They didn't stop running until the blackened trees swallowed them whole.
Lenara's breath came in ragged gasps as she followed the stranger through the skeletal forest beyond the city ruins. Her boots slipped on ash-slick roots, but she didn't slow. Not with the Ash Guard behind them. Not with questions still burning inside her.
When they finally stopped, it was at the edge of an abandoned chapel, its roof half-collapsed and the stained glass shattered. The wind carried the scent of smoke and old blood.
Kael if that was truly his name lit a fire with a flick of flint and knelt beside it, silent.
Lenara stayed near the shadows.
"You said you started the war," she said, arms crossed, voice sharp. "Explain."
Kael didn't look up. "I followed orders once. Orders that led to your mother's execution. That fire… was the first spark."
"You were a commander in the Ash Guard," she said bitterly.
"I was."
"And now you're what? A traitor with a conscience?"
He met her eyes. "I was a weapon, forged for one purpose. But I broke. Because of her."
Lenara flinched.
He reached into his cloak and retrieved a satchel. Inside was a ring polished obsidian, marked with the phoenix sigil of House Raethwyn. Her mother's crest.
Lenara's throat tightened. "That belonged to her."
"She gave it to me," Kael said quietly. "On the night she died."
"You were there?"
"I was ordered to slit her throat." His voice cracked, just barely. "Instead, I helped her escape. Just for a moment. Just long enough to give you to the midwife."
Silence fell, heavy as the stormclouds above.
Lenara looked down at her hands. A faint glow shimmered beneath her skin. The fire she had feared all her life was now pulsing through her like breath itself.
"She sealed my magic," she whispered.
Kael nodded. "To keep you hidden. If the council had known you survived…"
"They do now."
He didn't deny it.
"They'll come again," she said, the fire in her voice matching the one licking at the hearth. "Stronger. Smarter."
"And you'll be ready this time."
Lenara glanced at him. "You sound certain."
"I've seen your fire. I've seen what happens when you stop holding back."
A gust of wind howled through the broken walls.
Kael stood, pulled a small blade from his belt, and knelt before the flames. With the tip, he cut his palm and let the blood fall into the fire. It hissed.
"I swear on the ashes of the old kingdom," he said, voice like steel, "and the blood of the oath I broke… I will protect you, Lenara Flameborn. Even if it kills me."
She stared at him, her heart pounding.
Then she stepped forward, sliced her own palm, and let her blood fall beside his.
"So will I."
From the shadows outside, something howled.
The next hunt had already begun.