The spire's summit stood bathed in silence.
Not peace.
But expectation.
A flat circular platform, wind-swept and bare, stretched outward toward a night sky cracked with veins of silver lightning. In the center stood the Eighth Throne—a jagged seat of obsidian and bone, towering, not carved but grown, as if shaped from the spine of the world itself.
Valen stepped onto the stone.
And the air remembered him.
Dhera touched her pendant. It was glowing faintly.
"Spiritual pressure is off the charts. This place is still bound to the will of the last king."
Lyra scanned the empty air, then stopped.
"No."
"Not empty."
Valen followed her gaze.
A figure stood behind the throne. At first just a shadow. Then it blinked.
Eyes like mirrors.
No mouth.
No voice.
But its presence filled the space like gravity.
Valen's fingers tightened around his sword.
"I know you."
The figure stepped forward.
It wore ancient armor of unknown origin, etched with markings too old to be written and too new to be read. One hand held a broken scepter. The other was missing entirely.
Its face flickered—
Becoming Valen's.
Then Lyra's.
Then nothing at all.
Dhera whispered, "Is that… the last ruler?"
Valen nodded slowly.
"It's what's left of him."
A wave of pressure rolled over them.
No malice. No heat. Just weight. The figure raised the broken scepter and tapped it once against the stone.
"Do you claim the throne?"
The voice came from inside them, bypassing lips and ears.
Valen didn't answer.
Instead, he walked forward, eyes never leaving the throne.
"Speak. Do you claim memory?"
The second voice struck harder, each word dragging old names and faces from his mind—people he had known, and failed, and buried.
Still, he did not answer.
He stopped one step before the throne.
The figure moved between him and it—still flickering, now showing hundreds of faces per second, as if desperately searching for the one it had forgotten.
Lyra gripped her dagger. "Why's it stopping you?"
Valen exhaled. "Because I'm not supposed to sit. I'm supposed to remember."
The figure extended the broken scepter.
"Then show us who you were."
The world folded.
They stood now in a memory—not a place, but a time.
A battlefield of glass and ash stretched for miles. At its center, a younger Valen stood with a blade not yet named, cloaked in fire and grief.
Behind him, thousands.
Before him, a god made of light and tongues and wings—an Aspect of Ashara.
The same voice echoed again.
"Do you remember what you said before the first strike?"
Valen's past self stepped forward.
And whispered:
"No more kings."
The memory shattered.
They were back at the spire's summit.
The flickering guardian had stopped changing faces.
It now bore only Valen's.
But it was crying.
Silent silver tears ran down its mirrored cheeks. Then, without a word, it knelt before the throne and shattered into dust.
Only the scepter remained.
Valen reached down.
Lifted it.
And sat.
For a moment, nothing changed.
Then the sky bent.
The wind froze.
And a wave of soundless thunder pulsed outward across Elarion.
Every sigil in the city glowed.
Every dead name whispered.
Every tombstone cracked.
Lyra staggered back, covering her ears. "He's... binding the city again."
Dhera was on her knees, her eyes wide. "No, not binding. Reshaping. The throne recognizes him."
Valen sat in silence.
His sword—Sorrowfang—hovered beside him, glowing with a pale silver light.
The scepter pulsed once.
And then a new flame erupted above the throne.
Not the Crownflame.
But a second fire.
Made of fractured memory and unborn truth.
The Flame of the Forgotten.
Valen rose.
The throne remained intact—but he no longer needed it.
"I'm not here to rule."
He turned to the others.
"I'm here to unwrite what should never have been."
Dhera asked carefully, "Are you still Valen?"
He looked at her, eyes calmer than they had ever been.
"No."
"But I remember him."
The scepter dissolved.
The wind returned.
And far below, the citizens of Elarion—those who remained—looked up and saw not one fire, but two.
One for the living.
One for the forgotten.
The balance had shifted.
The war had not ended.
But the board had reset.
As they descended from the tower, Lyra walked beside him in silence.
Then, finally:
"Are we alone in this?"
Valen looked up at the twin fires.
"No."
"There are still others like me."
"They just don't know who they are yet."
He drew his blade.
"Let's remind them."