My child upon the Ember Path,

I am pleased to hear that you are burning brightly both by your testimony and the infernal whispers that make their way to me.  Your questions have reached a glad heart. I hope that my answers will add fuel to your flame and embolden your passion for Netharna.

You ask what becomes of a flame when it runs out of fuel and withers away.  This question is asked often and comes with an answer for the Inferno.  We are plainly taught that all that burns must fade.  Yet I tell you - to fade is not to vanish.  All true flame leaves a lasting mark.

Look upon the ash.  How did it get there?  When the nether realm was forged by divinity, was ash created with it beneath your feet?  I tell you that it was not.  Ash is a testimony of what came before, so it must come after something.  You have been invited to be that something.  Fire does not pretend that the fuel was never there.  Rather, it gives witness.  The ash is a memory passed into the world, a testimony that there was once fire here.  The ashen roads of hell are paved with the labor of Netharna’s chosen.

Just as the ash comes from the physical heat of fire, when you have burned your flame, you will not be cast into nothingness.  You will become ash, and ash sacred to Netharna and her people.  To burn is to leave a mark, however grand or intimate it may be.  That mark will be a record of your striving, the trace of your passion, the evidence that your soul burned a true flame.  Just as you walk an ashen road, those who walk in your wake will see your ash, and in seeing it, remember.

Do not think that remembrance is weakness.  Many a warrior has lifted their weapon again not of their own flame, but of the memory of one who has gone before.  Ash is the testimony that sparks the next fire.  To wither away is to become ash.  To become ash is to be honored.  

This is why we do not flee from loss.  To lose is to gain testimony.  To grieve is to embrace the warmth of another’s fire.  Our own Infernal mother does not demand that your flame last forever.  For any to burn eternally would be to spit in the face of both those who came before and those who are to come.  We are asked only to burn, and in burning, leave behind a truth no silence can deny.  The truth of Netharna’s passion.

Therefore, child of Embers, do not fear what will become of you when your fuel has run out and your flame cannot burn on.  Fear only a fire that produces no ash - a spark smothered before it can take hold, a life so devoid of passion that it cannot raise it’s hand to write on the page “I burned.” That is the only life to fear.

Walk steadily, then.  Burn as I hear you have already.  When your time comes, willingly give your ashes to join the sacred testimony of our people.  Rest in Netharna’s holy fire until the end of days.

In Holy Flame,

Eshryn Brightash, Watcher of the Ember Path