CODEX OF THE HOLLOW FLAME

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"Some memories die quietly. Others learn to scream."

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The descent had stopped feeling like a descent. It was more like the world had turned inside out. Up was down, sound was breathless, and time had slowed to the crawl of dripping stone.

Vaelric moved carefully, step by step, into the throat of the ancient vault. The Codex was clutched tight to his ribs, its bindings pulsing with a cold, sluggish ember—as if it too could sense what waited below. The floor was slick, coated in some oily ichor that shimmered faintly purple in the torchlight. Their footsteps echoed—but off somehow. Like there was a fourth footfall, just a hair behind theirs, out of sync.

"Remind me again," Draum murmured, gripping his axe close, the blade half-drawn, "why these tunnels have such a cheery name?"

Nyshara's voice was quiet, too quiet. "Because the last man who breathed too deeply down here… never breathed out again."

Draum blinked. "Right. Lovely."

The tunnel narrowed—claustrophobically so—and then, without warning, burst into an immense chamber. It was as if they'd stepped inside the ribcage of a colossal fossil, bones long dead but still radiating a terrible presence. Pillars loomed in uneven rows, many cracked and broken, others etched with glyphs of long-fallen Orders. Gods without temples. Prayers that no longer had tongues to speak them.

A deep hum thrummed through the stone—not quite sound, not quite sensation. It was a pull, deep and steady, like the vault had a heartbeat.

Vaelric swallowed. "The Codex is… it's waking up."

He didn't need to say more. The book quivered in his hands, the seals etched into its covers glowing faintly with that cold, hollow flame. It was feeding off the air here. Feeding off something ancient and buried.

Nyshara moved to his side, her eyes catching the faintest silver sheen. "There's memory here. And it's not sleeping."

Draum glanced around, clearly unnerved. "Is that your poetic way of sayin' 'undead'? Because I've got a chipped blade, no priest, and half a flask of beer. Not ideal."

"No," Nyshara said, voice like a breeze brushing bone. "Worse. This is where memory dreams. And dreams don't stay quiet forever."

Then—an exhale. A breath of wind that should not have existed, brushing past them from the heart of the vault.

They froze.

Somewhere ahead, stone scraped against stone.

Not loud. But near.

Vaelric lowered the Codex, slowly, quietly. He drew his dagger—an old ceremonial blade, mostly symbolic until the past week. It still had dried blood at the hilt.

He nodded once.

They moved forward in silence.

The pillar they passed was taller than the rest. And chained to it, shriveled and sunken into a husk, was a corpse. Its face was contorted in permanent agony, the jaw stretched too wide to have been natural in life. Beneath its feet, the stone had cracked.

Etched there, in the tongue of the first Pyremancers, was a single word:

FORGET.

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The next chamber defied reason.

A vast, circular space, walls rising high into shadow, lined with what appeared to be shelves—but weren't. They were niches, carved into the stone. And in each niche, a face.

Thousands of them.

Each one frozen in silent, eternal terror. And each one whispering.

The sound was barely there. The edge of hearing. Like someone breathing secrets into the back of your skull.

Vaelric stepped forward—just one foot—and every single face turned to look at him.

He staggered back, heart clenching like a fist in his chest. "Did—did anyone else see—?"

"Yes," Nyshara said softly. Her face had gone pale. "Memory is bleeding through. They know what you carry."

Draum had already retreated a step. "I vote we go back to the tree-people. At least when you chopped off their heads, they stayed dead."

The Codex pulsed again. Brighter this time. Flames flicked up Vaelric's forearms, licking the sleeves of his cloak without burning.

"It wanted to be here," he whispered. "This place… it's a vault. Not of gold or artifacts. It holds truth. The kind no one wanted remembered."

Nyshara grabbed his arm, eyes flaring. "Then tread carefully. Because some truths bite back."

---

In the heart of the vault, there was a pedestal.

And above it—floating inches above the surface—hung a crystal shard, black as void. Inside it flickered visions. A crown swallowed by fire. A city split apart by vast, thrashing wings. A child, silent, with stars bleeding from their eyes.

Vaelric's hand rose before he could stop it.

"Vaelric—don't," Nyshara hissed.

But he had already touched it.

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The world shattered.

He stood in someone else's war.

Ash drifted like snow through a sky torn open. All around him, warriors in molten brass armor clashed with nightmare beasts—creatures of stitched bone, coiling smoke, and faces that screamed without mouths. The land was sundered. Chasms yawned with molten blood.

Above, a black sun pulsed. Every beat of it cracked reality just a little more.

And there—on a throne of glass and blood—sat a woman.

Her hair burned with living fire.

Her eyes were two endless voids.

On her brow: the Crown of Hollow Flame.

She turned her head. Looked straight at him.

"You carry my shame, little heir," she said. Her voice was vast and sorrowful, like thunder echoing through a mausoleum. "Will you finish what I could not?"

Vaelric screamed—

---

—and crashed back into his body.

He hit the ground hard, gasping for breath. The stone was cold. The air was too.

Nyshara knelt beside him instantly, one hand steadying his shoulder. "What did you see?"

Draum stood guard, axe raised, scanning the shadows. "Please don't say prophecy. I hate prophecy."

Vaelric's eyes were wide, still caught somewhere between here and there. "It was her. The Flame Queen. Seraphyne."

Nyshara's breath caught.

"She called me her heir."

There was a beat of stunned silence.

Then Draum muttered, "Well. That explains the hair."

Vaelric didn't smile.

"She… she warned me. There's something sealed beneath the Obsidian Spire. A being—Thraemor. She said the Codex is part of its prison. And someone's trying to undo that seal."

Nyshara's expression turned cold. "Then we're already behind."

"No," Vaelric said, forcing himself to stand. "The Codex brought us here for a reason. There must be something else. Something we can use. A truth. A name. A weapon—"

The walls screamed.

The faces erupted from their niches, peeling free of the stone, their mouths open wide, shrieking. The whispers had become wails. The memories had become monsters.

"RUN!" Nyshara shouted, blade flashing to life in a ripple of silver fire.

Draum roared and met the nearest shade with a cleaving blow of his axe, the impact splitting it like mist—but more poured forth.

Vaelric grabbed the Codex, holding it tight to his chest as he ran. Shadows clawed at the edges of his vision. The voices behind him howled his name.

Nyshara moved like lightning, her blade cutting through phantom limbs and half-born faces, her cloak trailing sparks.

They reached the tunnel just as the vault began to collapse.

Stone shrieked and folded in on itself, devouring the chamber, the faces, the screams—until silence dropped like a curtain.

Vaelric sank to his knees, chest heaving.

Draum collapsed beside him, arms draped over his knees. "So. Vaults of the Breathless. Exactly as relaxing as I imagined."

Nyshara was already scanning the way ahead. "We move now. Thraemor's prison is weakening. If what you saw is true…"

Vaelric stared down at the Codex. Its flame had dimmed, steady now, almost… calm.

But it no longer felt like a book.

It felt like a heartbeat in his hands.

And he finally understood.

This wasn't knowledge.

It was a curse.

Passed down in blood and fire.

And he was its next sacrifice.

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