The north was a dead zone.
No ley lines. No pull of the Spiral. No trace of Flame.
Just blank magic. Silent, untouched.The kind of place you only found on maps that bleed.
Madalena stayed behind. "If Ruhaen's blade still lives," she'd said, "you don't need me to find it. You need to survive it."
So Amara and Lucien went alone — climbing into the frostlands past Finland, past the known markers, past any tether to the world they'd come from.
By the third day, snow began to fall upward.
By the fourth, their reflections in the ice stopped following them.
And on the fifth, the path vanished completely.
They stood in a blizzard that didn't sting, but hummed. The wind moved in circles, as if listening.
Amara pulled her cloak tighter, heat pulsing in her veins. The Flame still burned clean, but it flickered strangely here — more light than heat. More vision than fire.
Lucien walked a few steps ahead, the black fire in his skin not dimming — in fact, it had begun to glow under the surface. His boots didn't leave tracks anymore.
Amara finally said it.
"You're changing."
He didn't turn. "We both are."
"No," she said. "You're shifting."
He stopped.
Turned.
"You think I haven't noticed what's happening to you too?" he said, voice sharp. "You sleep without dreams. You draw magic that doesn't burn. You spoke a command in the Circle's language and reversed a death spell. You're not just Flame anymore, Amara."
She stared at him. "And that scares you?"
"No," Lucien said quietly. "What scares me is what's following you now."
Amara stepped closer. "And what's inside you? Should I be scared of that?"
Lucien didn't answer.
Because the ground beneath them cracked.
Not from heat. Not from cold.
From truth.
They had reached the edge of the Sanctum Shard — a jagged rift in the tundra, where reality split. A crevasse filled not with stone but with frozen memories. Ghosts trapped in ice, faces flickering — wars, betrayals, sacrifices. Echoes of every bearer who had come here and failed.
And in the center:A pedestal of bone.And on it:The Blade of Ruhaen.
It wasn't a sword.It was a shard of something larger — jagged, black, etched with golden truth-lines. It pulsed not with magic, but with memory.
Lucien stepped forward.
The shard glowed brighter.
Amara stopped him. "No."
"This is why we came."
"Then I take it," she said.
He hesitated.
"I need to know if I can carry truth," Amara said. "Not just flame. All of it."
Lucien nodded once and stepped back.
Amara reached out.
Her hand touched the Blade.
And the world exploded.
She was ripped through time.
She saw every moment she had forgotten — and every life she hadn't lived. She saw herself not as Flame-Bearer or leader, but as spark — the very first soul who asked questions before magic even had answers.
She saw Lucien.
Not as man. Not as beast.But as gate.
A bridge between realms. Not born, but summoned — shaped by Nereza and something older. A weapon forged for war that had never ended.
And she saw a future.
One where she wore a crown made of scars.
One where Lucien didn't stand beside her.
But below her.
Bound.
Obedient.
Silent.
She tore her hand away.
Collapsed, gasping.
Lucien caught her.
And saw it in her eyes.
"You saw something," he whispered.
She nodded.
But didn't say it.
Not yet.
Because the Blade of Ruhaen was now in her hand.And behind them — in the frost —Someone else had arrived.
Watching.
Waiting.
Smiling.