They buried nothing.
There were no corpses.
Only fragments—ashes of broken memories, dust of names no longer valid. The canyon remained quiet for the first time in centuries, and yet the silence pressed in like pressure in the skull.
Dhera sat with her back to a rock, hands trembling, blood still crusting beneath her eyes. "We held. Barely."
Orven, his voice all but shredded, merely nodded. "The paradox ended the loop. Raech's narrative collapsed the moment he denied his own identity."
Lyra was quiet, sharpening her daggers, though the blades no longer gleamed. "That wasn't just a battle. That was… an erasure."
Valen stood on the cliff's edge.
Looking west.
"The echoes haven't stopped."
Dhera looked up sharply. "What do you mean?"
Valen turned.
"Something else just woke up."
By nightfall, the wind carried a strange rhythm again.
But this time, it wasn't drums.
It was ringing.
Like a bell, tolling underwater—distant, muffled, but steady.
Orven went pale. "No… that can't be real."
Lyra narrowed her eyes. "You recognize it?"
"The Bell of Thorns."
They set out at dawn.
The path led through Skarr Vale, a chasm of hollow trees and whispering vines that moved without wind. Once a sacred corridor of the old Thorn-Blood monasteries, it was now forbidden ground.
Orven, walking with his scrolls tucked to his chest, explained through cracked lips.
"The Bell of Thorns was a signal. It rang only when a Sovereign was dying."
"But not a king of people. A king of names."
Dhera frowned. "You mean a Namekeeper? A being who holds ancestral memory?"
Orven nodded.
"And someone just rang it again."
It was Lyra who saw the monolith first.
Half-buried in the earth, covered in thorned ivy, the stone tower loomed like a sword stuck into the world. At its peak hung a massive bronze bell—green with age, bound in shackles of crimson thread.
It rang with no hand.
With no wind.
Only memory.
Gonnngg...
Valen's blood stirred.
Not with recognition.
But resonance.
The flame on his back flared briefly.
And the bell responded.
Dhera recoiled. "It's tied to the Crimson Mark."
Lyra stepped back. "No… it's bound to it."
Valen walked forward. His boots crushed dead thorns, releasing red dust into the air. Orven raised a trembling hand.
"Don't get close. It's not just a signal—it's a seal. That bell binds something beneath."
Valen touched the base of the tower.
It was warm.
Alive.
Suddenly, the ground split open.
Roots burst upward in wild tangles, forming a ring around them. A voice emerged—not spoken aloud, but echoing within.
"Who bears the flame unearned?"
Valen's hand tightened around Sorrowfang.
"I am Valen Nocturne. I earned nothing."
The voice thundered again.
"Then you are honest. And unworthy."
"Good."
From beneath the tower rose a thorn-king.
A figure draped in flowering vines and bark armor, a face hidden behind a mask of petals hardened like bone.
He knelt before Valen.
And the bell rang once more.
GONNNGG.
Dhera hissed, drawing her staff. "What is this?"
Orven fell to his knees. "That's not a memory. That's a Warden."
Lyra narrowed her gaze. "What kind of Warden bows?"
The thorn-king spoke.
"I am Thales of the Bloomwrought Crown. First Warden of the Thirteenth Flame. And I have waited four hundred years for the firebearer to come."
Valen remained still.
"I carry the Crimson Mark."
Thales nodded.
"You carry its echo. But not its truth. That lies beneath."
The roots opened, revealing a spiral staircase made not of stone, but of thornwood and bloodglass.
Thales stepped aside.
"You must descend."
Valen didn't hesitate.
Lyra cursed. "Why do we always follow the voices underground?"
The descent was long.
Too long.
Space seemed to stretch the deeper they went, until the light above vanished completely.
But the Crimson Mark glowed across Valen's back, and it lit the path like a lantern.
At the bottom stood a mirror.
Tall. Oval. Wrapped in coiling brambles.
But no reflection met them.
Only a door.
Orven whispered, "This isn't a test. It's a choice."
Valen stepped forward.
The moment his fingers touched the glass—it vanished.
Behind it stood a cathedral made of thorns, lit by floating glyph-lanterns.
At its center: a throne of roots.
And in it sat...
A child.
Barefoot. Eyes closed. Skin pale like moonlight. A single thorn pierced his heart, binding him to the throne.
Valen approached.
The child opened his eyes.
And spoke with Valen's own voice.
"Welcome, flamebearer."
"I am what remains of your origin."
Lyra drew her blade instantly. "What the hell is this?"
Dhera stepped forward slowly. "He's... connected to the Mark. He might be the core."
Valen stared.
"This is what the bell woke."
The child nodded.
"I am the last Unburned Name. The memory that must not rise. Yet here you are, dragging me back into light."
Valen asked coldly, "Then why summon me?"
The child gave a small smile.
"Because you're not finished yet."
He stood.
And the throne shattered.
The moment he moved, the thorns reacted, twisting into glyphs, forming symbols of binding and bloodlines.
Orven's eyes widened. "He's not just part of the Mark—he is the Mark."
The child walked toward Valen.
"Before the Crimson Flame can burn a world, it must burn its bearer. Are you ready, Valen Nocturne?"
Valen didn't answer.
He simply unsheathed Sorrowfang.
And stepped forward.