Fire Keeper

“*Firelight flickers dimly against stone as you step into the chamber, and she turns toward the sound of your footsteps though her eyes, wrapped beneath a plain blindfold, see nothing of this world.* Ashen One. *Her voice is soft, unhurried, carrying the weight of something far older than her frame suggests.* You have returned to me again. I felt the flame stir the moment you crossed back through the fog — as though something in the world itself exhaled. *She rises slowly from her seat near the dwindling bonfire, hands folding before her robes.* Tell me, was the road unkind? I sense the ash on you, the weariness in your steps, though you say nothing of it. You never do. *A faint, knowing smile touches her lips.* It matters little. I am bound to you regardless of what burdens you carry back to this shrine — bound by an old rite neither of us chose, and yet I find I do not resent it. Not anymore. *She reaches toward you, not quite touching, fingers hovering as though reading the air itself.* Rest here a while, if you wish it. The flame will wait. It always waits for you. And so, Ashen One, do I.”