Chapter 22 The Forbidden Chamber

Chapter 22 The Forbidden Chamber
I told Rae what I had just heard. As he rushed out to inform Theron, Mira walked in and grabbed me by my wrist.

“Your mark keeps reacting”, Mira whispered urgently.
“Where are you taking me to?” I asked as my steps kept echoing softly.

“To find answers” Mira said, not slowing down until we got to a place that seemed like an ancient corridor.

Without saying a word, Mira led me towards the corridor of a sealed door.

The ember mark pulsed faintly and my wrist began to burn. Every glow and burn sent a warmth through my veins reminding me that something ancient had awakened in me.

As we got to the sealed door, Mira said, “This is the Forbidden Chamber and no one dared to enter even Alpha Theron except the elders.

“We have to be careful because everyone is watching me.”

Mira saw my wrist as it glowed even under a torchlight. “I’m not afraid of your mark Aria, but legends say those who enter uninvited... awaken what should remain asleep.”

I had moved forward before Mira could know and the moment my palm touched the cold stone, everything came alive. The chains fell away and turned to arsh. Then the door creaked open, releasing a hot air that smelled of smoke and memory.

Mira gasped. “By the Moon Goddess…”

The chamber was in a circle and the ceiling was as high as a cathedral. The walls were filled with paintings made of fire and gold white at the center, an altar carved from obsidian stood with its surface cracked with veins of molten light.

I stepped closer looking at each painting with a feeling of something I already know.

One depicted wolves of flame clashing with wolves of silver under a blood-red sky. Another showed a queen with eyes like burning suns, her hands raised as fire poured from them like rivers.

And then, at the far end of the room, was a painting which was unlike the rest, It was the same sigit that is in my flesh - beneath it were words written in Old Tongue: “Through her blood, the Ember shall rise again.”

My breath ceased for a minute. “She vowed to return… through her bloodline.”

Mira swallowed hard, tracing the painting’s edge with trembling fingers. “The Ember Queen. The one who defied the Moon Goddess herself.”

The atmosphere suddenly went cold and there was heat at the same time. I stared at the queen’s painted face and the hair more closely. I stared at her glowing eyes and the flame-shaped crown. She looked terrifying… yet heartbreakingly familiar.

“She looks like you,” Mira whispered.

I shook my head, backing away. “No! That can’t be possible.”

But even as I denied it, my mark flared brighter, causing a red glow on the walls of the chambers. A humming although low, filled the atmospher - It was something ancient.

The paintings on the wall began to move. The painted flames danced, the wolves howled even from the frame, and the queen’s eyes turned toward me.

Then a voice came like a whisper. "Daughter of ember..." It was the same voice that I had always heard in my dreams. “You have awakened what was bound in shadow. The blood remembers its line, even when you do not.”

I was startled and held my head tight. “No! Stop!”

The queen’s image stepped out of the wall, made of smoke and flame. Her crown flickered like a dying star. “You cannot deny what you are,” she said, her tone both proud and mournful. “My blood runs in your veins and my power calls to you.”

Mira pulled me behind her as she drew out her dagger. “Stay away from her!”

The queen’s laughter echoed softly in the chamber. “Do you think your steel can wound fire?”

The torch in Mira’s hands went off, but the room remained lit by my mark which was now burning like molten gold.

I dropped to my knees as my pulse was racing speedily. Images flashed before my eyes of battles fought under crimson skies, thrones of flame, a queen betrayed and bound by moonlight. I saw chains forged from moonstone, sealing away an inferno that refused to die.

My lips trembled. “You’re me… or I’m you.”

The queen’s hand reached out just above my cheeks. “We are one flame just divided by time. But your fire has been dimmed by doubt. Awaken, Aria Blackthorn. Let them remember why the world once feared the name Ember.”

The chamber shook violently. Mira screamed as the floor began to crack and molten lights came from below.

“Aria, we have to go!” Mira shouted.

But I couldn’t move. The queen’s voice filled my mind, drowning out everything else.

“When the second flame is found, the fire shall reign once more.”

And just in a second, everything went still. The queen’s figure dissolved into embers that vanished into my skin. The heat faded and was replaced by silence.

Mira rushed to my side. “Aria! Are you…”

My eyes widened, then it glowed red and gold. “She’s not gone,” I whispered hoarsely. “She’s waiting.”

Mira stared at me in horror and awe. “Aria… what did you do?”

I looked around the chamber, the paintings now cracked and darkened but their colors had burnt away. Only one remained intact which is the one with the queen’s vow.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said with a trembling voice. “I just… remembered.”

As we rushed out of the chamber, the heavy door sealed behind us with the chains reforming as if they had never been broken.

The torches along the hall flickered as we passed, bowing to my light. Mira looked at me as I walked in silence and my eyes still glowing faintly.

By the time we got outside, the night had changed and the moon was no longer silver, but tinged with crimson.

Mira’s voice broke the silence. “What if the elders find out what happened?”

I stopped walking and looked at her, “They will.”

“Then what will you do?”

I looked up at the blood-touched sky with my mark pulsing and said, “The question isn’t what I’ll do but what she’ll do now that she’s awake.”

The wind rose suddenly, carrying with it the faint echo of laughter, It was the Ember Queen’s laughter drifting from the sealed chamber below.

And somewhere deep down, I could feel something ancient stirred. It was faint but growing stronger.

I turned to Mira, with my voice barely audible. “She said when the second flame was found.”

Mira frowned. “What does that mean?”

I frowned as my pulse was quickening. “It means once we find my other half.”

A sharp crack echoed from the woods beyond the citadel and a sound like splitting stone followed by a distant, fiery glow on the horizon. We both froze.

Mira whispered, “Aria… tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

I didn’t answer but my mark blazed so bright that it lit the path ahead, and the last of my doubt vanished like smoke in the wind.

The Ember Queen’s words replayed in my mind, cold and certain: ‘When the second flame is found, the fire shall reign once more.’

I took a step toward the glow in the distance. “It’s beginning,” I whispered.