Emberlyn

1

Princess Emberlyn of VolCrax had always known her role—heir to the Flame Throne, steward of the eternal summer, and keeper of the lesser fire spirits. But knowing a role and fitting into it were two very different things. She was fire, yes—but not the calm, controlled flame her mother, Queen Caldera, demanded. She was wildfire, always reaching, always hungry for more. So when she watched Cindara vanish through the shimmering portal into the newborn realm of Tenndari, something within her stirred. It wasn’t jealousy. It was possibility. The idea that beyond the scorched borders of VolCrax, there existed something unshaped—something free. She couldn’t leave outright, not without questions, not without purpose. So she began to listen. "What’s the strangest thing you've seen beyond the lava fields?" she asked the spirits under her care. At first, their answers were fragmented—flickers of shadow, odd shifts in energy, unfamiliar colors glowing in the distance. But Emberlyn pieced them together, forming a mental map stitched from uncertainty and hearsay. She told no one of her plan. Disguised as research—an effort to understand the lesser spirits more deeply—she prepared for her departure. Her path would be treacherous, her guides unreliable. But the thrill of it lit something inside her that no ceremony or council meeting ever could. When she finally stepped beyond the outer rim of VolCrax, leaving behind the burning skies and molten rivers, the world felt new. Cooler, softer, layered in mystery. Tenndari was not fire—it was everything fire had never touched. And as Emberlyn took her first steps into the unknown, she didn’t know what she would find. She only knew she had to find it.