Chapter 99 The Final Reckoning — Flame and Fate
The sky cracked open.
Not with thunder, but with silence.
The Rift had become a mouth, yawning wide across the world, swallowing stars and spitting out fragments of time. The ley lines had snapped. The Weave had frayed. Magic no longer obeyed rules—it obeyed will.
And Lady Virellian’s will was absolute.
We stood at the edge of the world, where the Emberwild met the void, where flame met nothingness. The Forgotten Flame pulsed in my chest; all five shards now fused into one unbearable truth.
“I can feel her,” I whispered. “She’s everywhere. She is coming for us.”
“She’s becoming everywhere,” Yuel said. “She’s not just rewriting magic anymore. She’s rewriting reality.”
“She’s rewriting us,” Kael muttered, staring at his hands like they might vanish.
Thessa stood beside me, her blade glowing faintly. “Then we stop her. Before we forget who we are. We end what she is doing, and we stand and fight for what we want and what we have.”
Milo stood apart.
The black flame in his hand had grown darker, heavier. It no longer flickered—it consumed. His eyes were shadowed, his voice distant.
“She’s calling to me,” he said. “The Void is listening. I don’t know if I want to fight anymore.”
“You’re not hers,” I said.
“I’m not sure I’m mine anymore. I am not sure I want to be”
The sky split again.
And Lady Virellian descended.
“When do we get the ability to fly?” Kael mutters as we look at the woman who descended, though she was no longer a woman.
She was a constellation of flame and memory, her body stitched from stars, her voice a chorus of forgotten gods. It was like her first self was the frame, and now she was building the photo that goes inside.
“You are still standing, that is disappointing,” she said. “But you are still bound by time. By fear. By fate.”
She raised her hand.
“Aaannnnnd away we go,” Kael yells seconds before the world shatters.
We were no longer in the Emberwild.
We were in the Between.
A place outside time.
A place where flame had not yet been born.
The stars above us were unborn.
The ground beneath us was memory.
And Virellian stood at the center, her arms outstretched.
“I am the first flame,” she said. “And I will be the last.”
“Too bad that I am the only thing that is standing between you and your goal. Take a number, sweetheart, because I am stubborn and I am not going to let you get any further.” I reply
She attacked.
Not with fire.
With truth.
She showed us what we could have been.
What we should have been.
What we never were.
Thessa saw herself as a queen.
Loved.
Respected.
Safe.
And then—alone.
Kael saw himself as a hero.
Admired.
Feared.
And then—forgotten.
Zeke saw himself as a protector.
Strong.
Steady.
And then—abandoned.
Yuel saw himself as a scholar.
Wise.
Powerful.
And then—irrelevant.
Ellira and Lira saw themselves as whole.
Together.
And then—torn apart.
Talon saw himself standing alongside Narrin
Protecting the weak.
Fighting for the innocent.
And then he was nothing.
Gerald saw himself as a legend.
And then—a joke.
Quacknor saw himself as a phoenix.
And then—a feather.
Milo saw himself as a god.
And then—a void.
And I—
I saw myself as a flame.
And then—ash.
We screamed.
But no sound came.
Virellian smiled.
“You are not real,” she said. “You are stories. And I am the author.”
And then—
A voice.
Fierce.
Familiar.
“Then I’ll write my own ending.”
Aine stepped forward.
Her body burned with silver flame.
She raised her hand.
And the Between cracked.
The blast from the Between, breaking, sent shockwaves rippling across Aeloria.
We were back.
Together.
But not whole.
Milo collapsed.
The black flame surged.
He screamed.
“I can’t hold it!”
I ran to him. But I couldn’t get close.
I screamed his name as the shadows took hold.
“You’re here,” I said. “Stay with me. Please don’t leave me, Milo. Stay and fight, please. I beg you.”
He looked at me.
“Please, Milo, you can’t do this. You promised to stay with me, you promised never to leave. You said that you could fight it. The shadows aren’t you, you aren’t the void, please, Milo, fight. Don’t give up. Giving up is easy, but you don't take the easy way. Remember, Mom always said that ‘anything worth having was worth fighting for,’ so fight, damn it. FIGHT!” I screamed
I begged and pleaded for Milo to fight the shadows, not to let them win. Thess was begging and crying.
Ellira and Lira were working and writing magic glyphs
Talon was standing guard
Yuel was offering snacks
Zeke and Kael were telling jokes.
The shadows continued to darken over Milo, almost completely covering his body now.
And the flame flickered, the shards within me pulsed with light.
“I’m not me anymore,” Milo whispers while groaning through the pain of the shadow.
“You’re ours.”
He smiled. At least I think he did.
And the flame burned hotter and hotter before it exploded.
The Rift screamed.
The stars fell.
And Virellian laughed.
“You are too late,” she said. “I have already won.”
She raised her hand.
And the world—
Stopped.
We were frozen. My eyes were stuck on Milo still on the ground, still covered in shadows.
Trapped in a moment that never ended.
And Virellian stepped forward.
She touched the Forgotten Flame in my chest.
And whispered:
“Now, I take everything.”
I screamed inside my mind. I wanted to reach out and slap her, to curse her out, to burn her with my flame, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I didn’t even know how I was breathing, as I couldn’t even feel my chest. But Virellina’s words kept echoing over and over again in my mind like her voice was stuck on repeat.
“Now I will take everything.” Those words, along with her evil laugh, wouldn’t leave me.