"Step into the fire, or turn back into the dust that bore you."
Sorin's voice cracked through the twilight like steel against bone. The wind howled at the edge of the Abyssal cliffs, stirring the cursed air around the ritual circle. My body was slick with sweat. My limbs trembled from a week of brutal training, but this wasn't about endurance, not anymore.
This was my trial.
I stared at the ring of duskfire blazing before me....ancient magic conjured by Pyrax himself. The flames weren't red or orange. They burned silver and violet, flickering in unnatural shapes that whispered in languages I didn't understand.
They were alive.
"They'll see into you," Bellatrix said softly from behind me. "Every piece, every shadow of your will be revealed."
I swallowe hard, myy heartbeat drummed behind my ribs.
"And if I'm not enough?"
"Then the fire will devour you," Pyrax said, eyes smoldering.
Great, so overcome my darkest desires or die.
Freasia stood near the edge, worry etched into every line of his face. He didn't speak. He knew I had to do this alone.
I stepped forward, ignoring the way the ground shifted beneath me, like even the stone feared what was coming.
The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the world vanished, I wasn't in the Abyssal anymore.
The air turned heavy, drenched in memory. My feet stood on marble. I knew this place.
I was back in the palace hallway,the one just outside my childhood chamber. But it wasn't right. The walls bled and candles burned upside down. And the portraits… they stared at me, faces shifting into skeletal grins.
Then I saw her, Roseline, my sister stood at the far end of the corridor, dressed in her favorite plum silk, hair pinned up in the butterfly comb she used to steal from me.
But her eyes—
Her eyes were full of blame.
"You let them destroy us," she whispered.
"No Roseline, I tried"
"You chose your throne over your family."
"That's not true!"
"You let Mother die."
The walls cracked open. Another voice poured through.
"Help me, Eva—please!"
My mother.
I turned to see her collapsed in the garden, wrapped in vines of shadow, blood seeping through her gown, her lips trembling. I took a step, but the ground turned to ice beneath me, and I fell.
Slammed into a mirror.
This time… Morgana looked back.
Her lips curved like knives. "Still pretending you're the hero?" she asked sweetly. "Even now, in your own mind?"
"This isn't real," I whispered.
"Oh, but it is," she purred. "Every fear, every desire, stripped bare."
The mirror cracked. Morgana stepped through.
"You wanted my power," she said, circling me. "You dreamt of it. Don't lie."
"I wanted to protect them."
"But you liked it when they obeyed. When they knelt. You tasted what it meant to be worshipped."
"Shut up."
"You were never just fighting me, Evangeline. You were fighting yourself."
Her words clung to me like spider silk.
Behind her, the illusion twisted again.
Freasia appeared, he was wounded, bleeding, and trying to reach out to me.
"Eva," he choked. "Why didn't you save me?"
"I—I will—"
His skin turned to ash in my hands.
"No!" I screamed.
The world caught fire.
The flames rose, swirling, consuming everything, my fear, my grief, my rage. I collapsed in the heart of the inferno, sobbing into the void, every memory peeling me apart.
"You are weak," the fire whispered. "You are unworthy."
"No," I gasped. "I'm not."
"You failed your sisters."
"I'm still fighting."
"You will burn."
"Then let me burn."
I raised my head.
My body screamed in pain. My hands trembled. But my soul, my soul was no longer hiding.
"I am not my fear," I growled. "I am not my guilt. I'm not the puppet Morgana wants or the daughter my mother died to protect. I am something more."
The fire stilled.
Then surged upward.
All around me, the duskfire flared into golden light, soft at first, then blazing bright enough to blind.
My back arched.
And then I felt it consume me, it felt like a crack, like thunder splitting my spine.
My wings began to blaze, hot like lava.
They burst from me with a scream, not just of pain, but of transformation.
Feathers of flame. Laced in gold. Flickering with duskfire magic.
They spread wide, twenty feet of roaring promise.
I opened my eyes and I was back in the ritual circle, kneeling, panting, shaking, with fire crawling across my skin and light pouring from my wings.
The others stood around me, silent. Freasia rushed forward, but Sorin caught his arm, holding him back.
"This moment is hers," he said.
I rose slowly, my vision swimming, but my soul felt rooted, centered for the first time in my life.
Bellatrix stepped forward, wonder etched across her ocean eyes.
"You faced the Trial of the Searing Wings," she said. "And emerged transformed."
Pyrax bowed. "You carry the duskfire now… but not just that. You've inherited the golden flame. That which belonged only to the First Guardian."
Sorin pressed a hand to his chest. "The Guardians were the ancient protectors of Realmus. The sacred balance between Aetherion and the realms beyond."
Thumpan shimmered into view, wings folding with reverence. "Long have we waited for the one who walks the line between flame and mercy."
My legs nearly gave out again.
"I'm not—"
"You are," Bellatrix said firmly. "We name you now. Guardian of Realmus. Flameborn Daughter. Last Hope of the Crown."
My eyes welled up.
I wasn't ready.
But maybe I never would be.
And that didn't matter anymore.
Later that night, I stood alone on the cliff's edge, my new wings trailing golden sparks across the dark wind. The Abyssal sky bled red overhead, like the heavens themselves were screaming.
Freasia joined me in silence. For a long time, neither of us spoke.
"Your wings," he said softly. "They're beautiful."
I turned to him. "They hurt."
He smiled, just a little. "That means they're real."
I looked up again.
The red had deepened, swirls of shadow moving across the sky like veins of war. Morgana's coup was no longer brewing.
It was rising.
"She's coming," I said.
Freasia nodded. "So are we."
I flexed my fingers, fire crackling in my palm. The duskfire answered eagerly. A new part of me now. A weapon I finally understood.
My heart pounded not from fear, but from clarity.
I didn't want justice anymore.
I wanted retribution.
"I won't just stop them," I said, staring into the blood-lit clouds.
"I'll bring the sky down on their heads."