Chapter Eighty-Two:

  “Secrets”

  The dining room of The Sleeping Embers Inn was welcoming with the lingering scent of fresh coffee, juice, and emberfruit tarts, glazed with honey. But no one was savoring the meal. Plates sat half-cleared, mugs drained in hurried swallows, hands moving with mechanical efficiency rather than appetite. The certainty of what awaited them pressed down, heavier than exhaustion. The dawn began to break sluggishly through the high windows of the inn.

  Leo pushed his chair back, the wooden legs scraping softly against the worn floorboards. His hands flattened against the tabletop for a moment, his fingers curling and uncurling, like he was grounding himself before standing. Across from him, Emily finished the last bite of her food, her movements economical, precise. Asha wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve, already shifting in her seat like she was ready to bolt.

  No one spoke. There was nothing left to say.

  Ankit leaned back in his chair a little too far, nearly tipping over before he caught himself with a sharp jolt. His gaze flicked around quickly, checking to see if anyone had noticed. One had. Lucinda sat beside Raya with a fresh smile, while Raya absentmindedly scratched behind Ani’s ears. The wolf lay curled at her feet, his eyes half-lidded, alert despite his relaxed posture. "So, are we?"

  The sound of approaching footsteps cut her off.

  Ashen and Sienna stepped forward, moving with a deliberate calm. Sienna’s eyes moved across the table, noting their readiness to leave. Ashen stood straight, his hands tucked behind his back, posture unusually formal. His expression was careful, but his eyes betrayed something else, something barely containing excitement, like a child on the verge of blurting out a secret.

  He cleared his throat. "Before you go…"

  He shifted on his feet, the energy of the unspoken reveal buzzing under his skin. With a deep breath, he said, "I, uh... I made something. Stayed up all night working on it."

  Sienna rolled her eyes, but there was no real annoyance in it. "Just show them already."

  With an eager nod, Ashen lifted the wooden sign from behind his back, gripping it tightly as he turned it over for them to see. The sign was heavier than it looked, his arms stiff from holding it hidden for so long. The grain of the wood had been carefully seared, each groove and detail burned into place with a steady hand, his long night of work etched into every mark.

  The image was unmistakable, a woman engulfed entirely in flame. Not consumed, not destroyed, but alive within the fire, made from it. Beneath the design, the wood bore a new name, the letters scorched deep.

  The Undying Flame.

  Ashen exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just... I wanted to make sure she was remembered. That she was more than just another story people tell."

  His gaze turned towards Leo, searching, uncertain. "I... I hoped she would have liked it."

  Leo stepped forward, staring at the sign for a long moment. His fingers brushed over the etched name, tracing the burned letters. The flame-carved figure, the memory wrapped in heat and light. His throat tightened, but when he spoke, his voice was steady.

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  "She would have loved it."

  As they stepped outside into the early morning hours of Emberwood Village, the crisp air carried the scent of lingering ash and damp earth. The village stirred around them, waking not with the ease of a peaceful dawn, but with the determined energy of rebuilding. People moved with steady resolve, mending what had been broken. Fire Mages lined the streets, their hands aglow as they melted fractured stone, reshaping it into sturdy walls, reforging the very bones of their homes and shops.

  Emily took it all in, the hum of magic, the clatter of tools. She turned to the group, her eyes steady. "So, we are all in agreement. No one can know what we are planning or where we are going. It's safer that way. Yes?"

  A chorus of nods followed, some solemn, some resolute. Even Ani let out a low huff, his icy breath unfurling into the cool air with silent confirmation.

  Emily exhaled. "Right. Raya, you know what to do."

  Raya stepped forward, drawing a slow, steadying breath. She lifted her hands.

  A sharp burst of magic surged outward, crisp and biting. Frost bloomed beneath her fingertips, spreading outward in intricate veins of ice. The space before them froze, cracking, distorting, until, with a soft, resonant chime, a swirling portal of blue and white expanded before them, cold mist drifting from its edges.

  One by one, they stepped through the portal, swallowed by the swirling frost. The cold air hummed with lingering magic as each figure disappeared into the shifting blue and white beyond. Emily went first, her stride firm. Leo followed, silent but certain. Ankit hesitated only a moment before flashing a grin, more habit than humor, and vanishing into the glow. Asha, then Raya and Ani, the massive wolf stepping through without a sound.

  Lucinda moved to follow, but just as she reached the threshold, a small hand caught her wrist.

  She turned. Sienna stood there, looking up at her with wide, knowing eyes. No more fear. No more doubt.

  Lucinda knelt, lowering herself to Sienna’s height, letting the girl lean in close. A whisper, words meant only for her. Lucinda’s eyes widened with understanding. She nodded once, the motion slow, measured.

  Then, without a word, she rose, placed her hands before her, and bowed. First to Sienna and Ashen, deep and respectful. Then she rose and turned, facing the village. The people of Emberwood had paused in their work, watching, waiting. Lucinda held their gaze, then lowered herself again, a solemn bow to them all.

  When she stood, she moved with quiet certainty. She turned, stepping through the vortex, and the moment she vanished, the swirling frost collapsed inward, the portal snapping shut with a final, whispered, frozen hush.

  The portal collapsed behind them with a whispered breath, leaving only silence in its wake.

  Scorching heat pressed against them as they stood at the edge of a ruined land, the weight of finality settling in their souls. The once-gilded city that Raya had glimpsed before, Mar’abar, alive with its markets and faith, was nothing but a rotting corpse of stone and ash. Towers that had once soared now lay in skeletal ruin, their spires fractured and splintered, clawing for a sky that would never grant mercy. Crumbling archways lined the streets, hollow reminders of a city that had never truly been real. The illusion was gone.

  No enchantment remained to mask the truth. The streets were lifeless, cracked, and scorched. The scent of decay clung to the air, dense and unmoving. Fires still burned in the distance, feasting on wreckage long abandoned.

  And beyond it all, rising like an unholy monolith, loomed Sterling’s Palace.

  A fortress of black stone and bone, its towering walls twisted with jagged peaks that stabbed into the storm-laden sky. Faint embers glowed in the deep crevices of its structure, smoldering like the dying heartbeat of a fallen god. Lava bled through the fissures in the ruined city below, veins of molten fire cutting through the streets like open wounds. The land itself was broken, a place that had forgotten kindness.

  Leo exhaled slowly, his breath visible in the frigid air. "So. This is it."

  Emily tightened her grip on her bow, scanning the dead city ahead. "The final level."

  Asha cracked her knuckles. "No turning back now."

  Lucinda stood next to Raya, staff held firm in her grip. "Everyone ready?"

  Raya placed a hand on Ani’s back, her voice low. "Are you ready, boy?"

  Ani did not huff in his usual confirmation. Instead, his body pulsed with brilliant blue light, the glow radiating outward in waves. The ground beneath his paws turned to ice, frost crawling across the scorched earth, hissing as it met the molten edges of lava. Then, with his head high, he let out a howl, a sound that split the smothering heat, rising, a call to the heavens.

  He was ready.

  No. They were ready.

  The only question that remained was, was Sterling?

  They had reached the end of the game.

  Eldoria’s final trial awaited.