Arc 2 Chapter 8: The Ember’s Echo

The once-blazing rivers of molten rock froze in place, their fiery glow swallowed by cooling obsidian. The heat drained from the air in an unnatural ebb, as if the battle had never happened. The ground beneath them, once a furnace, now lay cold and jagged, rough edges forming where lava had solidified in an instant.

For a moment, neither Irelia nor Nariel moved. The only sound was their own labored breathing.

But in the center of the chamber, something lingered.

A faint shimmer in the air, a ripple of power that pulsed like an echo, as if the Ifrit’s presence refused to fade completely.

The battle had ended.

So why did they still feel like something was waiting in the darkness?

Irelia’s body screamed for relief. Every muscle trembled with exhaustion, her breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. The fight had drained her completely—her magic reserves were spent, leaving behind an empty, hollow ache where her power should have been.

Her crossbow felt impossibly heavy in her grip. Even standing upright was a struggle. She needed to sit down. To breathe. To think.

“Irelia?”

She turned sluggishly at the sound of Nariel’s voice, her vision swimming for a brief moment before settling.

Nariel stood a few paces away, her silver armor scorched and battered from the fight. The burn on her left arm—where the Ifrit’s fire had struck her—was an angry red, raw and blistered beneath the partially melted plates of her armor.

Her right hand hovered over the wound, a faint glow of light magic pulsing between her fingertips as she mended the worst of the damage. The healing dulled the pain, but the injury remained.

She flexed her fingers experimentally, a sharp breath escaping between clenched teeth. “It’ll hold,” she muttered.

Irelia let out a slow breath, her grip on her weapon loosening. Despite the exhaustion weighing her down, she felt something else—a quiet, unexpected relief. Nariel was still standing. Still moving. Still breathing.

For a moment, she just looked at her.

It was a strange, distant feeling—familiar, yet foreign.

It had been years since the last time they fought together.

“You’re staring,” Nariel muttered, still inspecting her arm.

Irelia blinked, shaking herself free of the thought. “Just making sure you’re still alive.”

Nariel shot her a look, but the usual sharpness in her gaze softened. “I could say the same for you.”

Irelia smirked tiredly. “Then it’s good we’re both still here.”

Nariel didn’t respond immediately, but her stance shifted slightly, her grip on her sword loosening. The tension in her shoulders ebbed—just a little. As battered as Irelia looked, she was still standing. That, too, was a relief.

But this wasn’t over just yet.

Both of them felt it.

The shimmer where the Ifrit had fallen pulsed again, faint but undeniable.

Nariel’s gaze flicked toward it, her right hand tightening around her sword’s hilt.

Irelia exhaled slowly, forcing herself to straighten. “Something’s still here.”

Nariel nodded once, her jaw tight. “I feel it too.”

The battle was over.

But something in this chamber was still waiting for them.

At the very spot where the Ifrit had fallen, something remained.

A faint glow pulsed from within the scorched stone, its ember-like shimmer flickering like the last breath of a dying fire. Encased in obsidian, the fragment sat nestled in the charred remains, radiating an unnatural warmth despite the battle’s end.

It pulsed in a steady rhythm, slow but deliberate. Like a heartbeat.

Irelia felt the pull before she even realized she was moving.

Her exhaustion weighed on her like a chain, every step sluggish, every muscle aching, but the fragment called to her. Something deep in her chest thrummed in sync with its pulse, a rhythm she didn’t recognize yet somehow understood.

She reached out.

“Irelia.”

Nariel’s voice cut through the haze.

She wasn’t standing idly by—she was watching.

Her posture was tense, her grip firm around her sword. Her eyes flickered between Irelia and the fragment, wary.

Irelia hesitated, fingers hovering just above the obsidian surface. The warmth from it licked at her skin, neither burning nor comforting.

She exhaled sharply and let her hand press against it.

Flames.

The world around her ignited in an instant.

She was no longer in the ruined chamber.

Fire swallowed everything—the sky burned red, the ground cracked open, and towering structures crumbled as smoke blotted out the heavens.

A city in ruin—a place she didn’t recognize, yet something about it felt disturbingly familiar.

Beneath the destruction, something stirred.

A shadow beneath the flames, a presence older than the stone itself. The weight of it pressed down on her, suffocating, demanding. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.

Then, amidst the chaos, a sigil appeared.

It burned like a star, carved into the fire itself—a phoenix, wings unfurled, its form glowing with an ethereal light.

Irelia’s pulse thundered in her ears.

She had seen this sigil before.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

But where?

Before she could grasp the answer, a voice rumbled through the flames.

Deep. Powerful. Ancient.

It spoke, the words vibrating through her very bones—but she couldn’t understand them. The language slipped away like smoke, unfamiliar yet hauntingly close to recognition.

It wasn’t the first time she had heard this voice.

But when?

The pressure built—the fire surged—the sigil burned brighter—

And then—

She gasped as reality snapped back.

The chamber was silent. The only sound was Irelia’s ragged breathing, her fingers still curled tightly around the fragment.

Nariel watched her closely.

She had seen it happen.

First, the carvings on the walls. Then, the brazier’s runes—flaring when Irelia touched them, pulsing in recognition. After that, the Ifrit’s gaze, lingering, molten eyes narrowing as if it saw something no one else could. And finally, its last words.

And now this.

This mysterious fragment, responding to Irelia as if it had been waiting.

Why?

Why did everything connected to Pyraxis react to her?

Was it fate? A coincidence? Or something worse

“Irelia.”

Nariel’s voice was quiet, but there was a weight to it, a firm edge beneath the concern.

Irelia didn’t answer immediately. She was still catching her breath, her expression distant, like she was somewhere else entirely.

Nariel’s grip on her sword tightened.

“What just happened?”

Irelia blinked and tensed slightly at the question. A flicker of hesitation crossed her face—small, but Nariel caught it.

“Nothing,” Irelia said, too quickly. She exhaled, forcing a smirk that didn’t reach her eyes. “Just… exhaustion.”

A lie. Or at the very least, a half-truth.

Nariel had known Irelia long enough to tell when she was hiding something. But this was different. It wasn’t just secrecy—it was instinct, a pull toward something ancient. Something dangerous. And that terrified her more than she was willing to admit.

Her sharp blue eyes flickered between Irelia’s face and the fragment still pulsing faintly in her grip. The ember-like glow reflected in Irelia’s green eyes, almost as if it belonged there.

That realization made Nariel’s stomach tighten.

She wanted to believe it was nothing. She wanted to chalk it up to coincidence, a quirk of magic, an aftereffect of battle.

But she couldn’t.

Something was happening to Irelia.

And Nariel wasn’t sure she liked what it meant.

“…Right.” Nariel’s voice was carefully neutral, but the sharpness in her gaze remained.

Irelia felt the weight of Nariel’s gaze long after they had fallen into silence.

She didn’t need to ask what the knight was thinking.

Because the truth was clawing at the edges of her mind, demanding to be acknowledged.

Everything in this ruin had responded to her. The runes. The brazier. The fragment. The Ifrit.

And even now, with the fragment resting in her hand, she could still feel it.

Like a heartbeat that wasn’t her own.

Like a whisper just beyond her grasp.

Irelia’s fingers brushed over the shard, she did not know why and a part of her was afraid of even questioning it. The Ifrit’s words echoed in her mind. She wasn't ready to acknowledge it, nor to share her doubts.

She forced herself to push the thoughts away.

Not now.

Irelia turned the fragment over in her palm, its ember-like glow flickering weakly against the dim chamber.

This? This is what the cult was after?

She frowned, exhaustion pulling at the edges of her mind, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

All those traps. The Hellhounds. The Ifrit.

For this?

“This can’t be it,” she murmured aloud.

Nariel, flexing her injured arm, glanced at her. “You think there’s something more?”

“This thing’s powerful, sure, but it’s not enough. The Ifrit was bound to the brazier, and this—” she gestured to the fragment—"was just a part of the anchor. Whoever built this place wouldn’t go through all this trouble just to protect a broken chain.”

Nariel’s expression darkened. “Then we’re missing something.”

Nariel turned, scanning the chamber. The stone walls were cracked, battle-scarred, but there was nothing else. No hidden doorways. No more passages.

“This was the final chamber,” she said, more to herself than to Irelia. “Wasn’t it?”

A dry chuckle escaped Irelia as she leaned against a broken slab of stone, tilting her head at Nariel. “You’re thinking too straightforward.” She wiped the sweat from her brow, smirking. “We’re missing the oldest cliché in the book—a secret room.”

Nariel sighed, rubbing her temple. “You can’t just assume—”

But Irelia was already moving, her instincts buzzing with certainty.

“There’s something hidden here,” she insisted, pacing along the chamber walls, searching for any sign of deception—an uneven stone, an inscription that didn’t belong. “Think about it. This is a temple of Pyraxis, one of the last remnants of the Age of Titans. Do you really think it would all lead to a single fight and a fragment?”

Nariel pursed her lips, silent but listening.

Irelia stopped. Her eyes flickered back toward the center of the chamber.

The brazier’s remains.

She crouched, running her fingers along the scorched stone floor where it once stood. Something about it felt off—like the way the fragment had fit so perfectly into her palm, like it was meant to be held.

Then she saw it.

A gap in the stone—thin, deliberate. Barely noticeable beneath the layer of soot and debris.

Her pulse quickened.

“Nariel.”

The knight sighed, already sensing what Irelia was about to say. “Tell me I don’t have to move that thing.”

Irelia grinned. “You’re stronger than me.”

Nariel muttered something under her breath—probably a prayer, or a curse—before gripping the remains of the brazier. Her injured arm protested, a sharp pang running through the burned skin, but she pushed past the pain and shoved the broken structure aside.

Beneath it, a keyhole.

Irelia’s pulse quickened.

At the center of the floor, where the brazier had once stood, was a small, precise indentation in the shape of the fragment.

Nariel exhaled, slightly out of breath. “That’s… convenient.”

Irelia smirked. “Told you.”

Nariel shot her a flat look.

Ignoring it, Irelia crouched, running her fingers along the smooth edges of the indentation. The shape was exact. The fragment wasn’t just a remnant of power—it was a key meant to fit here.

Her grip on the fragment tightened. A quiet tension coiled in her chest, uncertainty pressing at the edges of her thoughts.

She swallowed, steadying herself, then slowly lowered the fragment toward the gap.

For a long, breathless moment—

Nothing happened.

Then, with a deep, groaning shift, the chamber moved.

The very air trembled as the sound of grinding stone filled the cavern, dust swirling from unseen seams in the floor.

Nariel’s hand flew to her sword. “Irelia—”

The ground beneath them rumbled, the vibrations thrumming through their bones as the once-solid floor began to recede.

A circular section where the brazier had stood sank downward, revealing an opening. Stone grated against stone, revealing a spiral staircase, descending into the dark.

Nariel took a cautious step back, blade still drawn, as the last remnants of dust settled.

Irelia exhaled, staring into the yawning void beneath them.

“There it is.”

Nariel was silent for a long moment before muttering, “I hate that you were right.”

Irelia flashed a grin, despite the exhaustion weighing her down. “You’ll get used to it.”

Nariel shook her head, muttering under her breath before glancing down the spiral. “Do you think the cult knows about this?”

Irelia’s smirk faded. She frowned, considering the question.

“…No.” The answer settled in her chest like a weight. “I don’t think they do.”

Nariel’s grip on her sword tightened. “Then whatever’s down there…” she said grimly, “…we’re the first ones in a long time to see it.”

Irelia nodded, her expression turning serious.

The air beyond the staircase was thick, heavy with ancient magic, untouched by time.

Whatever lay beneath the ruins…

It wasn’t meant to be found.

And yet, here they were.

Taking a breath, Irelia took the first step downward.

The descent into the unknown had begun.