By dawn, the world was gray and silent — save for the distant hum that had begun to haunt Eiden’s ears since the night at the inn.

The hum wasn’t sound.

It was memory.

Like the light itself was whispering to him.

Mira walked beside him, hood drawn low. Her steps were small, careful — but her eyes, once dim, now flickered faintly when sunlight touched them. The same golden hue as his veins.

It frightened him.

 “You’re changing,” he said quietly.

She looked up. “Because of you?”

He hesitated. “Maybe. Or maybe because of what’s inside you.”

Mira frowned, touching her chest. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“That’s not always a good thing,” Eiden murmured.

The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful. It was heavy — like the calm before thunder.

---

They reached the outskirts of Verden, a ruined frontier town that once traded silver for lightcrystals before the Empire sealed it off. Half the buildings still stood, hollow and burned.

Mira stopped at an old fountain. The water shimmered faintly with traces of gold dust. “It’s beautiful.”

Eiden crouched beside it, dipping a finger in. The light pulsed, answering him.

Not just gold — alive.

“This place…” he muttered, “…was built around a Lumen spring.”

A faint sound came from behind them — the click of metal against stone.

“Step away from the fountain,” a voice ordered.

Eiden turned sharply.

Three figures in tattered armor stood near the ruins, cloaks marked with the sigil of the Lumen Order — a sun cracked in half. But their armor was old, their eyes weary.

The leader, a tall woman with black hair streaked with silver, lowered her blade slightly when she saw Eiden’s veins. “You… you carry the light?”

He said nothing.

She sheathed her weapon slowly. “We’re not Harvesters. We’re what’s left of the old guardians. The ones who refused to burn the gifted.”

Eiden’s eyes narrowed. “The Empire destroyed your order decades ago.”

Her lips twisted into a sad smile. “Then call us ghosts. Ghosts who still remember what light was meant to protect.”

---

They led them into a hidden crypt beneath the ruins.

There, candles burned in silence — their flames golden instead of red.

Old inscriptions lined the walls — names long forgotten.

The woman bowed her head before one of the tombs.

“This is where the first Ember Bearers fell. Those who tried to bridge the gods and men.”

Mira traced a carving with her finger. “Eiden… look.”

It was a symbol — the same spiral that glowed faintly along his arm.

Eiden’s throat tightened. “What is this place?”

The woman looked at him. “A grave for those who loved too much.”

He frowned. “Loved?”

“The Lumenflame was never born from strength,” she said softly. “It was born from mercy. That’s why it devours the kind-hearted first.”

Eiden looked down at his hand — the glow trembling faintly, as if alive. “Then it’ll devour me soon enough.”

“Not if you learn to feed it differently,” she said. “Light is hunger. But hunger can be taught.”

She turned to Mira. “And the girl — she carries a deeper spark. Old as the gods. If the Empire finds her, they’ll chain the world again.”

Eiden stepped forward. “Then tell me how to stop them.”

The woman met his gaze. “You can’t stop them yet. You can only survive them. And survival demands sacrifice.”

He clenched his jaw. “Whose sacrifice?”

She looked past him — toward Mira — and whispered:

 “The flame always asks for the one you cannot bear to lose.”

---

That night, Eiden couldn’t sleep.

He sat beside the dying candles, the gold marks along his skin pulsing faintly in rhythm with his heartbeat.

He thought of Solane — her warning, her sorrow.

He thought of Mira’s laugh — soft, fragile, the one thing left unburned.

He whispered to the empty air, “If there’s a god listening… take anything, just not her.”

The gold light in his veins flared once, answering him.

And far above, in the high sanctums of the Empire, the same light flickered across a mirror of crystal.

A voice — cold and distant — spoke to the gathered Harvesters:

 “The Eighth has made his vow.”

“Then send the Reclaimer. We’ll collect his price.”

---