Maya led them through a winding gorge at dawn, the rocky cliffs rising high and scarred with ancient sigils long since chiseled away. What once might have been a sacred canyon now felt more like a throat—the kind of place you entered with no promise of exit.
Chris followed at her side, Mira a few steps behind, her cloak drawn tight against the rising wind.
"You sure this is safe?" Mira asked.
"No," Maya said casually, leaping down a short ledge and motioning for them to follow. "But if you want safe, you're on the wrong continent."
Chris peered down the ravine. "How much farther?"
Maya's expression shifted. "Almost there. You'll want to brace yourself."
They turned a corner—and the world opened up.
The canyon floor dropped into a vast hollowed basin where tents, towers, and camouflaged structures were spread like a stitched patchwork. Fires burned low in clay pits. Watchers with scarves over their faces stood in tall posts made from reinforced wreckage. A black banner marked with a red crescent flapped in the wind—an old Emberborn symbol, long outlawed by the Dominion.
The Rebellion.
Chris stopped at the edge of the cliff and stared.
Maya stepped beside him, her voice softening. "Welcome to Hollow Ember. What's left of us, anyway."
A warhorn cried in the distance—two short bursts. A signal.
By the time they reached the outer gate, half a dozen guards had appeared, weapons drawn. Their eyes narrowed when they saw Chris. One of them, a tall woman with bronze skin and flame-inked tattoos along her arms, stepped forward.
"Maya," she said. "This him?"
"Yep," Maya replied. "Took his sweet time."
The woman studied Chris. "He doesn't look like much."
Chris stepped forward. "I get that a lot."
"Good," the woman said. "Prove us wrong."
They were let in.
Inside the camp, activity was constant. Smiths hammered scrap metal into armor. Children with soot-streaked faces carried buckets of water. Fire mages practiced throwing controlled arcs into sandpits while elders shouted instructions. The place was alive, stubbornly so—an act of defiance against a world that wanted them erased.
Chris tried not to let the weight of it hit him. But it did.
These weren't soldiers.
They were survivors.
And now they were looking at him like he might be their salvation.
Maya brought them to a stone structure near the heart of the camp—half temple, half command center. Inside, maps were strewn across long tables, glowing softly under enchanted lanterns. A few senior leaders stood hunched over one map in particular, but they fell silent when Maya entered.
She motioned to Chris. "This is the kid."
A grizzled man with one eye and a hook-shaped scar across his mouth stepped forward. "You're Emberborn?"
Chris nodded.
"You've been hunted?"
He nodded again.
"Then you've earned your place."
Chris blinked. "That's it?"
The man gave a dry chuckle. "You're still alive. That counts for something."
Maya took Chris aside, toward a private alcove. She unrolled a piece of parchment with strange runes and a mountain-shaped symbol near the bottom.
"This is what we need you to steal," she said. "A shard map."
Chris leaned over it. "What does it lead to?"
"A lost temple," Maya said. "One of the oldest. Before the Purge, before the gods fell silent. We think the Dominion's hiding it somewhere beneath an outpost they built in the Weeping Spires."
Mira stepped closer. "What's in the temple?"
Maya looked at both of them carefully. "We're not sure. But whatever it is, the Speaker wants it locked away. Badly."
Chris frowned. "So we go in, steal this shard, and run?"
"That's the short version."
"What's the long version?"
"You don't run." Maya's gaze darkened. "You fight."
Chris stepped back, tension crackling under his skin. "I didn't come here to lead a war."
"No," Maya said. "But one's already started. And whether you like it or not, you're in it."
Before he could reply, the door slammed open.
A boy with wide eyes and a raven on his shoulder stumbled in. "Scouts just reported movement—northeast ridge. Small unit. Could be a Dominion retrieval team."
Chris's heart dropped.
The Seeker.
Maya turned sharply. "Send the southern mages to intercept. No direct engagement. I want eyes, not a bloodbath."
The boy nodded and ran.
Chris looked at Maya. "She's coming again."
"She never stopped."
Maya stepped close, lowering her voice. "Chris, that girl—the Seeker—she's not like the others. You're right to hesitate. There's something broken in her. Something the Dominion twisted. If there's any chance to turn her... you might be the only one who can do it."
Chris looked away. "I tried to reach her once. She almost killed me."
"Try again," Maya said. "Before someone else kills her first."
Outside, the camp burned with the orange light of the setting sun.
Inside, Chris felt the weight of the world tightening around him.
A stolen map. A lost temple. The girl who hunted him—and might not be his enemy after all.
Everything was shifting.
And he hadn't even met the true monsters yet.