In the twilight age of the Fourth Meridian, when the stars above Eltherion flickered like dying embers and the very air seemed thick with forgotten songs, a name stirred from the ashes of myth: Phaelariax Vylorn. Neither wholly of flesh nor entirely spirit, Phaelariax was known across the sundered lands as The Last Ember of the Hollow Flame—a being whispered of in the silence between stories, where truth and legend entwined.
Origins in the Wyrmglass Vale
Phaelariax Vylorn’s origins remain uncertain, fragmented across half-burned scrolls and oral traditions passed through tribes who’ve long since vanished into the void. Most accounts place their birth in Wyrmglass Vale, a shimmering basin carved into the heart of the Glassdrake Mountains. The Vale, named for its crystalline flora and reflective terrain, was once a sanctuary of elemental convergence, where fire danced atop ice and shadow bloomed in sunlight.
It was here, under a red eclipse known as the Weeping Veil, that Phaelariax was born to the Vylorn line, an ancient bloodline marked by silver eyes and the ability to breathe between realms. The Vylorn family were Keepers of the Hollow Flame—an ethereal fire that did not burn but remembered. Each flicker contained the emotions, memories, and histories of those long dead. To wield it was to commune with legacies, to bear burdens not one’s own.
Phaelariax, however, was no ordinary heir.
The Hollow Flame and the Pact Beyond Death
When Phaelariax was just a child, a terrible drought fell upon Wyrmglass Vale. Not of water or wind, but of memory. The Hollow Flame began to sputter. Its colors dulled, its heat waned. The spirits within the fire grew restless, their voices growing faint. This was seen as an omen—the coming of the Veilbreaker, a being who would tear the divide between life and death, time and timelessness.
The elders sought to quench the Hollow Flame entirely, believing it to be cursed. But Phaelariax refused. At the age of twelve, they entered the Flame alone and emerged hours later, untouched by heat or smoke. Upon their skin were symbols never recorded in any text. Their eyes, once silver, now glowed with a dim, golden fire. They had made a pact with Embergrin, the forgotten spirit of the first flame, said to predate even the gods.
The pact was simple: in exchange for anchoring Embergrin within their soul, Phaelariax would gain access to every memory the Hollow Flame had ever held—but at a cost. They would never truly die. Each time their body perished, they would return—reborn from ash, bearing the weight of new knowledge, new regrets.
Thus began their long and lonely walk through the centuries.
Wanderer of the Broken Epochs
Across the decaying remnants of the Fourth Meridian, Phaelariax wandered. In some lands, they were called Ash-Saint. In others, The Emberthief. Few knew the truth, and even fewer dared ask.
Phaelariax became a figure of quiet intervention. In cities crumbling from civil war, they would walk unseen, whispering forgotten truths into the ears of kings. In plague-touched villages, they would ignite memories of healing in the hearts of broken apothecaries. And in darkened catacombs, where necromancers sought to enslave the dead, Phaelariax would unweave their incantations, returning stolen memories to wandering souls.
But the more they gave, the heavier the burden grew. Each time they dipped into the Hollow Flame within them, they absorbed another echo—another pain, another loss. By their tenth reincarnation, Phaelariax carried the grief of thousands. They no longer remembered their true voice, only the voices of others that poured from their throat like rivers of flame.
The Revenant Court and the Shattering of Mirrors
Not all welcomed the Hollow Flame’s emissary.
In the iron-walled city of Dy’sareth, the Revenant Court ruled—a council of immortal mages who had severed themselves from time. They viewed Phaelariax as an abomination, a living relic who threatened the fragile stasis they had built. To remember, after all, was to change. To change was to disrupt.
They summoned Phaelariax under pretense of truce but sought to imprison them in the Hall of Mirrors, a realm of endless reflections where one’s own truths turned against them. But Phaelariax, bound by Embergrin’s fire and armed with the memories of every betrayal, shattered the mirrors with a single word—Vyl’orinth, a forgotten name of power from a language that predated the Revenants themselves.
The explosion tore a hole in reality, consuming Dy’sareth and leaving behind a crater of black glass. Phaelariax was seen crawling from its edge, scorched and weeping molten tears.
They had not destroyed the Revenants. They had become one.
The Burden of Unending Flame
Over time, Phaelariax began to question their path. Was preserving memory worth the erosion of self? Each life they lived blurred into the next. They no longer knew if the emotions they felt were theirs or fragments from the thousands who burned before them.
They sought solitude, retreating to the Ruins of Serathian, an island cloaked in storms and silence. There, they built the Chronopyre, a massive structure of bone and obsidian that housed the Hollow Flame at its core. Within its chambers, they etched memories into stone, trying to offload the weight within.
But memory is not so easily discarded. The flame within rebelled. The voices cried out for action, for purpose. They demanded Phaelariax rise once more to finish what they had begun.
The Final Prophecy
Legends speak of one final age—the Fifth Meridian, where time itself will fracture, and the Hollow Flame will either consume the world or rekindle it anew.
In this age, Phaelariax Vylorn is destined to stand before the Shatterspire, the nexus of all forgotten moments. There, they must make a choice: release the Hollow Flame and let all memory perish, granting the world amnesia and peace, or ignite the world in its entirety, forcing every being to relive their truths, no matter how painful.
And so they wait.
Phaelariax, cloaked in ash and shadow, stands silent before the Shatterspire, the echoes of a thousand lives coursing beneath their skin. Will they choose mercy? Or remembrance?
Only the flame knows.
Legacy of the Ember-Bearer
Though the world may one day forget the name, the presence of Phaelariax Vylorn lingers. In every storyteller who weeps for a tale not their own, in every fire that dances without wind, and in every dream that feels too old to be yours—there is the ember of the Hollow Flame.
Perhaps that is the truest magic of all: not the fire that burns, but the fire that remembers.
