High above the Scarlet Flame Divine Tower, sunlight had yet to pierce the snow fog over the royal capital, leaving the entire palace in a silence thick with restlessness.
On the sixth day after the Flame Oath took effect, Aveline received an urgent report from the northern border outpost—the exiled remnants of the "Bone Tower Cult" were gathering an undead army on the northern plains, reactivate the "Ash Bone Seal" and the long-vanquished Cinder Wraith Legion.
It was a wound the Snow-Flame Dynasty could never forget.
She summoned the court council. The rulers chattered among themselves, but she remained silent until Lucian pushed open the doors, armor clinking, and spoke gravely: "Your Highness, I offer to lead the Flame Riders to the Broken Tower and utterly destroy the source of the bone seal."
Aveline looked at him, her eyes holding not doubt, but a deep, smoldering fire: "If you go, I go with you."
The councilors gasped, but she only said: "A flame alliance is not built on oaths—it is forged in royal blood and fiery flesh."
The Eve of Departure
On the night before the campaign, Aveline personally strapped Lucian's battle armor onto him in the royal tent. Her fingertips traced the flame-engraved buckles on his chest slowly, her gaze deepening with each clasp fastened.
"You know I once said, if royal blood burns, I burn with you," she murmured.
He pulled her into his arms, his lips brushing her ear: "Then tonight, you should hear me say one thing."
She,soft-spoken: "Speak."
"If you fall, I fall."
Her throat trembled, and in the next instant, they kissed like wildfire, as if pouring out all unease and longing before the march.
He stripped off her royal robe, threw back the bed curtains, and pressed her onto the fox-fur camp blanket. Restraint vanished—they were two fire-beasts chasing each other, tangling in growls and gasps. One hand braced beside her ear, the other slipped between her thighs; a single touch from his fingertips made her shiver, and he whispered:
"Right now, you are mine—not just a ruler, but a woman."
She arched into him, her breasts trembling in the firelight, arms coiling around his back as she surrendered herself fully into his embrace.
"I want you inside me," she bit his earlobe, gasping, "seal your oath with your fire."
He thrust into her in one motion, driving her deep into the fox fur. She cried out, legs locking around him as his rhythm crashed fierce and steady, as if shattering her reason entirely.
She laughed through tears, moans tangled with incantations: "Lucian… you madman… you'll burn me to ashes."
He bit her lower lip, growling: "Then we'll turn to dust together."
They coupled in the flames, burning through the night before the war drums could sound.
Oath of Bones Before Battle
At dawn, the Flame Riders departed—three thousand elites marching for the northern plains, with Aveline herself leading the vanguard at the front.
By the time they reached the Northern Broken Tower, snowstorms had descended. Faint gray runes of the old bone seal still lingered in circles on the ground.
Lucian swung his sword to shatter the seal, the first bone pillar, and the entire tower let out a shriek like a dying wail.
"They trust in bones—we ally through fire," Aveline raised her scepter. "Ignite the ritual array. Weave my royal blood into new patterns, with flame as thread."
She slit her palm, letting blood the array's heart. A flame seal erupted, burning through the snow in an instant.
When the Cinder Wraith remnants saw the fire array activate, they fled in panic. Illya led the Silver Oath to cut off their escape, pinning the enemy entirely within the Ash Valley.
Aveline watched the bone pillars crumble, her scepter blazing to its peak. She murmured: "This is true Snow-Flame—not fire lifted by faith, but flame that stands unbroken, even after burning everything away."
Secret Vow After War
That night, Lucian entered the royal tent, bearing battle scars. Aveline tended his wounds herself, her expression calm, movements gentle.
"Next time you're hurt, I'll cut off one of your fingers," she said lightly.
He laughed, pulling her into his arms: "Then you'll have to cut ten times."
She bit his collarbone, leaving a kiss like a brand: "Then don't make my heart ache a tenth time."
They tangled again in the war tent—not for desire, but to prove they existed, for each other. Firelight cast their shadows on the tent flaps, intertwined like gods, or coiling fire serpents.
No war drums sounded that night, but oaths were sworn.
Fire burned between them, an alliance no force could ever undo.