From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-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.

Below them stretched the world—small, grey, forgotten. Above them, the summit, a crown of obsidian stone veined with ember-light.

The flame rose from its centre.

It wasTall. Thin. Like a tower made of fire and bone.

Tomas hissed through his teeth. "Gods... it’s alive."

Elena stepped forward. The fire bent with her.

Mira reached for her. "Elena—"

But Leon stopped her. "She’s not going alone."

He followed.

And the stone beneath them opened.

Like a door in the mountain had been waiting for centuries for just this touch.

They entered.

The walls glowed. Not with heat. With magic.

Flame danced along the carvings—thousands of them, etched by hands long dead. They were not words, nor images. Just scars. Every one a record of something lost. A choice. A wound. A cost.

Leon’s sword burned in its sheath.

He drew it—and it glowed.

Like it was resonating with the cave.

Elena’s footsteps didn’t echo,She walked like she had been here before, like one returning home.

At the chamber’s heart, they found it.

The Seventh Seal.

A flame, yes—but held in stone. Encased.

And at its base, a throne.

Empty.

Until Elena stepped forward.

And then it wasn’t.

A figure sat.

Wreathed in smoke.

Its face wasn’t hidden.

It was hers.

But older.

With Burn marks.

The Seventh Flame spoke.

And the mountain rumbled.

"Step forward daughter of ash"

Elena’s throat worked.

"I... I’m not ready."

"No one is. Come."

Leon stepped beside her.

"You don’t have to."

She looked at him.

Then at the throne.

Then stepped forward.

The flame didn’t burn.

It welcomed her instead.

Where the others felt heat and fire

She felt warmth and comfort.

And the Seventh Seal broke.

The throne pulsed beneath her fingertips,

Like a heartbeat.

It thudded once beneath her palm, then again—slower, deeper. As if the mountain itself had waited for her hand. Elena didn’t sit yet. She stood before it, framed by fire, watching the shape of herself watching back. The older Elena, the Seventh Flame, did not blink. Nor did She smile.

She just waited and starred at her.

Leon’s hand rested lightly on his sword. It wasn’t drawn. But he was ready.

Behind him, the others had not moved.

Mira’s breath was quick and shallow, her fingers curled tightly around the pendant she hadn’t let go of since the third seal. Tomas had his arms folded across his chest, his eyes locked on Elena with the same wariness one gives to the edge of a cliff. Alden... hadn’t looked up once. He still held the journal, but the quill hung useless from his fingers. Blank pages. Silent ink.

Callen stood furthest back, half in shadow. His lips moved. Not prayers or curses. But he called Names. Names of the dead.

Names of those who he’d lost.

He seemed more broken than ever now.

Elena stepped closer to the throne.

And the older version of her moved as well—only slightly. A shift of posture. A tilt of the head. But it was enough.

Elena flinched.

"I never wanted this," she said.

"I know," the Seventh Flame replied.

"I’m not a queen and I’m not a saviour."

"No. You’re the one who was chosen by the eternal flame. The child of ash with magic to shake the world. That is who you are."

The fire pulsed again.

And this time, it reached out.

From the throne, tendrils of light arced toward her—thin as threads, but weighty with something more than heat.

Elena didn’t step back.

But she didn’t step forward either.

"I killed them," she whispered.

The flame tilted its head.

"They trusted me."

"I let them burn."

Elena’s voice cracked. "Then why me?"

The older Elena—The Flame—finally moved.

She stood.

And when she did, the chamber changed.

The walls reshaped, not physically, but perceptually. The scars etched in the stone began to glow brighter—every one a story. Every one a moment.

The death of a village for a gate to stay closed.

The betrayal of a friend for a future that never came.

The surrender of love for duty.

The refusal of mercy to save a kingdom.

They weren’t Elena’s memories alone.

They were hers.

They were all hers.

"Because it is your destiny," said the flame. "Fate cannot be stopped and it is one’s duty to fulfill their destiny."

Elena’s knees buckled.

Leon caught her before she fell, arm wrapping around her shoulders.

She didn’t weep.

But the silence that escaped her chest was louder than any scream.

The throne glowed white now.

White-hot.

Clean flame.

It was an Invitation.

Leon turned to her, his voice softer than he’d ever spoken in war. "Whatever you choose, you don’t do it alone alone."

Elena met his gaze.

And finally—finally—she stepped forward and sat.

Not as a chosen one.

Not as a weapon.

But as the one chosen by fate itself.

The flame sealed itself around her.

The Seventh Flame smiled once.

And disappeared.

Outside, the mountain roared.

Not in collapse.

But In awakening.

The peak above them split, and from it rose a tower of fire that did not fade or fall. It stood—as if it had always been there, waiting to be seen.

Tomas fell to his knees.

Mira gasped.

Callen, for the first time, looked up.

And Alden, eyes wide, whispered into his journal.

Leon stood beside her.

And the flame whispered once more.

"Now the others will come."

The mountain didn’t calm.

It rumbled again.

From the peak’s crown, the fire surged higher—stretching into the clouds, setting them aglow with deep gold and soft white. Not a burning blaze, but a signal. An answer. As if something across the world had asked a question long ago... and now received its reply.

Leon stepped closer to Elena’s side. Her eyes had not blinked since she sat on the throne, and though the fire had wrapped itself gently around her frame, it did not burn cloth or skin. Instead, it breathed with her. Rising and falling. Echoing the quiet rhythm of her chest.

The others slowly approached the chamber’s heart.

Mira moved first, her steps cautious, reverent.

She looked at Elena, then at the throne—then lowered her gaze and knelt.

Not in submission, but simply in awe.

Alden joined her. He knelt, too, but not before scribbling in his book,"The child of ash takes the throne."

Callen stood still a little longer. Then, like something inside him cracked just wide enough to let the warmth in, he took a step forward.

And another.

Until he stood beside the ash-ringed stone and exhaled, slow and long.

Tomas didn’t kneel. He never did. But he bowed his head. Just once. Just enough.

"She’s not the same," he muttered.

Leon answered, "None of us are, not after what we’ve been through."

The throne pulsed again. And Elena’s lips parted—but she said nothing. Instead, the flame around her flared softly and cast a second ring of light across the stone floor.

Within that ring, shapes began to form.

Not people.

Not exactly. They were Impressions.

Ghosts of a memory.

The echo of footsteps on a palace floor.

The laughter of a child beneath dusk’s first star.

A battle cry cut short by a blade.

They were all Memories.

But not hers alone.

The others are coming.

It wasn’t a warning.

But a simple truth.

And the fire began to call.

Softly at first.

A heat in the bones of old priests far from the mountains. A whisper through the bloodlines of cursed kings. A pull in the hearts of those who once touched power—and turned from it.

In kingdoms untouched by war, candles flared without cause.

In temples long abandoned, the air shimmered.

The Seventh Flame was not just any flame.

It was invitation.

And across the world, those bound to the old fire felt the shift.

Leon looked back at Elena. She wasn’t moving. Not visibly. But her presence filled the space now. Not just her body—but her truth. Her memory. Her survival.

The scars on her hands, the ash in her breath, the steadiness of her gaze.

He spoke her name, low and clear.

"Elena."

She turned her head.

The fire did not follow.

It stayed where it was.

A crown without weight.

And she smiled.

A real one.

Faint. Tired. But it was real.

"I remember now," she whispered. "All of it."

Leon swallowed.

"Then we go after the eight."

The ground beneath the chamber trembled—

Something far below was shifting.

And far above, in a sky that hadn’t seen light in days, the sun broke through.

Not full.

Just a sliver.

Enough to cut through the clouds.

Enough to burn gold across the face of the world.

And somewhere beyond the Flamehold Spine

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