The air was colder in the highlands.
Jagged peaks sliced the sky like ancient sentinels, and mist clung to the rocks like secrets refusing to be spoken. The group hiked in silence, every step away from the ruins of Station 12 weighted with the memory of Warden Tessa's warning.
"She let us go," Mira finally said, breaking the silence.
"She couldn't win," Jericho argued.
"She did win," Cael muttered. "She saw what she needed. Next time, she won't be testing."
Eli, his hood drawn low, didn't speak. The mark on his back had stopped glowing, but it hadn't vanished. It felt like something was watching through it.
---
The Temple in the Cliff
They reached the temple at dawn. It didn't look like a temple—just a jagged cliff face covered in vines and frost. But Cael approached it confidently, brushing his fingers against a narrow stone crack.
Threadlight danced under his skin.
The rock breathed.
A narrow path unsealed itself, opening like the mouth of a sleeping beast.
Jericho stared. "You sure this isn't a tomb?"
Cael smirked. "Some say it's both."
Inside, the temperature dropped instantly. The walls shimmered with embedded thread-crystals, pulsing gently with ancient light. Symbols lined the corridors—circles within circles, fractal-like patterns that seemed to shift when one looked too long.
"They've been watching since before the Wardens rose," Cael whispered. "If anyone knows what Eli is… it's the Threadborn."
---
The Living Silence
They weren't alone.
From the shadows stepped a robed figure, face hidden by a deep hood, voice like gravel smoothed by wind.
"You bear the mark."
Eli stepped forward, unsure. "You know what it is?"
The figure didn't answer. Instead, he turned and gestured for them to follow.
Down twisted corridors, past ancient altars and halls of glowing glyphs, until they reached a chamber unlike any other—open to the mountain air, with a glowing pool of red-threaded water at its center.
There, dozens of robed figures sat in silence.
Watching.
Waiting.
---
The Test of Flame
"Speak your name," the robed monk at the center said.
"Eli."
"And do you know what burns within you?"
"No."
"Then kneel."
Eli obeyed, stepping toward the pool. As he knelt, his mark flared—and the waters of the pool rose without touch, forming a ring of spiraling liquid light around him.
The monks began to chant—not loudly, but with a vibration that settled in Eli's bones.
The pool rose higher.
Threads of memory surged through him. A battlefield. A crumbling tower. A child screaming in the dark.
He had been here before.
Hadn't he?
---
The Past Awakens
"Who am I?" Eli whispered.
The answer didn't come in words.
It came in fire.
The ring of threadlight collapsed into him, searing his body with raw memory. Visions assaulted him—of a time long past, where Proxies were not guardians but hunters, and the world bled colors never meant for human eyes.
The mark on his back twisted—opened.
And for a second, the monks saw it too.
A third ring. A hidden layer of the Thread.
One the Wardens had long buried.
---
Aftermath
Eli collapsed again, trembling.
One of the monks knelt beside him, drawing back his hood. He was old, skin like leather, eyes glowing faint red.
"You are a Flamebound," he said solemnly. "A vessel of forbidden Thread."
Jericho swore. "That sounds… cursed."
"It is power," the monk said, "and a curse. The Wardens will come for it. But so too will others. Those who remember the war before records began."
Eli sat up, voice hoarse. "Can I control it?"
"Not yet. But you must. Or it will control you."