The morning after the trial, Selena woke to find something impossible growing beside where she had slept.
A flower. Small, delicate, with petals that seemed to be made of solidified flame—not burning, but frozen in the moment of combustion, preserving the beauty of fire in static form. It grew directly from the ash where her hand had rested during sleep, pushing up through the gray matter that should have been barren, that should have supported no life at all.
Selena stared at it, confusion mixing with wonder. She hadn't intended to create anything. Hadn't called her flames, hadn't imposed will, hadn't done anything except sleep. Yet here it was—undeniably alive, undeniably grown from her presence, undeniably impossible.
Through their bond, she felt Dante waking, felt his attention drawn to the same anomaly. He approached carefully, kneeling beside the flame-flower, studying it with the wariness of someone who had learned that impossible things were usually dangerous.
