Ember's POV
The memory-constructs of my parents lunge forward with burning hands.
I scream and throw up a wall of fire without thinking. It collides with the constructs, and for a moment, everything is just flames and heat and the smell of burning memories.
"Run!" Ashen shouts, grabbing my arm. "NOW!"
We run.
Rev appears beside us with Spark wrapped in shadows, and suddenly we're moving faster than should be possible. The world blurs. Trees become streaks of green and brown. My stomach lurches.
Shadow-stepping. Rev is pulling us through the darkness itself.
We burst out of the shadows into a different place entirely—some kind of old building with broken windows and dust everywhere. The moment my feet hit solid ground, I collapse, gasping.
"Where—where are we?" I manage to choke out.
"Safe," Rev says, setting Spark down gently. "For now."
Spark runs to me, throwing her arms around my neck. "Ember! You came! You came for me!"
I hug her so tight I'm afraid I'll break her. "Of course I did. I'll always come for you."
"They said you were dead. They said you burned in the fire—"
"I'm here now. I'm right here."
I look up at Ashen and Rev over Spark's head. "Thank you," I whisper. "Thank you for saving her."
Ashen just nods, but something in his mismatched eyes looks sad. Haunted.
"Don't thank us yet," Rev says quietly. "Dredge destroyed your stolen memories. The faces, the truth—it's all gone."
My heart sinks. "So I'll never know who killed my parents?"
"I didn't say that." Rev walks to a wall covered in shelves. Hundreds of glowing crystal vials line them, each one pulsing with different colored light. "Welcome to the Memory Theater. This is where we keep everything we steal from the Syndicate."
I stare at the crystals. There are so many. Thousands, maybe.
"Each one is a memory?" I ask.
"Each one is someone's life," Ashen says from where he's sitting on an old crate, already reading a book. Like we weren't just fighting for our lives. "Memories the Syndicate stole and sold. We've been collecting them for years."
"Why?"
"To return them to their owners." Rev pulls out a specific crystal—this one glowing soft blue. "This holds the childhood of a woman in the capital. The Syndicate took it from her and sold it to a rich merchant who wanted to feel young again. We're going to give it back to her."
I don't understand these people. They risk their lives stealing memories to give them back to strangers?
"Why would you do that?" I ask.
Ashen finally looks up from his book. "Because someone has to."
Something about the way he says it makes me think there's a story there. A painful one.
Rev moves along the shelves, running her fingers over the crystals. "The memories Dredge destroyed tonight were copies. Bad copies, but copies."
My heart stops. "Copies?"
"We don't keep all our eggs in one basket." Rev pulls out another crystal—this one glowing orange like dying embers. "This is the real one. Your actual stolen memories. The ones taken from your mind in the vault."
I can't breathe. Can't think. That small crystal holds everything I lost.
"The faces of everyone involved," Rev continues. "What your parents discovered. What really happened that night. And more—things the Syndicate didn't even know they were stealing. Pyromancer memories work differently. They're layered. Connected. This crystal doesn't just hold your memories. It holds your mother's memories. Your grandmother's. Generations of Pyromancer knowledge."
"That's impossible."
"Most things are, until they're not," Ashen says, closing his book. He stands and walks over to us. "The question is—do you want them back?"
"Of course I do!"
"Even if getting them back means the Syndicate will know exactly where you are?" He looks at me seriously. "There are tracers woven into Pyromancer memories. The moment you absorb them, Dredge will feel it. He'll come with everything he has."
"I don't care. I need to know the truth."
"The truth might destroy you," Ashen says softly. "I've seen it happen. People get their memories back and wish they hadn't. Sometimes not knowing is kinder."
"Nothing is kinder than this," I snap, touching my head. "Having holes in my mind. Feeling like pieces of me are missing. Forgetting my mother's voice and my father's laugh and—" My voice breaks. "I need this. Please."
Ashen and Rev exchange a look. Some kind of silent conversation happens between them.
Finally, Rev holds out the crystal. "There's something else you should know. Once you absorb these memories, you can't unknow them. Can't un-see them. The truth about who betrayed your family, who stood by while they burned—it's all in here. Are you sure you're ready for that?"
My hand shakes as I reach for the crystal. "Yes."
"Wait." Ashen catches my wrist gently. "Not here. Not now. You're exhausted, traumatized, and you just got your sister back. Absorbing memories in that state is dangerous. Your mind needs to be clear."
"But—"
"He's right," Rev says. "We've waited this long. We can wait one more day." She places the crystal in a small locked box. "Rest tonight. Tomorrow, we'll teach you how to absorb memories safely. How to integrate them without letting them consume you."
I want to argue. Want to grab that crystal and break it open right now.
But Spark is leaning against me, exhausted and scared. She needs me strong, not shattered.
"Okay," I whisper. "Tomorrow."
Rev shows us to a back room with old blankets and pillows. It's not much, but it's safe. Spark curls up beside me, already half asleep.
"Ember?" she mumbles. "Are we safe now?"
I want to say yes. Want to promise her everything will be okay.
But I can't lie to her.
"For tonight," I say instead. "For tonight, we're safe."
She falls asleep with her head on my shoulder.
I can't sleep. I keep thinking about that crystal. About the truth waiting inside it.
Tomorrow, I'll know who killed my parents. Tomorrow, I'll have faces to hunt. Names to curse.
Tomorrow, everything changes.
I must drift off eventually because I wake to voices arguing in the main room. It's still dark outside.
I carefully move Spark's head to a pillow and creep to the door.
"—absolutely not," Ashen is saying. "She's not ready."
"We don't have time for ready," Rev argues. "Dredge knows where we were. He'll figure out where we are soon. We need to move fast."
"Moving fast with an unstable Pyromancer is suicide. She nearly burned herself out tonight."
"And she'll do it again if we don't train her properly!"
"That's exactly my point. We need months. Years, maybe. She's raw power with no control."
"We have days. Maybe hours."
I push the door open. "I can hear you."
They both turn to look at me.
"Sorry," Rev says, not sounding sorry at all. "Did we wake you?"
"What aren't you telling me?" I ask, stepping into the room. "What's really happening here?"
Ashen and Rev exchange another one of those looks.
"Tell her," Ashen says finally. "She deserves to know what she's walking into."
Rev sighs. "The Cindervale fire wasn't random. It wasn't even just about your parents' research. It was a test."
"A test for what?"
"For the Great Forgetting." Rev's voice is grim. "The Syndicate is planning to burn twelve major cities simultaneously. Tens of thousands of people. They'll extract memories from every survivor and create an army of blank-slate slaves who don't remember freedom, family, or resistance."
The room spins. "That's insane."
"That's the Syndicate," Ashen says. "And it gets worse. We intercepted intel three days ago. The operation begins in two weeks. Cindervale was their prototype—testing extraction methods, measuring how much fire it takes to make people compliant, calculating yields."
"Yields?" I feel sick. "You mean how many memories they can steal?"
"How many people they can process before the bodies stop being useful," Rev says bluntly.
I sink onto a crate, my legs suddenly unable to hold me. "Three hundred people died as a test?"
"Three hundred and seven," Ashen says quietly. "We counted."
Silence falls over the room.
"That's why we need you," Rev says finally. "You're not just a survivor, Ember. You're a weapon. A Pyromancer who can burn memories directly from minds. With you, we can stop the Great Forgetting before it begins."
"How?"
"By burning the memories of everyone involved," Ashen says. "Make them forget the plan. Forget the locations. Forget everything they need to make it happen."
"I don't know how to do that!"
"We'll teach you," Rev says. "Starting tomorrow."
My mind is reeling. Twelve cities. Tens of thousands of people. All going to suffer what I suffered. What Spark suffered.
"What if I can't do it?" I whisper. "What if I fail?"
"Then a lot of people die," Ashen says. He's not trying to be cruel. He's just being honest. "But at least you'll have tried."
I look at both of them. "Why are you doing this? Why do you care so much?"
Ashen's face goes distant. "Because a hundred and fifteen years ago, the Syndicate burned my family alive. My parents, my little sister, everyone I loved. I was twelve years old. I survived by hiding in a memory vault—just like you. And I swore that day that I would never let it happen to anyone else."
The pain in his voice is raw. Ancient. This man has been carrying this wound for over a century.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"Don't be sorry. Be angry. Be vengeful. Be ready to burn them all." He meets my eyes. "Can you do that?"
I think about Mama and Papa. About Spark's terrified face. About three hundred and seven people who died so the Syndicate could perfect their technique.
"Yes," I say. "I can do that."
"Good." Rev grins. "Because training starts at dawn, and I promise you—you're going to hate us by lunch."
I'm about to respond when I hear it.
A sound from the back room.
Spark, crying out in her sleep.
I rush back to find her thrashing, trapped in a nightmare. "No! Don't take her! EMBER!"
I gather her in my arms. "I'm here, sweetheart. I'm right here."
She wakes with a gasp, her eyes wild. "They're coming. Ember, they're coming back for us."
"It's just a nightmare—"
"No." Her voice is terrified but certain. "I can feel it. Something's wrong. Something's watching us."
The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
That's when I see it.
On the window ledge, barely visible in the darkness—a small crystal, glowing red.
Not orange like memory crystals.
Red like blood. Like warning.
Like a tracker.
"Ashen!" I scream. "REV! We have to—"
The building explodes.