The fire witch may be gone, but she left something behind—a final curse. A plant.
Not just any plant. A flaming, skeletal growth, its jagged limbs twitching like tendrils, its hollow mouth glowing from within. It does not move from its rooted spot, but it lashes out at anything nearby with bursts of fire and searing heat.
They call it the Emberbrand—a cursed bloom born of magic, vengeance, and flame.
The Emberbrand shrieks as its roots are severed. One withered stalk ignites from within, burning bright—and then goes still.
But the others still live.
The tunnel groans. Heat rushes through the stone like a breath held too long. You hear something crack—above, behind, maybe inside your own head.
Then silence.
Just long enough to wonder if that was the last of them…
And then the flames roar again.
The flames are gone. The ground still smokes. But you remain.
Ashridge Glen will never grow again.
What once was farm and field is now blackened stone and memories. The Emberbrand is dead—its cursed roots burned away, its last tendrils severed in the tunnel beneath Eldenmere.
When the final bloom cracked and spilled its ember-light into the darkness, the heat faded. The whispers stopped. And for the first time in days, the tunnel fell quiet.
City guards now patrol the entrance, wary but relieved. Travelers pass through once more, hesitant at first, then boldly. The path beneath the strait is open—and safe.
For now.
The ash has settled. The witch is gone. The valley breathes again.
But on the far wall of the tunnel, half-hidden in shadow, there remains a faint mark: a cracked glyph, burned into the stone like an afterimage of something terrible.
No one can read it. Most don’t notice it.
But those who fought the fire, who remember the scent of scorched soil and the sound of roots screaming in flame—they know.
This isn’t the end of all things. It’s just the end of the fire.