CODEX OF THE HOLLOW FLAME

The wind beyond Virelion's shattered gates didn't sing of freedom.

It howled like a warning.

Rain stung like ash as it swept across the hills, cold and sharp as regret. Vaelric, Nyshara, and Draum trudged eastward through the bruised dusk, cloaked in torn fabric and silence. Behind them, the Empire's capital smoldered—its black plume a dying prayer smeared across the sky, purple and rust-stained gold, as if the heavens had forgotten how to hope.

Thunder cracked overhead. But it was not the sky that trembled.

It was the Codex.

Tucked beneath Vaelric's cloak, the ancient tome beat with a rhythm not unlike a heart in grief—slow, steady, ominous. Each pulse shimmered faintly with stormlight, threads of silver and ember trailing from its seams.

Draum broke the quiet first, because of course he did.

"Is it too early to complain, or have we reached the phase of our journey where freezing rain and mysterious doom are considered standard fare?"

"Not now, Draum," Nyshara murmured, brushing wet strands of hair from her face.

"Just sayin'. A bath and a pint wouldn't go amiss," he muttered. "Preferably in a place where the trees don't whisper death threats."

Vaelric didn't answer. He couldn't. The Codex tugged at something inside him—a magnetic dread, a direction without a name. It was leading them now. East. Deeper into lands that hadn't been walked in decades, perhaps longer. Toward something—or someone—who remembered the name Thraemor.

By dusk, they crossed into the Wounded Hollow.

And the world changed.

The landscape stretched like a scar across the realm—twisted and wrong. Jagged crags rose like shattered ribs from the broken ground. Trees grew sideways, gnarled and blackened, their leaves brittle as bone. The air buzzed with whispers—half-words and ancient sighs—carried on a wind that smelled of rust and mourning.

Even Draum stopped talking.

Almost.

"So… anyone want to explain why it's called the Wounded Hollow?" he asked, lowering his voice as if the rocks might overhear.

"Because something wounded it," Vaelric said, his eyes distant.

Draum squinted. "That's it? That's your answer? I ask a simple question, and you serve me a prophecy appetizer? You ever think of being a bard? You'd make a fine brooder."

Nyshara glanced sideways. "He's right though. It was wounded. No one knows how. Some say gods fought here. Others—"

"Let me guess," Draum interrupted, "—say it was a cursed love triangle and the land's been dramatic ever since."

They camped that night beneath the remnants of a fallen archway, what had once been a fortress, now crumbling like forgotten vows. They built no fire. The Hollow didn't like fire.

Vaelric sat alone at the edge of their shelter, the Codex on his lap, closed but not quiet. It hummed under his fingers, not in whispers but in waiting. He could feel it—its awareness crawling over his thoughts like ivy.

It wanted him to see.

So he closed his eyes.

And the world peeled back like burnt parchment.

---

Flame.

But not warmth.

Hunger.

Fire that remembered. Fire that hated.

Vaelric stood upon a battlefield of sundered crowns—burnt thrones twisted into grotesque shadows. In the distance, mountains wept fire. In the sky, stars blinked out like candles in a storm.

Before him rose a figure robed in tattered starlight, her face veiled by strands of silver ash. She hovered above the scorched earth like an elegy.

Seraphyne. The Hollowed One.

Her voice came not from her mouth but from the marrow of the world—a sorrow so ancient it made memory ache.

> "He awakens. The Bound Flame. The Thorn in the Ash."

> "Thraemor."

Behind her loomed a massive gate wrapped in molten chains. From the other side came a voice that didn't speak—it unmade. Language shattered in its presence. Reality recoiled.

Vaelric stepped forward, hand outstretched—

The Codex snapped shut.

---

He gasped, jerking upright as if pulled from water. Cold sweat clung to his skin.

"You saw something," Nyshara said. She knelt beside him, concern flickering in her eyes like a match that wouldn't catch.

He nodded, still catching his breath. "Seraphyne again. She said Thraemor is waking. She called him the Bound Flame."

Draum perked up like a dog hearing thunder.

"Bound? Like… tied up and angry? That's very reassuring."

"No," Vaelric said grimly. "More like sealed. Buried behind chains forged from ruin."

Nyshara's expression hardened. "Then we need to find the key."

Vaelric shook his head. "No. We need to find the ones who forged the seal. Whoever they were… they feared Thraemor enough to bury him alive."

"And who in their right mind takes on a god of flame?" Draum asked, hugging his axe tighter. "Besides us, of course. And we're not exactly stable."

Vaelric looked east, toward the edge of the Wounded Hollow.

"The Weavers of Cinderglow."

Nyshara went pale.

"You mean the flame witches? They vanished after the First Hollow War. No one's seen them since."

"Not vanished," Vaelric said. "Hidden."

"And you know where to find them?" Draum asked.

"No," Vaelric admitted. "But the Codex does."

---

They ventured into the Emberwilds, a forest where fire slept in the roots and the trees coughed smoke when the wind stirred them.

Time unraveled there.

Day blurred into night. Shadows moved wrong. The stars flickered like they were blinking messages in a dead language. Nyshara's magic faltered. Draum's axe began to glow faintly red.

Vaelric barely slept. His dreams were not his own anymore.

By the fourth day, they found it.

A circle of scorched stones. At its heart, a single towering tree blackened with soot. Its roots throbbed with a crimson glow, like veins still pulsing with blood. Lanterns hung from the branches—small cages of emberlight, each flickering like a soul trapped mid-scream.

One of them blinked.

"Don't move," Vaelric whispered. "We're not alone."

"Brilliant," Draum muttered. "Nothing says 'welcome' like haunted fire decorations."

The lantern nearest them burst into flame.

From the branches descended a woman with hair like woven ember and eyes that burned with slow, dying stars.

A Weaver of Cinderglow.

She didn't speak. She sang—a sound sharp enough to cut memory. The Codex screamed in Vaelric's arms, its bindings rattling like chains.

"You bring the Hollow Flame," she said at last, her voice like dry timber catching fire.

"I seek the truth of Thraemor," Vaelric answered, stepping forward.

She floated to him, her feet never touching the ground.

"Truth is not light, boy. It is flame. What will you burn to learn it?"

Vaelric's voice was steady. "Everything I have left."

The lanterns flared.

"Then come, Hollow-Bearer," she whispered. "Come see what your kings buried."

---

Beneath the Cinderglow Tree, the earth opened like a wound.

They descended into flame-lit catacombs carved with runes older than names. Runes that burned but did not consume. Here, the Weavers kept memory alive—not in books, but in living fire.

In the heart of the chamber stood a throne made from charred bones. Around it, flames whispered history.

"This is the Memory of Thraemor," the Weaver said. "The Unbound One. The Betrayer. The Broken God of Flame."

Vaelric stepped into the fire.

And it welcomed him.

He saw it all.

Thraemor, a god of flame—once worshipped by the Hollow Kings, once a bringer of rebirth. But the wars changed him. Betrayal twisted him. He turned from salvation to hunger.

He drank suns.

He burned empires.

And when they bound him, it cost the lives of seven immortal kings and the last breath of a kingdom.

But they never killed him.

They only made him forgettable.

Now he stirred again.

"You carry his echo," the Weaver whispered. "The Codex remembers him. He remembers you."

Vaelric staggered back, heart pounding.

"What does he want?" Nyshara asked, steadying him.

"To finish what he started," Vaelric said, staring into the fire. "To burn the world clean."

There was silence.

Then Draum exhaled.

"Fantastic. So we're stopping a forgotten fire god… with a haunted book, a half-burned elf, and a dwarf who talks to his axe when he's nervous."

Vaelric looked down at the Codex. Its cover now pulsed with something alive. Something aware.

"No," he said, voice darkening. "We're going to find what the Hollow Kings used to bind him. And we're going to seal him again."

Lightning crashed above the cavern like an answer.

And deep within the Codex, a page turned on its own.

Marked in ash and blood.

A symbol none of them had ever seen.

Not yet.

---