Know Her

Silence stretches on.

No flame. No wind.

Only the echo of her words lingering in the haze.

Do you remember me?

I close my eyes. Behind my lids, hot ash still falls like snow. My breath is shallow, as if even air might disturb the stillness.

The falchion hangs at my side, no longer glowing, yet warm. Alive. Watching.

“Caden, you must remember who you are. You are no longer the young guardian once sworn to silence.”

Her voice flows through the air, clear and cold, like moonlight on a mountain spring. It bears the aching warmth of home.

But how can this be?

I am but a boy of sixteen. A guardian of the Temple of Embers.

Yes, I’ve dreamed of becoming Emberbound, her Emberbound, but dreams are made to fade.

And I… I was never chosen.

Time drips forward. The silence stretches with it.

Then she reaches out again. But something is different.

The ash and smoke begin to spin and swirl before me.

A shape forms, human, at first, like the ashen warrior.

My nerves seize.

I grip the falchion tighter.

Another enemy? Another trick of this dying place?

The smoke thickens. It coalesces. A woman’s form emerges. At first, I think she’s an illusion, born from fire, ash, memory. But no mirage casts a shadow.

She steps forward, her bare feet silent on scorched earth. The flames do not touch her. The smoke parts around her. Her presence feels out of place, like a star shining in a daytime sky.

Too radiant.
Too real.
Too beautiful to belong to a place like this.

“Do you remember me?” she asks again.

And something ancient inside me trembles.

I dare not speak. What if this is a test? A trick of smoke and longing?

Her green dress, trimmed in gold, billows in the ashen air, yet somehow remains separate from it. As if her image floats on the wind, half-formed, drifting into the physical realm.

Her blonde hair flows as though suspended in water. Her eyes begin to glow, a deep, molten gold, brimming with power.

Above her, the churning black clouds begin to break. Light pierces through. The sun shines down, illuminating her in full radiance. Even the gods, in their painted heavens, could only imitate such beauty.

She locks eyes with me. Her aura flares, visible, tangible. Warping the air around her like heat rising from stone.

She stands before me, a force of nature. Commanding. Intimidating. Eternal.

Then she speaks again, but this time, it is not the voice of longing. It is the voice of duty.

“By flame and oath, you are bound to me. Until my light fades from this world, you shall stand between me and all who seek to break me. I do not ask this of you, Caden. I name it as truth. Until death parts us… or the stars fall.”

Beneath her gaze, the strength in my legs fails. I fall to one knee, sheathing the falchion into the dirt.

The words I have long dreamed of have now been spoken to me. I am nothing but a simple guardian without her. If this is a trick, a deception, then it has already bested me.

I bow my head, still not daring to speak.

She exhales, sharp with frustration.

“You will remember who you are, Caden, and the test that now lies before you. Or you shall be forever lost in the Flamepool… with the countless other inadequate guardians.”

Her voice reverberates across the valley, as though the Goddess of Embers herself had spoken from the heavens. Her words carry more than meaning; they thrum with power. They echo again and again, though her lips do not move.

She stands motionless in her light-bound majesty, those golden eyes fixed on me.

Then her words strike once more, crashing into my mind like thunder.

“You will remember who you are, Caden, and the test that now lies before you.”

Pain spears through my skull, sharp as a dagger’s thrust. Light floods my vision, pressing into my thoughts with unbearable heat. I fall, the falchion slipping from my grasp. My hands claw at my eyes, but the brilliance cannot be stopped.

The fire digs deeper. My thoughts fracture, shards of a mirror shattered by flame.

A voice, soft and familiar, carried on the wind. My hand in hers, calloused and young. An oath whispered… a law broken. A quiet glade, drenched in gold and green. She leans in close, eyes bright with defiance. She whispers a promise only we could understand.

No matter what the Temple takes from us… I will find you again.

The memory is torn away, replaced by chaos: Steel ringing. Blood on stone. Her scream, muffled by the smoke. And me, older, hollowed, on my knees before a pyre.

The light recedes at last, leaving me trembling. Face down in the scorched earth.

I raise my eyes. She stands untouched. Unmoving. Unyielding.

Yet somehow… I am no longer the same.

A hush follows the vision, not peace, but absence.

Even the wind has forgotten how to breathe.

I rise to my knees, limbs weak, heart drumming an ancient rhythm I no longer recognise as my own. My hand finds the falchion, half-buried in blackened soil. It no longer pulses with light, but as I touch it, it knows me.

Or perhaps… it remembers what I became.

She watches in silence. That impossible figure of gold and fire. Of memory and myth.

Her eyes soften, and for the first time, I see something flicker in them: grief.

“You are not ready”, she says, more to herself than to me.

“But you are the one. I know it.”

She steps closer. The smoke curls around her, reverent.

“Do you know what you lost, Caden?”

I open my mouth, but no sound comes. Only the ache of a truth I cannot yet hold.

She lifts her hand. Her palm glows, not with fire, but with something older. A slow, embered light. She presses it to my chest.

“There is a name buried within you. A promise etched in flame. When you find it… the stars will tremble.”

Then her form begins to fade, dissolving into ash and light, drawn upward into the parting clouds.

And just before she vanishes, her voice finds me one last time:

“Now rise, Vaelor the Emberbound.”

“Go forth to the Flamepool. What you seek lies beyond.”

She is gone.

And I am alone.

I stand slowly. The world is quiet, but not empty.

Not anymore.

I sling the falchion over my shoulder. The warmth still lingers, but it no longer comforts me.

It burns.