The ashes still whispered.
Long after the fire had died, long after the temple wallsl had crumbled, the ground beneath the shrine still murmured with voices that refused to be forgotten.
Aryasa stood at the edge of the ruin, the kris heavy at his side, the mask from the grove wrapped in cloth and tucked beneath his arm. Mangku Gede had sent him here alone, to the remnants of a temple that had once belonged to the Keepers of the Flame a forgotten order who guarded the veil through ritual and sacrifice.
The jungle had reclaimed most of it. Vines strangeld the stone pillars. Statues lay broken, their faces worn smooth by time. But the air was thick with memory.
Aryasa stepped forward.
Each footfall srirred dust and silence. He felt the weight of the palce not just in its grief. Something had happened here. Something sacred. Something violent.
He reached the center of the ruin, where a circle of blackened stone marked the remains of a ceremonial fire pit. The ashes were cold. But as Aryasa knelt, they stirred.
A wind rose not from the trees, but from the ground.
And then, a voice.
"You carry the mask."
Aryasa looked up. A figure stood across the pit, cloaked in smoke and shadow. Not Rangda. Not Barong. Something in between.
The figure wore a mask crackedm scorched, and glowing faintly with embers. its eyes were hollow. its voice was neither male nor female, but something older.
"You carry the memory. But do you carry the flame?"
Aryasa stood slowly. "I don't know what that means."
The figure tilted its head. "Then you must learn. The veil does not hold with light alone. it must burn."
The wind intensified. The ashes rose, swirling around Aryasa like a storm. He gripped the kris, but did not draw it.
"This place remembers your blood," the figure said.
"Your father stood here. He lit the final flame. He gave everything."
Aryasa's breath caught. "He died here?"
"He became the fire."
Suddenly, the ashes surged upward, forming shapes visions.
Aryasa saw his father, younger, fierve, standing in the same circle. He held the kirs. He wore the mask. Around him, shadow closed in Rangda's cult, twisted spirit, broken guardians.
His father did not run.
He lit the flame.
And the veil held.
Aryasa staggered back. The vision faded, The figure remained.
"You are not him, " it said. "But you are what remains."
Aryasa looked down at the ashes. They no longer whispered. They waited.
He knelt, placed the mask in the center of the pit, and closed his eyes.
The fire returned.
Not with heat, but with memory.
it rose around him, gentle and golden, wrapping him in light. He saw faces of guardians long gone, spirits who had crossed, and the veil veit itself thin, trembling, alive.
He saw Rangda again. But this time, she was watching. Not attacking. Not screaming.
Just watching.
And behind her, something darker stirred.
Not a person.
A wound
A tear in the veil.
Aryasa opened his eyes. The fire was gone. The ashes were still.
The figure had vanished.
But the mask now glowed faintly, pusling with breath.
Aryasa picked it up. it was warm.
Alive.
He returned to Mangku Gede at sunrise, his face streaked with ash, his eyes changed.
Mangku said nothing. He simply nodded.
"You saw the flame," he said.
Aryasa nodded. "And the wound."
Mangku's expression darkened. "Then it has begun."
Aryasa looked toward the jungle. The veil was thinnong. The realms were bleeding.
And he was no longer just a boy with a blade.
He was the keeper of memory.
The bearer of flame.
The guardian of waht must never be forgotten.