The forest had gone silent.Even the wind seemed afraid to move.
Thiya stood near the river's edge, her breath misting in the cold dawn. The pendant at her chest still glowed with faint threads of blue from the Tide's awakening, but its warmth no longer comforted her. It felt heavy, as if burdened by new memory.
She looked at the horizon where the cliffs met the sky. The first light had vanished beneath the rising sun, yet its echo remained inside her bones. Every heartbeat carried the rhythm of the river's song.
For the first time, she could sense the flow of things—the quiet current beneath every sound.
The world was breathing again.
And something else was breathing with it.
She set out from the cliffs by midday. The forest grew denser as she followed a path worn by roots and rain. A strange quiet lingered in the air—no birds, no rustle of leaves, only the faint hum of her pendant.
Each time she thought of Kairen's warning—
"The shadow remembers faster than we expected."
—the trees seemed to draw closer.
By dusk, she found a clearing. A single tree stood at its center, tall and blackened as if burned long ago. Around it lay a circle of ash that no wind could scatter.
Thiya hesitated. The ground here was cold, unnaturally so. When she stepped forward, frost formed where her feet touched.
The pendant pulsed once, its light flickering as though uncertain.
A whisper slid through the air—low, smooth, familiar.
"So… the flame learned to walk again."
Thiya froze. Her eyes darted toward the shadows between the trees.
"Show yourself."
The voice laughed softly, echoing like the rustle of dry leaves.
"You call for what you already carry."
A shape began to form in the darkness—the same shifting figure she'd seen at the forest's edge after her dream. It stepped into the faint light, tall and slender, draped in smoke. Its eyes burned gold, but colder than fire—like light reflected in water.
"You," she whispered.
"Yes," it said. "The silence that feeds. The hollow between your heartbeats."
"The shadow," Thiya breathed.
"Names are too small for what I am."
The ground trembled slightly beneath her feet.
"You've touched the tide," the shadow continued. "You've stirred things that wanted to stay forgotten. Why, little flame? Why wake the pain that slept?"
Thiya swallowed hard. "Because forgetting kills more slowly."
The figure tilted its head, almost curious.
"Brave words from a girl who still flinches at her own reflection."
Her grip tightened on the pendant. "I'm not afraid of you."
The shadow smiled, a shape that wasn't quite human.
"Not yet."
It stepped closer, its feet leaving no marks in the ash. The world dimmed around it; even the light from her pendant seemed to bend away.
"Tell me, Thiya," it murmured, "has the flame told you the truth of what you carry?"
"The truth?"
"That it burns everything it touches. That every life it chooses ends in ash. That you are not its bearer—you are its fuel."
The words cut through her like cold water. She shook her head, but doubt crept in anyway, subtle and sharp.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" The shadow's voice softened. "Then ask yourself why no one remembers her. Ask why even the gods turned their faces from her name. Fire gives, yes—but it takes, too."
The pendant throbbed violently against her chest, as if in protest.
"It burns, doesn't it?" the shadow whispered. "That's how it begins. The warmth becomes hunger. The hunger becomes loss. You will remember, and you will burn."
The world tilted. The pendant's light flickered between gold and blue, confused, unstable.
Thiya stumbled back, pressing her hand over it. "Stop."
"You can't silence truth."
The ground cracked beneath her. Darkness spread outward like spilled ink. The air grew heavy with the scent of smoke.
"I could show you," the shadow offered softly. "What became of the last flame-bearer."
Thiya hesitated. "Why would I believe you?"
"Because part of you already does."
Before she could move, the shadow reached out. Its hand—if it could be called that—brushed her forehead. The world shattered into black.
She was falling.
The air was filled with ash, swirling around her like snow. Beneath her stretched a ruined city—towers of glass and light reduced to embers, rivers boiling in their beds. The air screamed with the memory of something vast and dying.
She stood suddenly at the center of it all. The sky above was red, cracked, bleeding light.
And there, on her knees amid the wreckage, was a woman.
Her hair was fire, her eyes endless gold. The goddess herself—burning, breaking, crying.
Thiya stepped forward. "You're her."
The goddess looked up. Her face was streaked with ash and grief.
"It was too much," she whispered. "Too much light for a world that wanted sleep."
Thiya reached out, but the air shimmered with heat.
"They begged for warmth," the goddess continued, "but when I gave it, they feared the fire. They worshiped my gift but not my name. They forgot, and in their forgetting, they killed me."
Her body flickered, cracks of light crawling across her skin.
"The shadow was born from that forgetting. It is not my enemy. It is my reflection."
The goddess lifted her gaze to Thiya, and for the first time, Thiya saw her own face mirrored faintly in the divine features.
"You carry me."
The vision collapsed. Light burst outward, blinding, and the city dissolved into nothing.
Thiya gasped and fell to her knees. The clearing returned—the tree, the ash, the cold air. The shadow stood before her, its golden eyes gleaming.
"Now you've seen," it whispered. "You are her echo. Her curse. Every age, she wakes through a child of flame, and every age, she dies again. Will you burn as she did?"
Thiya's voice broke. "If that's the truth, then I'll burn differently."
The shadow paused.
"I will burn to remember."
The pendant exploded in light—blinding, raw, alive. The ground quaked, and the blackened tree split apart with a sound like thunder. Fire poured upward, wrapping around her in waves.
The shadow recoiled, its form flickering wildly.
"Foolish child!" it roared. "Fire cannot fight darkness—it only feeds it!"
But Thiya's voice rose through the flame, steady and clear.
"Then let it feed."
The fire surged higher, brighter, until the world became nothing but gold.
When it faded, the clearing was empty. The shadow was gone. The tree had burned to dust.
Thiya stood at the center, her pendant dimmed, her body trembling. The air shimmered with the scent of smoke and salt.
She looked down. Her shadow on the ground flickered strangely—lagging behind her movements, as though something else moved within it.
She stepped once to the side. The shadow did not follow.
Her breath caught.
"What… are you?" she whispered.
Her own shadow turned its head. Its eyes glowed faint gold.
"I am what you left behind."
Then it vanished, fading into the ash.
The night fell quiet again. The forest exhaled. The world seemed unchanged, yet Thiya felt it—the subtle shift beneath everything. The flame within her no longer felt alone.
She looked toward the river. The surface shimmered faintly, reflecting a thousand tiny stars.
The goddess's voice—so faint she almost missed it—whispered through the wind.
"You cannot destroy shadow, only understand it."
Thiya lifted her hand, watching her fingers tremble in the half-light. "Then I'll learn," she whispered. "I'll remember."
The pendant pulsed once, soft as breath.
And somewhere beyond the horizon, the shadow opened its golden eyes again—this time not in hatred, but in hunger.
It had spoken.
Now, it would listen.