Chapter 73

Chapter 73
Breath of the Hollow Flame

We emerged from the catacombs into the grey-blue light of early morning, soot-smudged and silent. The sun had barely begun to rise over the ruined peaks surrounding the academy, its rays catching on the melted stone and war-scarred towers like broken glass. A breeze drifted through the shattered halls, lifting ash into the air like snowfall.
My fingers were still trembling around the shard Ember and I had retrieved, now wrapped in a protective satchel tucked beneath my cloak. The obsidian still pulsed faintly, almost like it remembered what it had been twisted into. A piece of something sacred, made to protect, bent into something cruel.
Kaelen fell into step beside me as we reached the upper terrace. “You alright?”
“Define alright,” I muttered, and then forced a weak smile. “I’m breathing.”
“Good start,” he said, brushing ash from my shoulder. “But you’re also glowing again.”
I looked down, startled to see a soft ember-hue radiating from my hands, fading like heat after a flame. “It’s happening more often.”
Nyra stirred within me. “Your tether is deeper now. The shard responded to you, not just to the flame.”
“So what does that mean?” I asked inwardly.
“That you’re becoming what the Forge intended, a bridge. Between the flame and the living. Between legacy and future.”
It wasn’t the kind of destiny I felt ready for. But then again, had any of us really been ready for this?
Ahead of us, Ember stood at the cliff’s edge, her hair loose and windswept. She no longer glowed like a living ember, but something about her presence still radiated quiet power. Like the storm inside her had learned to breathe in rhythm with the sky.
“You kept it?” she asked, glancing back at me.
I lifted the satchel slightly. “Until we find a way to purify it.”
“We will,” she said firmly. “We have to.”
Behind us, Raya, Darek, and Cambria were already setting up wards along the outer perimeter, reconstructing what remained of the academy’s defense lines. The forge had gone quiet, but the land itself was still humming with unstable echoes.
Selene approached with a roll of parchment. “A message arrived from the southern spires. The Veil activity has begun to spike again, small fractures, not breaches.”
Kaelen frowned. “Already?”
She nodded. “This isn’t isolated. The chain reaction started with the Flameheart. Each seal weakens the next.”
I felt it too. A faint pressure in my chest, like something tugged on the edges of my awareness.
“We need to reach the final seal,” I said quietly.
Ember turned fully to face me. “We leave today. No more waiting.”
I wasn’t the only one who noticed the tension beneath her steady words. Her gaze drifted southward, beyond the academy’s edge, toward the horizon lined with dark clouds and shifting magic.
“Whoever twisted that shard didn’t just want to destabilize the forge,” she said. “They wanted to lure us away from the last heart. Distract us.”
“And we walked right into it,” Cambria muttered.
“Not entirely,” Kaelen replied. “We sealed the echo. It gave us clarity. And proof that something ancient is still pulling strings.”
Selene nodded grimly. “The Order hasn’t shown their full hand yet. But they will.”
I looked down at the shard, then back to the others. “Then let’s make sure we’re ready when they do.”

Packing what little we had left took less than an hour. The academy had become a hollowed skeleton, beautiful in its ruin, painful in its silence. Even the dorms, once filled with laughter and shifter brawls and whispering witches, now sat quiet. Shadows clung to the stone.
I paused in front of our old room, brushing my fingers over the scorched doorframe. A flash of memory hit—Tara laughing as she floated books through the air. Ember curled up with a journal. Cambria covered in sparkles from a misfired glamour. I closed my eyes, letting the warmth of those memories settle in my chest.
“This place was our beginning,” I whispered.
Nyra’s voice was soft. “But not our end.”
Outside, the others were already assembling.
Tara had returned late during the night, her arm in a sling but her expression fierce. “You’re not leaving without me.”
“We wouldn’t dare,” Ember said.
Kaelen raised a brow. “How’s the arm?”
Tara smirked. “Hurts like hell. I’m ready.”
Darek snorted. “You say that with entirely too much pride.”
“I say it with the confidence of someone who took down three Veil-spawned freaks with a broken arm,” Tara replied with a wink.
We gathered around the map Selene unfurled across a makeshift table. “The final seal lies beyond the Namarian Wastes, past the Hollow Range. We’ll need to go underground, through the Ashway Vault.”
“The old dragon roads,” Darek said, frowning. “Not used in centuries.”
“Because they collapse and eat people,” Cambria muttered.
“Sounds fun,” I said dryly. “Do we know what kind of defenses the last seal has?”
Selene hesitated. “Only fragments. It was never fully charted. But if the Order reaches it first...”
“They won’t,” Ember said. “We’ll get there first. No more delays. No more traps.”
I watched her carefully. Something in her voice, it wasn’t just determination. It was fear, buried deep, that we might be too late.
I understood it.
We left the academy at midday, wind at our backs and ruins behind us. The mountains were quiet as we traveled south, broken paths crumbling underfoot. Once or twice, Kaelen spotted movement in the trees, too fast to be natural. Scouts, maybe. Watching.
We didn’t engage. Not yet.
We spoke little. Rested when we could. Ember and I walked together often, shoulders brushing. Kaelen ranged ahead with Cambria, keeping lookout. Raya and Darek brought up the rear, exchanging spells and strategy notes.
At twilight, we reached the edge of the Hollow Range.
Black stone cliffs jutted up like shattered teeth. Wind screamed through narrow gaps. A lone archway stood embedded in the cliff face, ancient, overgrown, and marked with draconic runes that pulsed faintly at our presence.
“The Ashway Vault,” Selene murmured. “Once the pulse activates, it won’t open again unless we complete the path.”
“Do we know what’s waiting inside?” Kaelen asked.
“Only that it was built to keep things both in and out,” Selene replied.
Ember stepped forward, placing her palm on the central rune.
A spark. Then a sound like a thousand wings unfolding.
The stone parted.
Darkness lay beyond.
A silence followed, thick with expectation.
Cambria broke it with a nervous laugh. “Well. This is definitely one of those ‘you might not make it out’ moments, huh?”
“We always make it out,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt.
Tara clapped my back. “Let’s make this one count.”
We entered it together.