.

In his palm, the ember flared brighter, wilder, hotter—

Until it started eating him up.

He was glowing.

Not with flames.

With illumination.

His skin had a crystal-like sheen. The gold flashed in his veins. His hair lifted in a wind that wasn’t there.

And slowly...

Ash started to give way to light.

I clutched the balcony rail as I stumbled forward.

“Ash—” I let out a gasp. "No, not right now—"

Solenne appeared beside me, carrying the flame scrolls.

She remarked, "We've looked for centuries." "But fighting isn't the solution."

With my flame barely stable, I turned to face her. "What are you saying?"

She gave me a scroll with old runes on it.

She said, "The parasite was never just a void." "It was something that was abandoned."

"How?" I inquired.

She raised her gaze to the heavens.

"By the Initial Flame." It's grief. It's guilt. It is regrettable.

I looked at her.

"You mean the parasite was created by it?"

"No," she replied. However, it gave life to the flame. And so abandoned everything it was unable to carry.

I pulled the scroll open.

Red blazed the runes.

And the murmur came back:

"Remember what the flame decided not to remember."

I raised my head.

The sky was on fire.

The moon has also started to bleed.