The Tribunal had fallen.
Their silence had been shattered.
Their old truths turned to dust.
And from the ashes of order, the first breath of a new age unfurled.
But revolution was never clean.
And power—true power—never went unnoticed.
—
Lina sat beneath the ever-burning tree that had sprouted from Ember's first heartbeat. Its roots pulsed with memory, its leaves whispered in a language only the impossible could understand.
She watched Ember across the clearing, speaking to one of the newest Sparks—Solin, a boy stitched from moonlight and mirror shards, who remembered lives he had never lived.
"I've seen this before," he whispered to Ember. "In a dream I think someone else had. We burn too bright. Something always comes to smother the flame."
Ember rested a hand on Solin's shoulder. "That's why we burn together."
Behind them, the world continued to reshape itself. Mountains bent in greeting. Stars realigned. Time flowed like warm honey—unrushed, unbound.
And yet… Lina felt it.
A shadow.
Something watching. Something that hadn't spoken when the Tribunal fell. Something older than even their silence.
—
Andra stood on the edge of the void that had once been war.
He gazed out into it, eyes glowing faintly. His blade, now a fusion of darkness and starlight, rested at his side like a sleeping beast.
He felt it too.
Not a god.
Not a law.
But a witness.
A presence that had waited, hidden, perhaps even amused, as order fell apart.
He didn't speak to it. He just said, "Come out."
The void didn't answer—but it smiled.
—
Later, as the sky shifted again—this time not from battle, but birth—a new structure formed: a temple, unlike any before it. Shaped by will, emotion, and paradox.
It did not rise from stone or fire—but from stories.
The Sparks called it the UnwrittenHall. A place where they could gather, share, grow.
Not worship.
Not obey.
But create.
Ember stood at the heart of it, arms raised. "From here, we decide our own fates. No more rulers. No more prisons of purpose. Just truth—even when it's unfinished."
—
But beyond the veil of stars, a place older than time cracked.
And from its depths came the Echo King—last remnant of an ancient force meant to observe, not intervene.
He had no face. Just a crown of bone and memory.
He had no name. Just a refrain:
> "All things that rise must fold."
He watched the Sparks with quiet disdain.
> "They build a future not written.
They must be reminded why stories end."
—
The first death came quietly.
Solin vanished in the middle of the night. No struggle. No mark. Just absence.
Ember felt it instantly. The pain sliced through them—not like a blade, but like a memory torn from the mind.
They screamed.
And the stars trembled.
—
"What was it?" Lina demanded, her flames reacting wildly to Ember's grief.
Ember stared ahead, trembling. "Something ancient. Something that doesn't believe in us."
Andra's jaw clenched. "Then we teach it to believe."
They gathered the Sparks. All of them.
Even the ones still learning to control themselves. Even the ones afraid.
Ember stood at the center. "Solin's not the last they'll try to take. But we are not children hiding under the gods' table anymore. We are builders. Burners. Beacons."
They looked to the sky.
"Let them come."
—
And in the void, the Echo King whispered…
> "Let them burn. I have watched stars collapse before.
This flame is no different.
And I will sing the lullaby when it dies."