The next Flame-Bearer surfaced in Skopje.
A coded message from Madalena arrived through magical ink that bled red only in moonlight:
"Another one's awake. Wrong side. Move fast."
So they did.
Lucien and Amara reached the outskirts of the city by dusk, cloaked in veils of protective illusion. The skies were gray, heavy with storm clouds, the mountains in the distance aching with silence.
Madalena met them outside an abandoned chapel, eyes grim.
"He's called Thren," she said. "Born during the Ninth Eclipse. Flame-Bearer blood, but fractured. Twisted."
"By the Spiral?" Amara asked.
Madalena shook her head. "By himself. Not all fire burns clean."
They stepped into the chapel. The stained glass had long since shattered. Symbols of the old Flame cults were still etched in the walls — protection spells, blood-rites, prayer wheels.
And at the altar stood a man.
Shirtless. Eyes like ash. Hands glowing with sickly orange flame. Not gold. Not true Flame.This fire looked infected.
Amara stepped forward. "Thren?"
He turned slowly. His body was scarred — not from battle, but rituals. Old. Deep. Purposeful.
"You're her," he said, voice raw. "The breaker. The queen of the flame."
"I'm Amara."
He smiled. But it was wrong. "You shouldn't have broken the cycle. It was the only thing keeping the dark out."
Lucien stepped beside her. "You're a Flame-Bearer. You should've awakened clean."
"I did awaken," Thren said, raising his hand. "But the fire came through twisted. Because the veil you tore let other things through."
He clenched his fist. The flame on his hand shifted — cracked.And something slithered beneath his skin.
Lucien moved.
Too fast to track. Blade out.
Thren caught it — barehanded. The obsidian edge sizzled in his palm, but he didn't flinch.
Amara's eyes widened. "Lucien—!"
Thren threw him backward with a single burst of flame. Lucien crashed into the far wall.
Amara drew both blades.
"Your fire isn't clean," she said.
"Neither is the world anymore," Thren growled. "And when it collapses, people like me will be all that's left."
He lunged.
Amara met him mid-strike. Blade to fire. The heat burned. The pressure bent the room around them. She called her Flame, forced it down her arms — into her steel.
She cut deep.
Thren screamed — and flame exploded outward, throwing her against the altar.
Lucien rose from the rubble. But his hands weren't normal anymore.
The black fire curled around his arms like vines.
"Stay down," Amara coughed.
Lucien didn't.
He moved toward Thren — slow, methodical — and raised his hand.
"Mine now," he whispered.
And the shadow flame struck.
It didn't burn. It consumed. It erased. Like it was devouring the magic inside Thren — eating him from the soul out.
Thren fell. Silent. Crumbling into ash.
Silence.
Madalena stared at Lucien like she didn't recognize him.
Even Amara was frozen.
Lucien stood in the wreckage. Breathing slow. Fire still curled around his fingers — black and silver, flickering like memory.
Amara stepped forward.
"Lucien… what is that?"
He looked at his hands. Then at her.
And said something he'd never said before:
"I don't know."