Chapter 200: The Final Guardian of the Flame

Chapter 200: The Final Guardian of the Flame
Adira’s POV

I stood in the flame and watched her.

Curling at the edge of the candlelight in the Sky Temple, a girl with inquisitive eyes and fingers soiled with ink was writing sentences into a thick leather book. Her hands shook slightly, not out of fear but out of wonder. She was a young woman. Ten, perhaps. Less, perhaps. But before she had ever turned a page, the stars seemed to have whispered stories into her dreams, as evidenced by the age of her eyes.

In the uppermost room of the Flamekeeper's tower, she sat by herself amid fading sculptures and luminous manuscripts. And a book that would outlive all of us one day lay open and waiting in front of her.

Once more, the girl dipped her pen, and while she wrote, her lips moved.

She said, "The Crimson Queen was born of choice, not fire." She was a young woman who fought for her beliefs, loved, and lost. And her passion turned into a road.

I grinned.

She understood.

Not only the conflicts. Not only the myths. But the core of it.

The girl went on, her voice now lower, "She became light." "And people still remember her name when the stars go out and the wind gets cold."

She hesitated. She hovered her pen over the paper.

Then she scribbled the last line in a single stroke.

"In areas where light cannot reach, she walks motionless."

The candle next to her suddenly flashed with gold.

Take a breath, please.

For a whisper only.

However, she noticed it.

She noticed me.

She also grinned.

The Flame Council convened the following morning beneath the edge of the sky, where the final sky temple had been restored.

It caught the first rays of light in its flawless curves, standing tall and slender like a flame trapped in glass. Hundreds of villagers, elders, and young flame-keepers gathered in a broad circle around its base, each holding a torch that flickered in a thousand different colours, including silver, orange, red, and even pale blue. The breeze was silent and considerate.

The time had come.

Now older and wiser, Solenne took a step forward. Her hands remained firm, but her hair had turned completely grey. Taking the ceremonial spark from the Eternal Ember itself, she held it between her palms.

She grinned softly as she looked up at the throng.

"We do not lament the past today," she stated. We respect it. We lit this flame to remind the world that she was here, not to call her back. That she cherished. That she decided to do.

Then she leaned over and touched the centre of the temple with the spark.

Immediately, the fire ignited and shot up like a shooting star. The entire tower was illuminated from the inside, scarlet at the top and golden at the bottom. The audience let out a gasp. A few others applauded. Some people sobbed.

A young youngster, perhaps seven years old, was standing among them, holding onto his father's sleeve.

He didn't have his eyes on the fire.

He was investigating.

Then he gently pulled his father's arm.

"Papa," he said.

The man knelt and said, "What is it?"

The boy claimed to have seen her. "In the flames."

"Who?"

Indeed, the boy's eyes were big. "The Queen."

His father brushed his hair and laughed softly, uncertainly. "There are so many stories in your eyes."

The boy, however, did not chuckle.

He simply turned his look back to the blaze.

For a moment, where I had stood.

No more than enough time for one heart to identify another.

A faint shape—my shape—moved under the surface of the flame in the flickering firelight, waiting.

Ash strolled through the temple as if he were burdened by the solitude.

He was no longer carrying a weapon. Not the Starblade, either. He just had a tiny silver locket in his hand, no bigger than his thumb. Under armour, robes, and flame, he had kept it near his chest for years, but now he held it in plain sight.

The locket continued to pulse quietly.

The heat has subsided.

Only warm. Like the warmth that results from holding hands. From hushed farewells. From unfulfilled promises.

Echoes of all the battles we had fought together flooded the temple walls that shimmered about him. Torchlight flickered on faces cut into the stone. Carefully engraved are symbols of the Phoenix, the Crimson Queen, and the Eternal Flame.

However, Ash's look was fixed on a single object.

The central altar.

Fire flowers encircled the little stone circle. There was no crown to rest on. Not a weapon. Only the whisper of wind through old pillars and the gentle glow of flame.

Ash took a step forward and lowered the locket into the circle while kneeling.

The flames surrounding the altar erupted the instant it struck the stone, yet it was in calm rather than anger or agony.

Like a sigh, a breeze swept through the temple.

The locket was tenderly cradled by the flames as they wrapped around it.

Then a voice rose, not quite mine, but not far from it. One of the memories. A fact.

"It's sufficient."

Ash shut his eyes.

His shoulders trembled, not because of sadness but rather from the peaceful relief that comes from knowing that you've completed the task at hand.

In a whisper, he said, "Thank you."

The only response from the blaze was quiet.

However, the stars outside started to get brighter.

It was the quietest the temple has ever been.

Not even in the past, when people would mutter prayers before fights or after defeats. Not after the sky-temples were illuminated by Ash. Not even after my coronation under the stars. But now—now it was the quiet of something holy, something that simultaneously came to an end and started anew.

With his look fixed on the tiny silver locket, Ash knelt in front of the altar.

After a lengthy journey, it appeared to be at rest as it lay still.

The gentle gold of dawn had started to rise, and the fires flared softly all around us. The margins of the old fire lilies that encircled the altar were warmed by the first rays of daylight as they gently made their way over the stone floor.

It then made contact with the locket.

Initially, nothing occurred.

Then the noise.

A little crack.

It was so gentle, I believed I was dreaming.

Ash, however, also heard it.

Leaning in, he held his breath.

The locket was glistening. Then it began to split slowly, like a flower opening to the sun, rather than shattering. Something that had been concealed for years, if not longer, was revealed when the top half slowly lifted.

One last ember.

Tiny. Light silver. But still living.

It pulsed softly with light, like a memory that would not go away, rather than like flames raging in combat. Like a pledge.

My name was said quietly by Ash.

Hovering in midair and twirling once or twice, the ember emerged from the locket. Ash's eyes reflected the light from it. He remained still. Nobody did. The breeze remained motionless as well.