Chapter 91: The Seventh Flame
They climbed into the silence.
The valley behind them held its breath, and the scars they left behind smouldered in the earth like old embers that refused to die. But the seventh seal did not lie in the valley. It waited above. In the jagged, broken peaks of the Flamehold Spine, where the wind howled like a dying god and the rocks bled rust instead of snow.
Leon led ahead.
They didn’t speak. There was nothing left to say. Not after what the sixth seal had shown all of them.
Each step forward was a step above the clouds. Even the air changed. It was Denser. Like breathing fire.
They passed the last tree a mile ago. It had been charred black, half turned to stone. Since then, only ash and jagged shale lined their path. No birds. No beasts. Just wind And heat.
Tomas walked behind Leon, flanked by Mira and Callen, who hadn’t spoken since the reflections they saw. Alden followed last, scribbling nothing now. His journal hung open, pages fluttering blank.
Elena didn’t walk with them.
She walked beside the flame.
It wasn’t visible to the others, not exactly. But Leon saw it in her step. A rhythm. A flicker in her gaze that hadn’t left since the fifth seal. The fire wasn’t around her. It was inside.
By midmorning, they reached the spine’s ledge.