CODEX OF THE HOLLOW FLAME

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The dawn above the Emberwilds did not rise.

It bled.

Sick light oozed between the blackened trees as if the sky itself had been wounded—pale crimson seeping through a veil of soot. The air was thick with smoke and memory. The Weaver of Cinderglow had vanished into the flames without farewell, and the tree above the catacombs stood still once more, its lanterns dimmed.

They left the grove in silence.

Vaelric walked as if bearing a weight heavier than the Codex. It pulsed beneath his cloak, no longer faint or passive. It thrummed, like a drum calling to something far older than war.

Nyshara said nothing. Her fingers had been singed by the memory-flames below, and though she had healed the wounds, her eyes remained unfocused—lost somewhere between present and past.

Draum, uncharacteristically solemn, walked with one hand on the haft of his axe and the other stroking the beard he hadn't trimmed in weeks.

At last, it was he who broke the silence.

"So… 'Unbound One,' huh?" He gave a dry chuckle. "Always thought gods came with titles like 'Merciful Flame' or 'Watcher of the Sacred Hearth.' Not 'Betrayer' and 'Sunslayer.'"

"Thraemor was never just a god," Nyshara murmured. "He was the flame that gave the Hollow Kings power. Without him, their reign would've crumbled like dry bark."

"And with him," Vaelric said, eyes distant, "they nearly burned the world."

The forest thinned as they pressed northeast. The Hollow's blight faded slowly, replaced by open fields where the grass grew silver and tall, swaying without wind. Vaelric's path was not chosen—it was summoned. The Codex opened sometimes without his touch, its pages fluttering in the breeze of memory. Symbols older than nations. Names older than language.

And one word returned again and again:

Cairnthorne.

A name lost to history. A place not on any map.

But Vaelric remembered the fire's voice.

"The Grave of Kings lies buried beneath its bones."

They crossed into the Pale Marches on the second day—a land of low hills and sunken barrows, where the sky forever seemed to weep silver mist. Faint shadows danced across the horizon, like memories replaying without consent. Occasionally, Nyshara would flinch and press her hand to her temple, as if warding off voices she couldn't name.

"Is this what the Codex wants?" she asked one evening, as they camped beneath the crumbling remains of a weathered archstone carved with forgotten glyphs.

"It doesn't want," Vaelric replied. "It remembers. And what it remembers… it wants me to see."

Draum stirred the ashes of their fireless camp, muttering.

"Well, I wish it remembered a decent inn. Or ale that doesn't taste like burned mushrooms."

Vaelric smiled faintly. Even now, Draum's irreverence was a small anchor against the tide of dread.

The next morning, they found it.

Or rather, it found them.

The Codex snapped open as they crested a ridge, its pages catching wind like wings. Symbols lit in red and white, bleeding into one another. Then they saw it—half-buried in the hollow of the land.

Cairnthorne.

No walls. No towers. Just a skeletal ruin of obsidian and bone, half-swallowed by earth and time. The air around it shimmered faintly, like a mirage built from heat and sorrow.

It wasn't a city.

It was a tomb.

Dozens of cairns ringed its perimeter—each marked with swords plunged hilt-deep into stone. Not one bore a name. Not one bore a crown. And yet Vaelric knew.

"These are the Hollow Kings."

Draum frowned. "Kings buried with no faces? No glory? That's not tradition—that's fear."

"They didn't want to be remembered," Nyshara whispered.

The Codex led them to the center of the ruins, to a courtyard paved in fused glass—scorched into shape by ancient fire. There, half-sunken in molten stone, lay the entrance to a vault.

Above it, a single inscription in a language none of them spoke—but all of them felt.

Vaelric translated aloud, his voice hollow.

> "Here lie the kings who broke the Flame and paid in silence."

They descended.

The air turned thick and cold, heavy with centuries of sealed power. Runes lit faintly along the walls as the Codex's presence stirred them from sleep. Every step echoed like a heartbeat, every flicker of torchlight cast long shadows that moved on their own.

Deep beneath the Grave of Kings, they found it:

A chamber wrapped in molten chains that did not burn, carved with faces half-erased by time.

And at the center stood an altar of obsidian, jagged as if fractured from a god's crown.

Upon it rested a circlet of black iron.

Cracked.

Still smoking.

Vaelric reached toward it.

Nyshara grabbed his wrist. "Wait. What is that?"

"The Crown of Binding," he whispered. "Forged to seal Thraemor. Seven kings poured their essence into it. It was never meant to be worn… only buried."

"It's cracked," Draum said. "That's not a good sign."

"No," Vaelric said, voice tight. "It means something's already leaking through."

Suddenly, the vault trembled. A voice stirred in the shadows—not in words, but in hunger. Cold swept through the chamber, and the flames in their lanterns dimmed to violet.

Then came the whisper.

"You carry what was mine."

The chains overhead groaned. One snapped.

Vaelric stumbled back, heart pounding.

"We have to go. Now."

But the exit was gone.

The chamber warped around them, stone pulsing like muscle, the air thickening into smoke.

Then it appeared.

A Remnant.

Tall as a tree, thin as death, draped in fleshless robes that billowed though there was no wind. Its head was a void crowned in broken light. Where eyes should have been, flame wept upward.

It was not Thraemor.

But it remembered him.

Nyshara flung a warding sigil. It shattered on contact. The Remnant drifted toward Vaelric, one skeletal hand outstretched.

"Give… it… back…"

Draum roared and leapt between them, axe raised. The blow connected—and passed through.

But the Remnant screamed.

Not from pain.

From memory.

The walls rippled as if struck by grief.

Vaelric slammed his hand on the altar. The Codex flew open. Pages flared with blinding white. Glyphs burst from the crown and surged into the air—wrapping the Remnant in chains of light.

It shrieked.

Folded inward.

And vanished.

Silence.

Dust fell.

Nyshara caught her breath, trembling.

"What was that?"

"A memory," Vaelric said, panting. "A fragment of what they sealed here. Not Thraemor himself… but part of his soul. Left behind to guard what bound him."

He looked at the circlet on the altar.

Still cracked.

Still waiting.

"Then we're running out of time," Nyshara whispered.

"No," Vaelric said, voice iron. "We're getting closer."

He picked up the Crown of Binding.

And for a moment, the Codex went still.

As if it, too, was holding its breath.

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