Pag’s breath was slow. Focused. The ember inside him didn’t scream—it waited.

  Across the ruined chamber, the Obsidian Reclaimers moved with military precision. They hadn’t yet seen him. They hadn’t smelled the fire yet.

  Pag turned to the others.

  Faelan had already picked two targets and marked the escape paths. Ellen nodded once, her dagger hilts reversed in her palms. Borin was grinning, the slow, bloodthirsty grin of a man who knew he was about to break expensive armor.

  Pag gave the signal.

  Strike.

  The team erupted from cover with lethal precision.

  Faelan loosed three arrows in the first heartbeat—two dropped Reclaimers mid-step, and the third nailed a visored helmet to a shattered wall.

  Ellen struck like lightning, carving the throat of one scout and planting a blade in another’s spine before the rest could turn.

  Borin’s hammer shattered the ribs of a spearman, then spun in a wide arc that broke the enchanted pike of another with a single, snarling crack.

  Pag didn’t hold back.

  He raised both hands—and let the ember flash.

  Not an inferno—not yet—but focused bursts of searing heat launched like arrows.

  One, two, three—directed shots that superheated the joints of enemy armor until it cracked and split like dried bone.

  The Reclaimers reacted fast, recovering formation, shields locking together as a spell barrier dropped into place.

  And from behind them, the Moonbinder stepped forward.

  Her hands wove through the air like a puppeteer spinning silk.

  “Burn,” she whispered.

  Pag felt a lash of soul-thread magic rake across his mind—cold, binding, trying to choke the ember inside him into submission.

  He gasped, staggered.

  The fire inside him fought back.

  Not in rage.

  But in self-defense.

  The battle roared.

  The Reclaimers and Pag’s team clashed in brutal cycles—blades screamed, magic flared, stone shattered beneath feet.

  Pag ducked under a cleaving halberd, slammed his palm against a soldier’s chest, and unleashed a pulse of heat that flung the man backward in a glowing arc.

  Ellen was bleeding from her temple but still fighting. Faelan had retreated behind a broken dais, firing arrows into exposed ankles, throats, weak points.

  Borin grappled two at once, his hammer swinging in great, groaning arcs that crushed steel and flesh alike.

  And then—

  The monolith screamed.

  The Emberborn Seal pulsed violently.

  A crack spiderwebbed down its center, light bleeding from the fracture in waves of unnatural heat.

  The Moonbinder turned sharply toward it. Her eyes widened.

  “Contain it!”

  But it was too late.

  Pag dropped to one knee as pain lanced through his chest—not from a wound. From within.

  The ember flared violently.

  No longer heat.

  Now a presence.

  Something deeper.

  Older.

  Buried.

  It surged upward like molten truth, through his spine, through his bones, bursting along the veins of his arms.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  >WARNING: EMBERKIN FLUX STATE ENGAGED<

  >CONTAINMENT BREACH IMMINENT<

  >SYMPATHY LINK DETECTED: EMBERBORN SEAL RESPONSE—MATCHING SIGNATURES<

  Pag screamed.

  Flames poured from his back in chaotic wings of blue-white fire. His eyes went blank with light. The world folded inward, sounds distorting, time grinding.

  Something was breaking loose inside him.

  Not the ember he had known.

  Something older.

  Something that remembered Cael’Brith not as a ruin—but as a birthplace.

  The Seal cracked again.

  This time, the floor trembled. Ash bled from the cracks. Whispers filled the air—not voices, but memories.

  Pag looked up through seared vision.

  The Moonbinder stared at him now—not with contempt.

  But with fear.

  “You are not just a bloodline remnant,” she whispered.

  Pag stood.

  Eyes burning.

  Fire cascading from his arms.

  Voice like crackling coal:

  “No. I’m the mistake you didn’t bury deep enough.”

  And the Seal shattered.

  The Seal shattered like obsidian under a hammer, a blast of heat and sound tearing through the temple’s bones. Cracks spiderwebbed across the walls. Ancient runes flared to life—then burst into flame. The world became ash and light.

  Pag was thrown backward, crashing through a half-buried column. He hit the ground hard, his vision filled with spiraling fire.

  Then the whispering began.

  Not words. Not thoughts.

  Memories.

  Not his memories.

  But something that had once worn his shape.

  The Seal’s heart cracked open, and from within it poured a form—vague at first, just smoke and light, flame and fury. It coalesced mid-air, writhing with molten sinew, draped in ribbons of scorched cloth that moved like breath.

  Then it found focus.

  It took shape.

  And it looked like Pag.

  Not exactly. Taller. Sharper. Older. Covered in sigils that blazed across skin like seared script. The fire in its chest pulsed with divine rhythm.

  Its eyes opened—and they were mirrors.

  Pag stared at it.

  And it smiled.

  Not cruel.

  Not kind.

  Just knowing.

  >Entity Identified: MEMORY-ECHO OF THE EMBER THRONE<

  >Also Known As: PAG-PRIME<

  >Temporal Anchor: Lost<

  >Stability: Unbound<

  It spoke, and the world shook.

  “I remember being you. Before the forgetting. Before the seal.”

  The Empire soldiers backed away. Even the Moonbinder froze, mouth open in disbelief.

  “What… is that?” Ellen gasped, rising from behind cover.

  Pag stood slowly, every part of him aching, ember flickering wildly inside his chest.

  “I don’t know,” he said hoarsely.

  But the Echo did.

  “You are the vessel,” it said. “The ember fragment returned. The cinder I left behind.”

  Pag’s blood ran cold.

  “No.”

  He wasn’t a remnant.

  He wasn’t a reborn fire god.

  He was just—

  Just—

  The Echo raised a hand.

  Flame erupted across the chamber, slamming into the Empire’s forward line. Soldiers screamed, armor liquefying in seconds.

  Faelan tackled Borin to the side. Ellen rolled clear of the blast.

  Pag held his ground.

  And the Echo turned its hand toward him.

  “Let me in,” it said. “Be whole. We were never meant to be two.”

  Pag’s knees buckled.

  Images flashed behind his eyes—

  A throne of volcanic glass.

  A crown of flame forged from grief.

  A war that shattered empires.

  His own hands burning cities in righteous fury.

  Pag screamed.

  The ember inside him surged—not in defiance. In recognition.

  This wasn’t power awakening.

  This was power coming home.

  Pag dropped to his knees, clutching his head, fire bursting from his skin in violent surges. The world flickered.

  Half the chamber was ash now.

  The Empire troops had either fallen or fled.

  The Moonbinder was gone.

  Only the Echo remained.

  Waiting.

  Wanting.

  Ellen rushed to Pag’s side. “Talk to me! What is that thing?!”

  “It’s…” Pag hissed, barely able to speak. “It’s me. Or what I used to be. Or… what I’ll become if I let it.”

  The Echo watched, burning and patient.

  “I burned for justice once,” it said. “But I became what I hated. That’s why I split. That’s why I sealed the cinder—you.”

  Pag looked up, eyes burning white-blue.

  “You sealed me… to stop yourself?”

  “To stop us,” the Echo said.

  Pag staggered to his feet, trembling.

  Ellen stepped back, unsure.

  “Are you going to let it in?” she asked, voice soft.

  Pag looked at his hands.

  At the crackling fire dancing between his fingers.

  He looked at the Echo—so vast, so certain, so terribly complete.

  And then he said, with quiet resolve:

  “No.”

  The Echo tilted its head.

  “Then burn with me.”

  It struck.

  Pag raised both hands and met it with a full surge of flame.

  The two infernos clashed, lighting the temple with enough heat to turn stone to slag.

  Pag pushed.

  Not to destroy.

  But to contain.

  To split again.

  To choose again.

  The ember screamed in his chest.

  Pag held.

  And slowly—

  The Echo cracked.

  Its edges shimmered.

  Its flames flickered.

  Not because it was dying.

  But because it was being refused.

  Pag stepped forward, face twisted with effort.

  “You don’t get to decide who I am anymore.”

  The Echo stared at him.

  Then smiled.

  “Good.”

  It raised a hand—and drove its flame into Pag’s chest.

  Pag convulsed—lifted off the ground in a vortex of fire.

  But the fire didn’t consume him.

  It merged.

  Not all of it.

  Just enough.

  Just enough to remember who he was…

  And who he could become.

  When he landed, the fire died away.

  Pag stood in silence.

  Steam curled from his shoulders.

  And behind him, the seal chamber slowly began to collapse.

  Borin helped Faelan to his feet.

  Ellen walked to Pag’s side.

  “…You okay?” she asked.

  Pag stared at the ruined chamber.

  “No,” he said quietly. “But I’m whole.”