The morning mist clung to the edges of the clearing like reluctant memory. Joren stirred long before the fire died out, his eyes tracing the subtle shift of shadows on the shrine stones surrounding their camp. The spiral of the pyre-basin still glowed faintly, even though no fresh flame fed it. Aelira remained asleep nearby, her breathing steadier now—deeper, like her spirit had found a patch of calm within the chaos.
Joren didn’t feel the same peace. Something had changed during the night.
He stood and walked to the edge of the clearing, drawing his cloak tight around him. The fire had whispered to him, not in words, but in intuition—like a scent or a sudden memory dredged from deep time. It had felt ancient. Familiar. And it had not come from the shrine itself.
No, it came from *beneath*.
There, beneath the layers of soot, moss, and silence, lay something dormant.
He knelt beside one of the standing stones and pressed his palm to the earth.
**Pulse Detected.**
**Location: Subterranean Emberstone Vein.**
**Status: Slumbering Core Node.**
**Extraction Risk: High. Awakening Threshold Near.**
“Why is it always *me*?” Joren muttered.
The Ashveil Road had once been powered by a network of Emberstones—natural formations of condensed, fire-aspected Essence, rare and highly unstable. Most had been mined out or destroyed during the Ember War, but this one, deep beneath the soil, still lived. Still waited.
And now it had felt *him*.
He stood, brushing his hands clean, and looked out at the curling fog on the road.
This changed things.
They couldn’t stay here. Not with the Core Node that close to awakening. They needed distance. And soon.
But before he could wake Aelira, a sound reached him.
Not footsteps. Not birdsong.
*Breathing.*
Ragged. Wet. Close.
He turned slowly.
A figure stood just beyond the edge of the shrine’s perimeter—a man, though barely. His body was draped in a patchwork of charred robes and bone clasps, skin stretched tight over a gaunt frame. His eyes glowed faintly with a sickly orange hue.
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And his chest… it was cracked.
Fractured, like fireglass under stress. Embers pulsed faintly beneath.
**Host Identified: Rotkind Husk**
*Origin: Incomplete Emberrot Conversion.*
*Core Signature: Disrupted.*
*Threat Level: Moderate (Unstable Energy Discharge Possible).*
Joren stepped between the creature and Aelira, drawing his hand up instinctively.
The Husk did not attack. Not yet.
It stared at the flame in the basin. Then at Joren.
“You… carry it,” it rasped.
Joren’s mouth went dry. “Carry what?”
“The last promise. The buried flame.”
And then it laughed. A terrible, cracking thing like dry bark breaking.
“I dreamed of you,” the Husk whispered. “You’ll wake them all.”
Joren ignited a spark in his palm. “Not if I bury you first.”
The Husk lunged.
He ducked low and swept his arm forward.
**Sparkweave: Twin Coil.**
*Type: Emberline Projection.*
*Integrity: 94%*
*Result: Success.*
Two threads of fire lashed out and coiled around the Husk’s limbs, burning deep. It shrieked, but did not fall. Instead, it slammed its hand into the ground—and a wave of corrupted Essence surged outward.
The shrine flared to life in response.
Stone runes pulsed, deflecting the worst of the shockwave, but cracks laced the perimeter now. The protection wouldn’t last.
Joren shouted back toward the camp. “Aelira! Wake up!”
She bolted upright, disoriented.
“Rotkind!”
She scrambled for her knife—still weak, but aware.
Joren fed more power into the coil, but the Husk twisted, snapping the emberlines with a shudder. Then it was on him.
They clashed—flame against fractured bone, will against rot.
Joren struck with bursts of directed heat, but the creature was *fast.* Faster than its broken form suggested. Each blow he landed seared its flesh, but it didn’t *care.* Pain meant nothing to it. Only purpose.
It grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him backward, into the flame basin.
The fire flared.
Not in defense.
In *recognition.*
Joren’s Core surged with borrowed light.
And then, everything slowed.
A vision—not dream, not hallucination—flashed before his eyes.
A burning citadel. An army of ember-cloaked warriors standing against a tide of shadow. And at their center, a man… no, a *boy,* barely older than Joren, with fire in his blood and a sigil of ash on his brow.
He was Ashbound.
And the world had turned against him.
The vision vanished in a breath.
And Joren *moved.*
He rolled from the basin, fire trailing from his fingertips like ribbons, and struck the Husk across the chest.
**Technique Unlocked: Emberbrand Palm**
*Type: Close-range Channeling Strike.*
*Effect: Burn Mark - Continuous Internal Damage.*
*Overload Risk: Minimal.*
*Core Feedback: Clean.*
The Husk screamed. For the first time, it *felt* pain.
It staggered back—but too late.
The shrine’s flame, bolstered by his Core’s surge, erupted.
The creature ignited from within. Its chest shattered, and the glow in its eyes blinked out.
It fell, lifeless.
Ash scattered to the wind.
Aelira stumbled to his side. “Are you—was that—?”
“I’m fine,” Joren said, though his heart still raced.
He looked down at his palm.
The fire no longer burned *on* him.
It burned *with* him.
They buried what was left of the Husk, though there wasn’t much. Joren said nothing of the vision, nor the voice he had heard in the moment of the basin’s flare.
But he felt it still.
The pull of something older.
Something waiting.
---
**System Notice:**
*Flamebound Rank Progression: 18% → 23%*
*New Skill Acquired: Emberbrand Palm (Rank I)*
*Passive Trait Advanced: Flame Listener – Range Increased (15 ft → 30 ft)*
*New Core Memory Fragment Stored: “Citadel of the Last Flame”*
---
That night, they did not sleep in the shrine.
They moved on.
Because some things buried beneath fire should not be stirred.
And Joren Thorne had already stirred too much.
