Talia climbed Mount Kael with a map burned into her memory, whispered by dreams. At the peak, the Guardian waited: a horned beast of shadowsteel and molten eyes, half-dead, half-divine.
"You've no fire in you," it growled.
"I've got the last piece," she replied, opening her palm.
A coal sat there. Cold, gray, dull.
But the Guardian recoiled. "The Ember!"
She stepped forward. "I need to awaken it."
"That Ember could burn gods. Are you a god, child?"
"No," Talia said. "But I am what's left."