Epilogue: “The Flame that Waits”

Somewhere far from the Fold, far from kingdoms and ruins and names carved in stone, a child played by the edge of a stream.

Kaen stood at the edge of the obsidian ridge, the wind carrying with it the scent of old ash and something gentler—lavender, perhaps, or memory.

Behind him, the Academy slumbered under a veil of mist. Below, the hollow lands pulsed faintly with mana, as if the world itself breathed beneath the soil.

He closed his eyes.

Stillness was rare. Not silence—he had heard silence in the ruins, in the moments before death—but stillness. The kind that sank into the bones. The kind that asked questions.

‘Is this who I’ve become?’ he wondered.

A flicker of flame danced on his palm, not summoned, but remembered.

The words of Rhiava echoed: 'You hesitated.' And his reply, now softer in the wind: 'No. I chose.'

Sayari’s pendant pressed against his chest, warm with elven sigils.

Reijuu’s gaze returned to him in memory—stern, cautious, but layered with something else: belief.

From somewhere far, the breeze carried a song. A low, ancient elven melody. He did not know the words, but the feeling struck his core like a blade made of longing.

Kaen opened his eyes, the red in his iris fading into gold.

The fire would not consume him. Not yet.

He turned, footsteps steady. The path ahead wasn’t lit—but he would walk it anyway.

Behind him, the flame left no smoke. Only light.

She was no one special.

She had no magic. No sword. No prophecy.

Only a carved wooden toy in her hand, shaped like a bird, its wings scorched just slightly.

Her grandmother sat nearby, humming a song that no longer had words.

And the girl looked up.

Across the sky, a flicker of white flame danced in the clouds.

No thunder.

No storm.

Just a pulse of heat and light.

She smiled.

“I saw something,” she whispered.

The old woman tilted her head. “A dream?”

“No… a fire. But not scary. Like it remembered me.”

The woman said nothing for a long time.

Then finally:

“Sometimes… the world forgets what came before.”

The girl looked down at her wooden bird.

“But sometimes,” she said, holding it up, “the fire remembers that remembered the pain and forged the will.”

Far away, on a mountain untouched by maps, a lone figure stood — cloak flowing, eyes lifted to the stars.

No throne.

No legacy behind him.

Only Kaen.

And the fire that waited in his chest — quiet, ancient…

…ready.

He stood alone at the edge of the crumbled ruin, the wind stirring ash around his boots like fading memories.

The echoes of the encounter still burned in his chest — not like fire consuming, but like a heartbeat remembered.

Perhaps he would never fully know his father.

Perhaps his mother’s voice would always remain just out of reach.

But the fire in his veins — that, at least, was real.

And maybe, just maybe...

Perhaps the fire in his veins was not inherited... but chosen.