The air in Caldrith Vale crackled with change.
Whispers passed through taverns and market stalls like sparks caught in a dry wind.
"The boy who saved the Forge Spire."
"The flamebearer who defied the Ashen Lords."
Some called him a hero.
Some… called him a harbinger.
⸻
Three days after the battle, Irisen stood atop a balcony overlooking the molten river. The city moved below him, still alive—but different.
They nodded to him now. Bowed, even.
He didn't like it.
"You've become a symbol," Elyra said, stepping beside him.
"I didn't ask to be," Irisen muttered.
"No symbol ever does."
⸻
Their peace didn't last.
Kareth burst through the door of the Forge Inn, face grim. "You'd better come."
They followed him to the edge of the Emberstone Square. A crowd had gathered, murmuring and shifting uneasily.
At the center stood six figures in blackened robes, their hoods rimmed with gold, their hands painted in soot and ash. In the center of them stood a tall woman with a staff made from burned ivory and red glass.
She looked straight at Irisen.
"We are the True Pyres," she proclaimed. "And he is the Flame-Ender. The one the Prophecies of Cinder speak of. He will burn the world… and we will help him do it."
Gasps rang out through the square.
Maerel, standing beside the city guard captain, snarled. "We don't need this madness here."
The woman—Sister Arienne—held up a scrap of scorched parchment.
It bore the sigil of the Everburn Heart.
"He carries the brand of the flame that forgets mercy," she said. "He will finish what the gods could not: purge this realm of rot. We have seen the visions. He is not the savior. He is the end."
⸻
Irisen stepped forward, voice quiet but firm.
"I'm not your prophecy."
Arienne smiled. "You already are."
⸻
That night, the True Pyres attacked a council storehouse and set it ablaze. When the city guard arrived, the cultists surrendered without resistance. But when questioned, all they would say was, "He walks toward the cleansing."
The council called a vote to exile them—or execute them.
Irisen sat in silence as the debate raged.
"We can't let them stay," Maerel said. "They worship you like a fire god."
Elyra looked troubled. "And they'll keep drawing others."
Kareth glanced at Irisen. "You have to speak, lad."
Irisen stood. The room quieted.
"If we kill them, we prove them right. If we banish them, they become a myth. Let me talk to them."
⸻
They brought Sister Arienne to the forge under guard.
She knelt before Irisen, smiling calmly.
"You carry the ember that ends the Age."
"I carry the ember that remembers what we lost," he snapped. "Not what we have to destroy."
"Same path. Different songs".
He knelt across from her. "Why do you want the world to burn?"
Arienne's eyes were like cooled coals. "Because rot cannot be trimmed. It must be purged. We see what others deny: that this world is already dead. You are the spark that will end its suffering."
Irisen felt the Brand thrum at his side. The air grew hotter.
He gritted his teeth. "I will not be your weapon."
But Arienne whispered something that sent ice through his spine:
"You already were. The moment the Brand chose you."
⸻
That night, Irisen dreamed again.
He stood on a throne of ash, cities burning in the distance.
Beneath him knelt Kareth, burned and bleeding.
Beside him stood Elyra, her eyes hollow, her flame gone.
And in the reflection of the Brand's blade—he saw not himself, but a horned, fire-eyed figure.
A god of ruin.
The Everburn Heart.
⸻
He woke drenched in sweat.
Elyra sat at the foot of his bedroll. She didn't ask.
He didn't speak.
But she placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You are not what they say you are," she whispered.
"How can you be sure?" he asked.
"Because you still ask the question."
⸻
By morning, the True Pyres were gone—dispersed by the city, hunted by the guard.
But Arienne left behind a message carved in flame into the wall of the forge:
"When the Flame-Ender chooses to ignite, none shall stand in the way."
⸻
Far in the dark places between worlds, the Scorch-King watched the flickering Brand through a pool of molten shadow.
Beside him stood a towering beast of obsidian and fire.
"Shepherd him carefully," the Scorch King murmured. "Let him burn just enough to believe in the flame."