Ice and fire - by Mariam Akorede

Chapter Fourteen The Final Descent The war above had ended. But the heart of the Hollow Flame still burned below. And only the sisters could face it. --- The entrance to the Voidspire was a wound in the world. A blackened chasm wrapped in flame that didn’t flicker and shadows that didn’t move. It pulsed like a dying heart. It was not a place. It was a presence. Seren and Kaelara stood before it—wounded, bruised, but resolute. Behind them, the allied armies tended to their dead and wounded. The sky, though clearing, still held a crimson stain. “I feel it,” Kaelara whispered. “Calling me.” Seren nodded. “It’s inside us both. That’s why only we can end it.” They descended—hand in hand. --- The Spire’s Depths Inside, the walls wept ash. Faces flickered in the smoke—people they’d lost, versions of themselves they had feared becoming. Whispers clawed at their minds: "She’s stronger without you.""You don’t belong in this world.""Let go. Be free." But they held on to each other. Through fire that sang of destruction. Through cold that tried to freeze their hope. Until they reached the heart. --- There it was. The Hollow Flame. Not a beast. Not a god. But a void made of broken promises and lost balance. It wore their mother’s face, twisted and hollow, eyes burning with false light. It spoke in a voice that sounded like Elenya's, only wrong: “You were born to be me.”“You are too powerful together.But apart… you are mine.” The flame surged. It launched itself at Kaelara—tempting her with isolation, with peace through detachment. It wrapped around Seren—tempting her with dominance, with peace through conquest. Their hands began to slip. But then— Kaelara remembered the memory in the skyglass. Seren remembered the hill where they were born. And both remembered their mother’s last words: “The void cannot consume what is whole.” They didn’t fight it separately. They stepped into the Hollow Flame—together. --- Unity Frost met fire at the core of the void. Their magic spiraled upward like twin dragons—burning through the illusions, the voices, the pain. The Hollow Flame screamed as it was unraveled. Not destroyed by hate. But dissolved by harmony. The balance they represented was never a weapon. It was a truth. And truth, once whole, could not be corrupted. --- The void collapsed. The Hollow Flame ended. And light—pure and clean—flooded the spire. When the sisters rose from the ruins, the world breathed again.

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