Memory is not always a gift. In a realm built on echoes, the greatest weapon… is doubt.
The creature stood still—just for a breath.
Then its body cracked open.
Mouths. Dozens of them. Some spoke in whispers, others in screams. All made of ink and flame, shaped from torn parchment and twisted glyphs.
Each one… spoke Kael's own memories.
"You burned her, just like he did..."
"The Flame didn't choose you. It settled for you."
"You're only a vessel. Not a hero."
Kael's chest tightened. He took a step back. His flame dimmed slightly, flickering like a candle caught in a storm.
Lysara shouted from behind, her voice sharp with urgency.
"Don't listen! It feeds on belief. The more you think it's real, the more it becomes real!"
Kael tried to shut out the voices, but they coiled around him, inside him.
He saw visions flickering in his mind—futures that hadn't happened, pasts that might not be his. A girl burning in silver fire. A throne room drowned in screams. Himself, standing alone among ash.
He didn't know which were lies anymore.
"I'm not Aeon... I'm not him..."
But the Devourer knew where to strike.
Another mouth opened near its chest—this one whispered in Aeon's voice.
"Sacrifice was always the cost. You're just here to pay it again."
And Kael froze.
The Devourer moved.
It surged forward with inhuman speed, warping the space between them. Its limbs were not solid—they bent like torn banners in a storm of memories. Wherever it touched, the memory strata cracked, oozing black ink and golden flame.
Kael barely dodged.
A slash of ink-fire grazed his cheek, and suddenly—
—he was in a different memory.
The throne room reassembled around him. Whole. Pure.
Lysara stood across from him—but she was younger. Her eyes were still bright. There were guards in golden armor, bowing to her.
"You shouldn't be here, Kael."
Then, the Devourer snapped reality back. The illusion shattered.
Kael screamed, falling to one knee, blood trickling from his nose.
"It's using my flame... against my mind..."
Lysara ran forward, sliding next to him. She pressed her hand to his back.
"Anchor it! Build the Echo Circle! You know the pattern!"
Kael gritted his teeth. He didn't know if he knew it—but something stirred in his muscles, in his bones. Like muscle memory from another life.
Right swing. Left guard. Anchor sigil.
He moved.
His fingers curled into a seal, one taught to him long ago by the Guardian Echo. Not in words—but in motion. In feeling.
The glyph flared beneath him, radiant and pulsing.
His flame surged upward in a perfect ring, folding into a structured spiral of heat and clarity.
"Resonare."
The word echoed—not just from his mouth, but from reality itself.
The Devourer shrieked, recoiling violently. Its pages fluttered, ink bleeding from its mouths like oil spilled into light.
Kael stood. Tall. Steady.
The flames weren't wild now—they were focused.
"Let's end this."
He stepped forward, drawing his flame into his palm. His heart beat in sync with the glyph at his feet.
"Flame Verse I — Sever the False Thread."
His fist struck the creature's core.
There was no explosion—only silence. The kind that follows a scream too loud to hear.
The Devourer cracked down the middle. Pages flew outward, blank and burning. Its form collapsed into a spiral of glyphs… then vanished into smoke.
Kael collapsed, gasping.
The glyph faded beneath his feet. Sweat clung to his back like another layer of skin.
Lysara knelt beside him, her face pale.
"They found us faster than expected," she said softly. "Someone's accelerating the collapse."
Kael wiped the blood from his lip, grimacing.
"Then we need to get ahead of them."
They turned to leave—heading deeper into the fractured ruins. The air felt colder now, more aware. Like the Realm was watching them.
Somewhere Else…
Far from Kael, in a place stitched between Realms I and II, an observatory spun silently in the void.
Its windows showed not stars, but flames trapped in jars, each flame containing a memory locked in time.
A figure stood before a cracked mirror.
He wore a mask of stained ivory and broken runes. His voice was soft, but cruel.
"Walk faster, little Flame."
The mirror showed Kael and Lysara heading toward a shifting monolith.
"I've already lit the ending."
Behind him, another figure approached. Clad in robes laced with thorn sigils and gold thread, they bowed.
"Should we dispatch another Devourer?"
The masked boy smiled.
"No. Let the Crown move now."
"Let them remember what it means… to lose a Realm."
Back With Kael and Lysara
They descended into a chamber of mirrors, each one reflecting a different version of Kael—older, broken, triumphant, dead.
Kael stopped in front of one. His reflection stared back—eyes gold like Aeon's, wearing a crown of smoke.
Lysara touched the mirror.
"That's not a warning," she said. "It's a promise."
Kael turned away.
"I don't care who I become."
He looked at his flame, still flickering in his palm.
"I just won't let anyone else be erased."
The Realm groaned around them—as if listening.
And just ahead… a staircase spiraled upward into a new echo.
[End of Chapter 26]
As Kael steps deeper into the ashes of the Second Realm, more truths about Aeon unravel — and not all of them are survivable.
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🜃 Chapter 27: Crown of Ashes
The Burned Crown's agents make their move. Kael must face a trial not of combat, but of memory. And through it… he may learn the truth about the first flame he ever used.