The wind that rolled into Southwatch the next morning was colder than it should have been. Not the bite of winter, but the hush that comes before a storm.
Elira stood on the eastern wall of the city, her eyes scanning the horizon. Smoke no longer rose from the chimneys—only watchfires, wary and flickering. Below, Southwatch was stirring into uneasy life, no longer a battlefield, but not yet free.
Auren approached, the scent of leather and steel clinging to him.
> "You haven't slept."
> "Neither has the Crown," she replied, eyes fixed on the distant hills.
He followed her gaze. A black banner rippled in the far distance—barely visible, but unmistakable.
> "That symbol," he said quietly. "I've only seen it once. In the palace archives."
> "The Order?" she asked.
> "The Obsidian Flame. Magic forged in silence. They don't conquer—they erase."
---
In the streets below, whispers were already spreading among the rebels.
> "They wear black masks."
"They don't speak."
"They carry fire that doesn't burn wood—only souls."
Elira walked the barricades as the sun climbed higher. She passed healers tending to wounded men, blacksmiths reforging bent blades, and children with ash on their cheeks and hope in their eyes. But that hope flickered like a candle in wind.
In the war room, Garran slammed a fist on the table.
> "We can't fight ghosts. We don't even know how many of them there are."
> "They're not ghosts," Elira said. "They're a message. The Crown wants to remind us what fear feels like."
Sera, the former noble-turned-rebel scout, unrolled a torn parchment taken from a fallen messenger.
> "They're already in the eastern woods," she said. "The trees are dying behind them."
Auren leaned closer.
> "That's not strategy. That's ritual."
Elira felt the pulse of her magic stir uneasily.
> "They're not here to win battles," she said. "They're here to hunt me."
---
That night, Elira stood alone outside the city walls, just beyond the torches' reach. The stars above were veiled in cloud.
She closed her eyes and reached inward—calling the flame not from her hands, but from her blood.
> "Come, then," she whispered. "Let the Obsidian Flame try to silence me."
The wind changed.
Behind her, a flicker of movement—too quiet to be footsteps. She spun, fire rising in her palm.
A figure stood at the treeline.
Tall. Cloaked in black. Face hidden beneath a smooth obsidian mask.
No words. No breath.
Only the slow raising of a blade carved from something that pulsed like molten stone.
Elira's flame surged to meet it—and for the first time in weeks, she felt fear curl in her chest.
> Not because she couldn't win… but because this wasn't a war of crowns anymore. It was something older. Something deeper.
---
Author's Note:
The Order of the Obsidian Flame has arrived—and they've come for Elira. Can fire stand against shadow? Can hope survive what hunts her?
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