The light of the sentinel’s trial had faded.

But its echo lingered.

The wind through the broken halls of Serentha whistled like a choir of mourning ghosts. Above them, the red-streaked sky burned low, casting bloodlight across ancient marble walls. Every footstep sounded like a drumbeat against history.

Auren walked slowly, his hand resting on the hilt of the now-silent blade.

“You’re quieter than usual,” Lyra said, breaking the silence.

“I heard too many voices,” he muttered. “They weren’t mine… but they felt like they belonged to me.”

She didn’t press. Instead, she pointed toward a hollow chamber up ahead.

The remnants of what once must’ve been a great library stood in ruin—collapsed shelves, torn banners, and a few surviving stone tablets cracked by time. Most had been looted or eroded. But not all.

Lyra knelt near a corner where a slab of obsidian still glowed faintly.

“This one’s warded,” she said, brushing dust away. “Old sigils. Dwarven craftsmanship, maybe older.”

Auren approached, and as he laid his hand upon the slab, the runes reacted—pulsing with the same light as his blade.

Lines of ancient script floated upward like ghostly ink.

“When the Flame is broken and the Pact undone,
He shall rise again, nameless but chosen,
Bearing the sins of the forgotten suns,
To rekindle what even gods feared to hold.”

He read it aloud slowly, the words tasting like ash.

“A prophecy,” Lyra said.

“Or a warning,” Auren replied. “About me.”

They camped that night beneath a ruined dome where stars flickered through shattered stone. The fire between them was modest, more shadow than warmth.

Lyra pulled her cloak tight.

“You know what this means, right?” she asked softly.
“You’re not just a knight. You’re something designed to break the wheel.”

Auren didn’t reply immediately.

Instead, he looked to the stars—the same stars that watched his past life fall.

“If I was made to fix what gods broke… they could’ve at least left me a map.”

He smirked faintly.

“But I suppose that’s what you’re for.”

Lyra raised a brow.

“Oh? I’m your divine compass now?”

“You're the only thing that hasn't tried to kill me or command me,” he said.
“In my book, that makes you the rarest artifact in this ruin.”

She snorted, tossing him a dried fruit from her bag.

“Eat something, you poetic idiot.”

And for the first time since his rebirth, Auren laughed. Quietly. But truly.

Yet, miles away, hidden in the shadows of a valley corrupted by void magic, something stirred.

A cloaked beast with eyes like sunken coals lifted its snout to the night air and growled.

“The Flamebearer breathes again,” it rasped.
“Then the hunt must begin.”

“We are not only what we inherit,
But what we choose to carry forward.”
                                    — From the Lost Tablets of Serentha