Chapter 28 The First Myth
The Archive of Embers had always unnerved Rin.
It wasn’t because of its size though the chamber was vast enough to house a small city or because of the weight of centuries pressing in from every direction. It was the silence. The heavy, ancient quiet that felt… watchful.
As if the walls remembered.
As if the past waited for a chance to breathe again.
Rin moved between towering shelves of obsidian tablets, their carved surfaces glimmering faintly in torchlight. Her fingertips trailed along the edges as she walked, the heat in her palms reacting to the dormant mana etched into the stone.
Kaelen walked beside her in his humanoid form, taller than her by a head, his shoulders tense. Even here, where dragons had once recorded the oldest knowledge in existence, he kept one hand on the hilt of his blade.
“Something’s wrong,” he murmured. “I can feel it.”
Rin nodded. “The presence in the fissure… it wasn’t sealed by accident.”
Kaelen gave a low hum. “Then we find out who or what sealed it.”
Rin stopped in front of a locked alcove. The door was carved with a symbol she hadn’t seen before: a circle surrounded by jagged lines, like a sun with broken rays.
She placed her palm against it.
The door flared gold and unlocked.
Kaelen raised a brow. “Convenient.”
Rin didn’t smile. “Or deliberate.”
Inside the alcove sat a single oblong crystal, dark as midnight with a faint swirl of purple at its center.
A memory stone.
Rin lifted it carefully. The moment her fingers touched the surface, heat seared through her, and her surroundings dissolved.
A Vision of the Ancient World
The world reformed in front of her.
She stood on a cliff overlooking a landscape she didn’t recognize. The sky burned with twin suns, casting long shadows across fields of shimmering crystal. Towering shapes moved in the distance serpentine, massive, and glowing with internal fire.
Dragons.
But not as they were now.
Older.
Larger.
More primal.
And beneath them, woven into the air itself, Rin felt it:
Magic as thick and alive as blood.
A world before decay.
A world before fracture.
A figure stood beside her in the vision, cloaked in robes of molten gold. Their face was obscured, but their presence pressed against Rin’s mind with the weight of a mountain.
“You have awakened the Deep,” the figure said. The voice echoed inside Rin’s chest as much as her ears.
Rin stiffened. “Who are you?”
“A memory,” the figure replied. “A recording left for the one who would rise as Keeper of the Ember Lineage.”
Rin swallowed. “And what is the Deep?”
The sky darkened. The ground shuddered.
Far on the horizon, something colossal stirred.
A shadow… no many shadows slithered beneath the crystalline earth, warping the land as they passed.
The figure’s voice hardened.
“In the First Age, before the split of realms, before the weakening of magic, there existed beings unseen by light. Not dragons, not gods, not mortal. We call them Primordials.”
The shadows rose higher, writhing like titanic serpents beneath a sheet of glass.
“They fed on creation itself. On essence. On the pulse of the world. When the dragons rose to sovereignty, the Primordials retaliated. The land cracked. The seas turned to fire. The skies bled.”
Rin felt the memory wash through her fear, powerlessness, destruction too vast to comprehend.
“The dragons defeated them,” she whispered.
“No.”
The figure lifted a hand.
The shadows surged upward, revealing glimpses of monstrous forms shapes that defied definition, limbs that bent wrong, glowing mouths set in impossible angles.
“We did not defeat them. We contained them. Beneath the earth. Beneath the oldest mountains. Sealed by dragonfire and the first Sovereigns.”
The earth groaned in the vision.
A tremor rippled through everything.
Just like the ones Rin had felt.
The figure turned toward her, face still obscured but eyes burning like dying stars.
“Your fire awakens their prison.”
Rin’s breath caught. “Why me? Why now?”
“Because the seal weakens with time. And because you, Ember Sovereign, are the first with enough power to sense them—and the only one who may face what will rise.”
The ground split beneath them. Shadows erupted. The vision collapsed into darkness.
Return to the Archive
Rin gasped and dropped the memory stone. Kaelen caught her shoulders immediately, steadying her.
“What happened?” he demanded.
Rin pressed a hand to her temple. “I saw them.”
“Who?”
“The Primordials.”
Kaelen’s expression hardened. “Explain.”
Rin paced, her wings flickering in and out of existence with her agitation. “They aren’t dragons. They aren’t demons. They aren’t anything we’ve studied. They’re older than our history. Older than dragonfire.”
“And they’re waking,” Kaelen finished.
“Yes.”
He exhaled slowly. “Tell me what else you saw.”
Rin stopped, her voice low. “They were sealed by the first Sovereigns. Not destroyed. Sealed.”
“So the presence we felt”
“Was one of them.”
Silence hung thick.
Kaelen reached out and cupped her chin gently, turning her face toward him. “Rin. Look at me.”
She met his gaze.
“You are not alone in this,” he said, voice steady. “Whatever stirs beneath the mountains, whatever wakes because of your fire we face it together.”
Rin’s jaw tightened, fire rippling under her skin. “This isn’t like the Order. Or the Inquisitors. Or the war. This is… older. Larger.”
“I know.”
Rin shook her head. “If the seal breaks”
“It won’t.” Kaelen’s voice held no doubt. “Because you are stronger than any Sovereign who came before.”
She wanted to believe him.
But deep inside, the echo of the Primordial’s whisper coiled like cold smoke.
Soon.
A Meeting of Sovereigns
By evening, Rin summoned the Ember Council again. The hall filled quickly with representatives of every allied house dragons, humans, mages, and shifters.
Rin stood at the center, wings unfurled, presence burning like a star.
“I’ve uncovered the truth about the disturbances in the Deep,” she began. “They are not natural. They are warnings.”
Lyra leaned forward, arms crossed. “Warnings of what, Sovereign?”
“Of the return of the Primordials.”
A collective hiss of breath swept the hall.
Elder Meress rose shakily. “That is impossible. The Primordials were sealed in the First Age. They cannot rise.”
Rin’s eyes glowed. “The vision I witnessed says otherwise.”
A roar from one of the drake-lords. “Then we prepare for war!”
“No.” Rin’s voice cut through the room like a blade. “Not yet.”
Lyra frowned. “You said they’re awakening”
“And we don’t know why.”
Rin stepped forward, power radiating from her in waves.
“If we attack blindly, we risk breaking the very seal that keeps them contained. I refuse to be the spark that unleashes them fully.”
The hall fell silent.
Kaelen stepped beside her. “We need knowledge. Strategies. Historical accounts lost to time. If these beings fed on creation itself, rushing into battle would be suicide.”
Meress bowed her head. “Then what do you command, Sovereign?”
Rin took a deep breath.
“We send a team into the Deep to find the Heartseal the core of the Primordials’ prison. We learn its state. We reinforce it if possible. And if not…”
Her gaze hardened to molten steel.
“We prepare for the greatest war the world has ever known.”
The Fire Within
That night, Rin couldn’t sleep.
She stood on the balcony overlooking Emberhold, the wind carrying the scent of pine and smoke. The stars shimmered overhead, but she couldn’t feel their warmth.
Kaelen approached quietly. “You’re thinking too loudly.”
Rin huffed a breath. “I can’t help it.”
He came to stand beside her. “Say it.”
Rin’s voice cracked just slightly. “What if my awakening triggered the weakening of the seal? What if this is my fault?”
Kaelen turned her gently, pressing her hand to his chest. His heartbeat pulsed steadily beneath her palm.
“If the seal is failing,” he said, “it began long before you were born. You are not the cause.”
Rin lowered her gaze. “Then why do they speak to me?”
“Because you’re strong enough to hear them.”
He lifted her chin. “And because you are the one strong enough to stop them.”
Rin closed her eyes.
The ground trembled again barely noticeable, but real.
A whisper brushed her consciousness.
We rise with you.
Her fire surged violently in answer, blazing through her veins.
When Rin opened her eyes, they burned molten gold.
“Then let them come,” she whispered. “I will face them.”
Kaelen squeezed her hand.
“Not alone.”