The name echoes through the vault like thunder remembering how to roar.
Lyraxis.
The First Spark. The fire before flame. The will before the word.
My hands tremble but not from fear.
From recognition.
I was never reborn.
I was never a villainess rewritten into someone else's tragedy.
I was sealed.
Bound in flesh and lies, turned into Seraphina, the "villainess" of another girl's story.
But I was never part of that tale.
I was the fire that burned the page.
The mirror breathes now.
It shows me things I did not choose to forget things they ripped out of me.
I see golden halls in the heavens. I see gods on thrones made of stars.
And I see myself…
Standing at the center of it all, barefoot, crowned in flame, untouched by time.
The gods loved me.
Until they feared me.
Until I created fire without their permission.
Until I gave mortals the first spell, the first rebellion, the first choice.
And for that they shattered me.
"You gave them too much," Cael whispers beside me.
"You lit the spark of defiance."
"I lit the world," I breathe.
"And they doused it with lies."
The mirror cracks.
Because truth can only stay buried for so long before it claws its way free.
Behind us, the vault begins to collapse. Not from age but from awakening.
Ashen draws his sword.
Cael pulls me close.
"What now?" they ask.
I smile.
Not softly.
Like a storm.
"Now? I go to the capital. I look Lady Ruin in the eye.
And I remind her that she is not my shadow
she's my mistake."
And in the capital throne room…
Aveline shudders.
Because her twin fire just reignited.
And it's coming for her.