The gates of the Core opened under dusk’s dying light, steam rising from the hidden wards that lined its entry stones.
Meowtimer was already waiting in the inner courtyard, arms folded, golden eyes narrowed.
He said nothing until all four were inside and the gates sealed again.
Then, softly:
“You touched something you weren’t ready for.”
Pag stepped forward and handed over the shard.
“It touched back.”
The Altacian took the relic carefully, holding it in clawed hands as if it might crack the world a second time.
He turned to the others.
“You all survived. That matters more than you know.”
Borin grunted. “Barely.”
Ellen just looked at Pag.
“So now what?” she asked.
Meowtimer looked up.
“To the next one,” he said. “And fast.”
In a chamber far below the Core, beneath wards untouched since the Ember War, Pag and Meowtimer stood before a great table etched with a map of the continent.
Lines of mana shimmered through it like veins.
The shard pulsed once from within its crystal case, and several points of light flared across the map—deep forest, sunken coast, shattered desert.
Pag stared.
“Other relics,” he whispered.
“Fragments,” Meowtimer confirmed. “Most scattered when the Seal was broken the first time. Others were hidden. Some moved since then.”
He traced a claw toward the western coast.
“And the Empire will already be watching for the echoes. You’ve drawn the hunt.”
Pag nodded slowly.
“So it’s a race.”
“No,” Meowtimer said.
“It’s a war.”
Elsewhere — Caedemon’s Path
Far from the Core, in the shadowed sanctum of an ancient Imperial monastery, Caedemon knelt before a hollow altar of bone and blackened crystal.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The chamber shimmered faintly with the ghost of the Seal’s shattering.
Behind him, silent agents stood waiting—rogues, warpriests, summoners trained for silent conquest.
Caedemon’s voice was calm, even reverent.
“The ember has awakened.”
He turned toward his gathered elite.
“And the cinder walks the world again.”
He raised his mask.
Beneath it, his eyes glowed—not with magic.
With remembrance.
>Next Phase Initiated: The Emberborn Retrieval War<
>Objectives: Recover remaining fragments before Pag does.<
>Secondary Directive: Secure—or destroy—the vessel.<
Back at the Core, Pag stood once more beneath the open sky.
The stars had shifted.
Slightly.
He felt their heat now.
Just a little.
Ellen stepped beside him.
“You good?” she asked.
Pag watched the horizon.
“No,” he said. “But I’m ready.”
The salt air bit deep as Pag stood at the edge of the crumbling cliff, looking down at the endless grey churn of the sea.
Far below, under crashing surf and storms older than nations, lay the ruins of Vare-Nost — a city lost before the Lunar Empire ever rose. Swallowed by a godquake. Forgotten. Buried in brine.
But not dead.
A single pulse from the Emberborn shard, back at the Core, had pointed them here.
>RELIC SIGNATURE DETECTED: SUBMERGED RUINS — VARE-NOST Warning: Magical Interference—Hydrostatic Pressure & Elemental Dissonance<
Pag clenched his fists.
The ember inside him whispered uneasily.
Water. Cold. Suffocating. Wrong.
“I’m going to hate this,” he muttered.
They came by skiff — a small, reinforced boat lined with Core glyphs for stability and breath-casting.
Pag rode with Ellen, Faelan, and a specialist Meowtimer had assigned to guide them: Kara Nel, a tidebinder mage with control over enclosed waters.
Kara stood at the bow, cloak flaring in the wind, her tattoos glowing with faint blue runes as she carved a descent path through the storm.
“You’re sure it’s under there?” Ellen asked, squinting through the mist.
Kara nodded. “More than one echo. Something still radiates... deep. Beneath the last standing dome.”
Faelan adjusted the waterproof seal on his gear. “We go in light. In and out.”
Pag remained quiet.
Because the ember inside him was reacting.
Not with hunger.
But with resistance.
Like every cell in his body screamed wrong environment, wrong domain, wrong breath.
But still…
He stepped off the skiff and followed the others into the dark.
The pressure hit first — a crushing weight that coiled around the lungs, pressed on the skull, twisted flame-born instincts into panic.
Kara’s spell bubble held around them, barely, but the magic strained against Pag’s body.
The deeper they went, the louder the world became.
Not with sound.
With memory.
Vare-Nost was not dead.
It remembered drowning.
Ghost-lights flickered in distant arches. Coral had overgrown golden statues. Crumbled avenues opened into halls of barnacle-choked glass. Currents pulled at them not with force—but with intent.
And far below, beneath all of it—
A pulse.
Slow. Rhythmic.
Calling to the shard in Pag’s belt.
They reached the dome last — a massive spherical structure of glass, quartz, and bronze half-buried in silt and bone.
As they breached its outer seals, Kara widened the air bubble around them, pushing back the tide.
Inside, light drifted down through shattered glass above, refracting into liquid gold.
In the center of the dome: a pedestal.
And upon it: a second fragment.
This one shaped like a heart, split and scorched, suspended in a ring of broken chains.
Pag stepped closer.
>RELIC FRAGMENT: EMBER CORE VESSEL<
>Status: Dormant. Stabilizing. Environmental Hazard: Reactive Instability<
He reached for it.
And the room shifted.
Not physically.
Spiritually.
The water outside began to boil.
The dome trembled.
And from the shadows between fallen pillars, something stirred.
A humanoid shape.
Wreathed in flickering blue flame.
Eyes burning not with ember—but with deep-sea fire.
It spoke in a voice warped by depth:
“You should not be here, fire-born.”
Pag froze.
“…You’re Emberkin.”
“I was. Before I drowned. Before the seal left me here to rot.”
It stepped forward, light dancing across barnacle-scarred skin.
“You came to take it. I cannot let you. I remember too much.”
And with that, the drowned Emberkin attacked.
