Chapter One: The Day the Flame Broke the Silence
Part Four: Echo Flame Awakens
The Hollow Choir agent raised his hand slowly—calm, almost reverent. His fingers unfolded with precision, and glyph lines lit across his palm like veins of silent thunder.
Kaelen didn't blink.
He couldn't.
Everything felt too still.
The flames from the wreckage behind him whispered across the rock. The air smelled of ash, metal, and something else—char. Not the kind from firewood. Not natural. This was something sacred, scorched.
Burned wrong.
Kaelen's gaze never left the agent.
"Say it again," he breathed.
The agent tilted his head. "Subject: Zephryn. Eased from memory."
No emotion. No pause.
As if Zephryn was a typo—an entry corrected and forgotten.
Kaelen's fists clenched tighter. His breath stuttered once, caught in his chest like it didn't want to move forward without him.
"You erased him?"
"Subject's presence violated Hollow Choir parameters. Witnesses will also be cleared."
The second agent moved now, silent, stepping through the smoke toward the shattered edge of the cliff. His eyes glinted beneath his mask.
Behind them, the lake reflected the ruin like a memory that refused to fade.
Yolti stood frozen above, one hand to her mouth.
Kaelen dropped to one knee—not out of surrender, but something worse.
Rage. A rage so vast, so ancient, it refused to rise fast. It built slow. Like magma beneath stone. Like heat that did not flicker, but pressed outward—steady. Relentless.
His hands hit the ground.
And the rock beneath them cracked.
"I told him I'd be back."
His voice was shaking now.
"I told him…"
He stared at the flames. At the wood still glowing near the cliff's edge. At the place where Solara had kissed Zephryn on the cheek hours ago.
And his voice cracked for the first time in years.
"I told him I'd see him again."
The glyph etched in his spine began to stir.
The first agent paused, sensors blinking red across his mask.
"Veilmark activity detected."
"Impossible," the second muttered. "He's too young."
Kaelen's pulse had changed.
The ground beneath his boots began to shimmer. The lines in the stone curled—like veins, like old runes—pulsing once, then twice. Not blue. Not green.
Flame.
But not normal fire. Not Veilfire. Not standard Pulse Flame.
It echoed.
The resonance poured through his shoulder blades, through his chest, through the soles of his feet.
He stood.
Slowly.
Silently.
But when he opened his eyes—they weren't wide with fear.
They were burning.
And when he spoke?
It wasn't a cry.
It was a plea to the gods through clenched teeth.
"Give. Him. Back."
The first agent raised his hand, glyphs sparking to erase memory—
But it was already too late.
Kaelen's Veilmark ignited.
Not clean.
Ripped open. Violent. Raw.
A spiral of fire burst from his back, not like wings—but like chains snapping.
It didn't flare in rhythm.
It screamed.
The flames curved as if shaped by grief. Every lick of fire curled outward and returned inward, folding on itself like a song that had forgotten its chorus.
The agent stepped back—too late.
Kaelen's hands lit.
And he roared:
"VEILMARK ART:
ECHO FLAME!!!"
The blast tore across the cliff.
It wasn't wide.
It wasn't wild.
It was focused.
A spiral of fire shot forward from Kaelen's fists, surrounding the first agent like a storm of memory—each flame flickering with pieces of the hut, Zephryn's voice, Solara's laughter, the echo of a scarf fluttering in the wind.
This wasn't just combustion.
This was remembrance turned weapon.
The agent screamed as the fire swallowed his robes, ate through his veil, melted the memory anchors in his mask.
The second agent drew a blade, leapt forward—too slow.
Kaelen turned, arm rising—
Flames rippled like a whip from his shoulder, wrapped the second one's leg, yanked him from the air.
He hit the ground hard.
Yolti watched it all from above, eyes wide, hands trembling.
"Kaelen…" she whispered.
But he didn't hear her.
His face was soaked with tears.
His voice was a broken wind against the fire.
"GIVE ME BACK MY BEST FRIEND!"
He crushed the second agent's chest with a final pulse burst that sent fire coiling through the earth.
Then silence.
Nothing but the crackle of flame…
…And the soft sound of Solara's scarf falling loose, landing beside him.
Kaelen dropped to his knees.
The fire died.
And only his breath remained.
Yolti made her way down the cliff.
She knelt beside him slowly, hands shaking.
Kaelen didn't move.
He was staring at the ashes. Not of the agents.
But of the home that had held everything.
The place Zephryn smiled.
The place Solara sang.
He reached out and picked up the scarf.
Still warm.
Still hers.
He wrapped it around his wrist.
And with a voice so soft the flame almost smothered it, he whispered:
"I'll never forget. Not even if they make the stars forget your name.
I will burn this silence.
I will bring him back.
I promise."