Ashes Speak louder than Flames

The Guardian was relentless, vomiting fireball after fireball. The chain spun in a circular motion, scattering the flames but every impact stung my arms raw.

I wanted to let go but I couldn’t..

“Ryder…” I whispered inside my head, knuckles blistering against the burning links. “Tell me how to stop it.”

The voice that answered was calm, cold, without even the faintest crack of humanity.

“You can’t stop it, Ash. Just endure it for a while longer.”

The Guardian’s chest split open with a sound like shattering earth, a wave of white flame building in its core.

This was it.

I didn’t think—I moved.

The chain jerked alive in my grip, coils snapping outward as if Ryder himself yanked the strings. Heat blasted across my face, searing my lashes, but the flames didn’t burn me—they bent. Curved. Whipped around like loyal serpents, slamming into the fireball midair.

The impact detonated in a shockwave that swallowed the chamber whole. Fire and wind clawed at my skin, hurling grit into my teeth, but the chain held. Runes along its links flared in violent orange, each one throbbing in rhythm with my heart—no, not just mine. There was another beat beneath mine now. Heavy. Commanding. Like war drums from some other world.

“Good,” Ryder’s voice rolled through me, steady as iron. “You’re learning to listen.”

My knuckles whitened on the chain. “This is me listening?! I feel like my arm’s gonna explode!”

“It might…if you don’t spread the flow.”

I snarled through clenched teeth, forcing the flames down the length of the chain and out. They roared to life around me, curling into rings, spiraling outward in a storm of fire that painted the shattered cavern walls hell-red. The Guardian reared back, its molten throat snapping shut as flames washed over its scaled chest.

For a second, it staggered. Just a second—but enough to taste what real power felt like.

My body trembled. Not from fear. From hunger.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Ryder’s voice was silk laced with steel. “The strength. The certainty. Give me more control…let me take care of the rest.”

“No.” The word ripped out sharper than I expected. “You’re just… helping. That’s all.”

Silence. Then a chuckle that carried something darker beneath it.

“If you say so.”

The words weren’t spoken aloud. They slid through my skull like oil on glass. For a moment, I felt him—Ryder—pressing against the edges of my mind, a weight like a man trying to shoulder into a too-small doorway. The fire pulsed hotter, licking at the chain like it wanted my arm next.

I grit my teeth and shoved him back, hurling every ounce of stubbornness I had into the words:

“Not today.”

The pressure receded, slow as retreating tide. But it left an echo. One I didn’t want to think about right now.

Because the Guardian wasn’t done.

It slammed a claw the size of a boulder into the ground, dragging its massive body upright. Plates of obsidian-scaled armor split apart, glowing with rivers of molten light. Its roar shook my ribs—and this time, the chamber ceiling cracked.

Dust rained down where Verra knelt at the edge of the wall behind us, Dorran’s head resting in her lap, unmoving. She barely shielded him from the falling debris, eyes wide and desperate as she tried to keep him conscious.

“Ash…” Lira coughed behind me, half-choked on dust and blood. “Whatever… you’re doing… make it bigger…we have a plan.”

For a second, I wanted to laugh or cry. Finally, someone else to help out.

Instead, I gripped the chain in both hands, sparks stinging across my palms.

“Fine,” I muttered, flames coiling tighter, brighter, until they were blinding. “Let’s make it big.

The links burned red-hot, lengthening as if alive, spiraling out in fiery helixes in front of me. I spun them towards the guardian attempting to hook its head but it swatted it back, chipping off parts of the wall.

If that didn’t work, I wondered what would but then something in the air itself shifted. An incredible warmth vibrating towards me and a distinct pulse.

Not mine. Not Ryder’s.

Another.

The chamber air grew heavier, like the weight of the deep ocean pressing on my skull, but weirdly still. Dust froze midair for a hot second, glowing faintly blue before fading to nothing.

And for a heartbeat, I saw him.

Keiji.

Not his face—just his presence. A shadow standing where the wall had collapsed, bathed in an aura so sharp it cut through the fire from me like a blade through silk.

[CORE INSTABILITY: 89%]

He stepped closer, slowly but surely his boots crunching through the charred rubble on the ground. If I didn’t know any better, I would think he was feeding on the Guardian’s aura.

“Hey, Ash,” he said with that infuriating smirk of his. “Thanks for waiting.”

The air warped around him in waves. Heat radiated from his body, his sword igniting not with steady flame but with sputtering flecks of light that danced and vanish on the steel. When his sword kissed the floor, stone didn’t just crack —it liquefied. His other hand clutched Dorran’s shield like a priced possession.

But his eyes weren’t like before. They were steady. Calm. He even smiled, like he already knew we were going to win. It was small but enough to fill me with confidence.

“Double team then?” I asked, tightening my grip on the chain.

Before he could answer, Lira slid into view at my left, the rune on her neck glowed faintly. Her bow nowhere in sight.

“Don’t make this a sausage-fest,” she spat, blood still on her lips. “I’m still here, you know.”

“Right…” I said, sparks dancing up my wrists. “So we have a plan or are we winging it?”

“We do.” Her voice sharpened like a blade drawn across glass. “And it’s going to take all of us to pull it off.”

At that moment, the chamber shuddered violently. The Guardian roared for like the hundredth time again, flames spiralling from its mane in a vortex that cracked the ceiling. This time it advanced, each step quaking the floor.

I stumbled back. Ryder’s voice gnawing in the back of my head, begging me to give him control. To let him fight. Not now. Not when—I wasn’t alone.

The plan was a variation of the one I had. Only this time, we’d turn the odds in our favour, even though it was small. Keiji and I would hold the Guardian’s attention while Lira searched for its core. I’d aim for the head, Keiji for the legs.

I glanced at Keiji again. For the first time since this fight began, there was no fear in his eyes. Only resolve —and heat. It wasn’t just hot, it felt like the air was charged with a sudden cracking energy.

It was a weird feeling being able to feel his heat on top of my own.

He leaned in just enough for me to hear, spoke low so Lira couldn’t.

“Do you hear CIX’s voice again?”

I whispered back, “It’s another hero’s annoying voice this time.”

Keiji’s mouth quirked into something halfway between pity and defiance. “Well…” his grip tightened on his sword, “…whoever it is, we don’t need them. The two…” his eyes flicked to Lira. “…Three of us can do this.”

Almost on cue, Ryder barked in my head:

“Highly unlikely.”

I snapped the chain around the Guardian’s neck this time connecting. I yanked with everything I had. It stopped and with the flick of its tail, the chain snapped free, sparks raining as though reality itself rejected my hold. This beast just wasn’t going down, its gaze burned through me like to say I was a dead man walking.

That moment was enough for Keiji to act. He darted low, his sword burning with heat so wild I thought it might eat him alive before it ever cut the beast. He drove it into the Guardian’s leg. The instant steel touched glowing armor, the plates detonated. A shockwave tore outward, molten shards exploding like volcanic shrapnel. Keiji was hurled back into the rubble, smoke trailing off his shoulder.

And the Guardian wasn’t finished.

It bellowed, flames bursting not just from its maw but from vents splitting open along its arms, chest, even its tail. Fireballs launched in volleys, hissing through the chamber.

Fwoosh.
One, two, three.

We evaded what we could, but my gut dropped when I saw their trajectory.

They weren’t aimed at us.
They were streaking toward the far corner—toward Verra, where she cradled Dorran’s head in her lap.

I felt a pull and I could swear the chain moved on its own, runes flaring up. It whipped out like lightning, dragging every ounce of flame into its coils. Heat surged up my arms as the links twisted into a blazing rotating shield, bending midair like glass forged on the spot.

BOOM.
The chamber screamed. Shockwaves rattled my teeth, dust sheeting down in avalanches. The chain bucked in my hands like a living serpent, links cracking under the strain. My skin blistered, lines of fire carving up my arms, but I held on—long enough for the last of the inferno to smash against the shield and gutter out in smoke.

I staggered, coughing up blood, heat still licking at me in a dry hiss, as if blood was drying out rapidly from the intense heat.

But none of it mattered, the pain, the blood, the charred as long as Verra and Dorran were untouched.