"You were born to burn—but were you born to choose?"
— Elder Malach, Ash Guard Tribunal
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DOMINION'S INNER SANCTUM — THE FLAME OF JUDGMENT
No sky.
No stars.
Only fire.
Renzo stood beneath three towering flame pillars—Gold, White, and Deep Black—each one crackling with an elemental fury of its own. Their heat did not burn flesh.
They burned truth.
Behind them loomed the obsidian thrones of the Ember Tribunal, carved from volcanic glass fused with ancient soul-embers. The air smelled of ash, incense, and judgment.
Seated upon the thrones:
Elder Malach, Ash Guard Commander. Unflinching. His golden flame did not flicker. It waited.
Elder Vessia, once a Flame Seeker. Eyes like sharp crystal, every word precise. Her aura shimmered purple-blue—cold intellect made fire.
Elder Thorne, the blind mystic. Silent. Still. Yet somehow watching. His flame was black-green—not alive, but aware.
Renzo stood before them. Bare. Wrists bound in flame-sealed iron.
No allies. No words.
Only the echo of his breath and the weight of what he had become.
---
ACCUSATION: UNAUTHORIZED PROTO-SHADOWSIDIAN ACTIVATION
> Elder Malach: "Renzo Guevara. You awakened Shadowsidian without clearance. You disrupted the celestial equilibrium. Do you deny this violation?"
Renzo's lips were cracked. He raised his eyes, defiant but tired.
"I didn't summon it. It… answered me."
> Elder Vessia (sharply): "Even worse. You failed to contain it. Shadowsidian is not a gift. It is a mirror. You lost to your reflection."
Her voice cut sharper than steel. Renzo opened his mouth—but stopped.
Because she was right.
Some part of him had given in. The rage. The ache. That moment… he wasn't entirely himself.
---
THE FLAME ECHO RETRIEVAL
Without warning, the floor beneath him glowed. A flame seal spiraled open, dragging him downward—
Into the Echo Room.
A chamber of shifting mirrors and resonant flame—each wall designed to draw memories from the core of a user's soul. Not just images.
Emotion.
The room ignited around him. And it showed them:
The Seraphim descending like judgment incarnate.
Drei stepping in front of him, stopping the blade.
The Shadowsidian bursting from his spine.
And… a woman's voice—faint, ethereal.
"You are not alone."
His flame ring pulsed. For a second, Renzo saw her—Elira. Smiling through light.
> Elder Thorne inhaled sharply, the first sound he'd made.
"The flame… spoke back."
Even Vessia blinked.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
---
JUDGMENT: TRIAL OR BANISHMENT
> Elder Malach: "Dominion law is clear. Unstable armor use—banishment to the Wastes."
Renzo flinched. The Wastes were where broken wielders went. Where flame turned feral.
> Elder Vessia: "But he remains classified as Ember Class. He's not trained for Sovereign-tier regulation. The fault may not be his."
Silence settled. A silence heavier than words.
Then Thorne spoke.
His blind eyes rolled back into void mist. The black-green flame above his throne flared, as if whispering to him.
> "Let the flame decide. Give him the Trial."
---
THE EMBER TRIAL
Chains unlocked.
Renzo was dropped—literally—through a chute of fire and smoke, landing hard inside the Trial Forge: a natural chamber buried beneath the Dominion, half-lava river, half battlefield. A crucible carved by volcanic wrath.
One rule:
> Survive. Without using your flame.
The doors slammed shut.
Four elite Ash Guard warriors stepped from the haze. Fully armored. Armed with whips, twin daggers, and elemental binds. Their expressions were hidden—but Renzo knew they had orders.
"No flame," he whispered. "Just heart."
---
THE TRIAL: TACTIC OVER TEMPER
Renzo moved.
Not like a soldier.
Like a survivor.
He used broken obsidian shards to reflect glare and blind his enemies.
Slammed an attacker into a magma vent's exhaust.
Took a whip strike but redirected its arc into another guard.
Used his breath—precise, trained—to predict movement, not react to it.
Eight minutes of brutality. He bled from the lip. His knuckles cracked. Ribs throbbed.
But he endured.
One elite hesitated, panting. "He's… adapting."
The fourth raised a blade.
> "Orders are orders."
The blade came down.
And that's when—
A soundless pulse burst from Renzo's back.
Not flame. Not light.
Pressure.
Density.
The attacker was flung backward—unconscious before he hit the wall.
Renzo staggered, fists clenched, shoulders heaving.
---
THE VERDICT
He returned to the Tribunal chamber, bruised, shirt torn, blood dripping—but upright.
> Elder Malach (coldly): "He resisted. Against instinct. That alone separates monster from man."
> Elder Vessia: "He passed. But the risk remains."
She turned to Thorne.
> "What do the shadows say?"
Thorne's voice was barely above a whisper.
> "The flame has begun to listen. And that is more dangerous than fire itself."
Vessia nodded. "Assign him a watcher."
---
AFTERMATH: A VISITOR IN THE SHADOWS
That night, Renzo sat on the recovery tower's balcony, taping his bruised fists. The wind was cold. His breath steamed.
His flame ring had stopped pulsing. For now.
Then—
> "You fought well, kid. But you're not done."
Renzo spun.
Drei stepped from the shadows, flame crystal in mouth, crunching it like candy.
> "You got judged by three relics in robes. Next time? You'll face someone who doesn't give you rules."
Renzo narrowed his eyes. "Verus?"
Drei grinned.
> "Worse. Someone like me."
---
FORESHADOW: THE BROKEN FLAME
Deep beneath the Dominion—far below even the Trial Forge—lies a sealed chamber wreathed in runes and ash.
Inside, suspended in a glowing prism of obsidian:
A cocoon.
It pulses once.
Twice.
Then splits open.
Inside is a child.
No older than ten. Pale. Silent. Eyes pure void.
His flame?
Void-born. But broken.
A voice, deep and warped, whispers through the dark:
> "Project Fallen Spark has awakened."