Three years passed, but the sky above Vireya never truly calmed.
It remained in a state of gentle unrest—clouds shifting where none had before, stars blinking like restless eyes. The ley lines beneath the city pulsed louder. The moon glowed more brightly over the spires.
And always, always, the twins pulsed with it.
---
Theron now ran faster than any child his age. His feet never quite touched the ground when he moved quickly—fire trailed behind him in flickers of gold. He could call sparks from his fingertips without trying. Once, he sneezed during a Council meeting and singed the banners above the hearth.
Elira, meanwhile, hummed to the gardens and they bloomed wildly out of season. She read tomes not written in the current age. Once, she healed a wounded hawk with a single tear.
Where Theron grew intense, restless, smoldering—
Elira was calm. Still. Luminous.
Together, they stood at the edge of something vast.
Apart… they were becoming unknowable.
---
Selene stood in the observation gallery of the Arcane Archives, watching her daughter move through the floating libraries like she belonged there. The seers who worked within had long since ceased trying to hide their awe.
"She was born knowing," murmured Maelyra. "She doesn't learn the texts. She remembers them."
Selene nodded.
"She's not a child anymore."
---
Kael trained with Theron daily now. The courtyard had been reinforced with volcanic stone and protective barriers after Theron shattered a weapon rack with one shout.
The boy now wielded a staff made from obsidian and carved bone—a gift from the Crimson Matriarch, who had returned briefly to observe the twins at age two. Since her visit, Theron had started speaking in tongues when his dreams grew hot, a language Kael could not translate.
He'd sent word to the Outer Flame Sanctum, hoping someone there could interpret it.
But there was no response.
Only silence.
And that silence, Kael feared, meant they were listening too carefully.
---
The first rebellion message came wrapped in phoenix-hide, burnt at the edges.
Kael found it on the steps of the Moon Throne.
No seal. No signature.
Just one line burned into the leather:
> "The Flame remembers what the Moon would erase."
Selene stared at it for a long time.
Then tossed it into the hearth.
But neither of them slept that night.
---
The twins had begun dreaming together.
Selene first noticed it when they awoke the same night, screaming the same name.
"Elunari."
It was not a name in any of the known records.
Rowan searched every archive. Naeria consulted the spirit stones.
Only Maelyra recognized it.
She paled when she heard.
"Elunari is not a person," she said. "It's a gate."
---
A gate to what?
None of them knew.
But Selene remembered the whisper from her dream long ago:
> "When the fire comes—when the world breaks again—you must stand between them."
---
On the twins' fourth birthday, a comet passed too close to the realm.
Not just any comet.
This one left a trail of red fire across the sky, lasting days. It disrupted magic in the air, soured crops, and caused animals to howl throughout the night. Children were born with glowing eyes. Old trees shed their bark in one night.
The seers called it an omen.
Kael called it a warning.
Selene watched the sky burn and wondered what would happen the day the stars fell entirely.
---
That same week, Rowan returned from a scouting mission in the Shadowglen.
His armor was torn. His eyes were hollow.
"We found the Temple of the First Flame," he said.
No one breathed.
"It's… waking."
Selene stood still, Elira clinging to her hand.
Kael stepped beside them. "What do you mean waking?"
Rowan shook his head. "It wasn't stone anymore. It breathed. The fire inside it speaks. And it's calling one name."
He looked to Theron.
"Elunari."
---
They met in secret that night—Selene, Kael, Rowan, Naeria, and Maelyra—around the Moonfire Altar. The twins were asleep in their chamber, though the walls trembled faintly when Theron rolled over in his dreams.
"The gate," Naeria whispered. "It must be buried inside the Temple. The First Flame wasn't just a power—it was a prison."
"For what?" Kael asked.
Rowan was quiet.
Maelyra answered instead. "For Azthera's last soul."
The room went cold.
"You're saying… the Flame God's soul still exists?" Selene asked.
Maelyra nodded. "Fragmented. Sealed. And the prophecy said: 'the child who burns must open the way.'"
Kael exhaled slowly.
"Theron."
---
But Theron was just a boy.
A boy who loved the taste of roasted berries, who collected sharp stones, who asked questions no child should know how to form.
He was not evil.
He was not destined to destroy.
Selene refused that future.
---
They decided to prepare for a journey.
To find Elunari.
To stop the prophecy before it twisted further.
To protect their children from becoming weapons.
---
But the world had already noticed.
In the northern peaks, an army of Ashborn gathered—wolves whose magic had been blackened by the fire decades ago. They carried banners of crimson and gold, marked with the same sigil now found in the Temple ruins.
They whispered of a coming king.
A boy born of gods and wrath.
A firechild.
And they were ready to serve him.
---
Elira began hearing them in her dreams.
Selene found her one night sitting on the palace steps, whispering to the stars.
"They're coming," she said, small voice laced with starlight. "They think they belong to him."
"Do you?" Selene asked gently.
Elira shook her head. "No. But I think… they're afraid of me too."
---
Theron had begun to draw.
He filled scrolls with spirals, flame symbols, sigils no tutor had shown him. Some matched the ones in the Flame Temple ruins. Others? Unknown.
One drawing stood out.
It showed two thrones: one of fire, one of moonlight.
And between them, a figure in chains.
The figure looked like Selene.
---
Selene stared at the image long after Theron had run off to play.
Kael appeared beside her.
"She's still the light," he said softly.
"And he's still our son," Selene whispered. "But this realm may soon ask us to choose between them."
Kael took her hand.
"Then we defy the realm."
---
In the silence that followed, the twins laughed in the garden.
But above Vireya, the stars flickered.
And somewhere far beneath them—
The First Flame opened its eyes.
---