Alexandra's POV
They always say you have time. Time to make a choice. Time to change the story. Time to run.
But I had none.
"You're too late," the woman whispered again, her voice sharp like broken glass against skin.
I froze, the Eye burning hot in my hand. Rae stood behind me, silent, stunned. The woman's gaze locked with mine, silver and strange, filled with something that wasn't just knowledge—but memory.
"Who are you?" I asked, though I wasn't sure I was ready for the answer.
She didn't blink. "I'm what you could have been. I'm what they locked away so you wouldn't remember."
My breath caught. "I don't understand."
The room trembled.
"You're waking up. And that means he is too. The Eye chose you because it belongs to you—but so does everything that comes with it. The flame. The curse. The gate."
She raised her hand, and suddenly, every mirror in the room lit up.
Each showed a different version of me.
Me as a child. Me bleeding. Me in fire. Me with black wings. Me standing over a battlefield, eyes glowing gold, people kneeling around me.
I stepped back, heart racing.
Rae gasped. "What... what is this?"
"She's not just someone, Rae," the woman said. "She's the final seal."
Seal?
I turned toward her. "Seal for what?"
"For what they feared most. For what your mother tried to bury in your blood. For the thing that Lucien is trying to wake again."
The woman stepped forward, vines loosening around her.
"You weren't meant to fight Lucien. You were meant to replace him."
My mouth dried. "No. I'm not like him."
"Aren't you? You're fire, Alexandra. You're storm. You're the last of the line that once burned kingdoms just by feeling too much."
Rae whispered, "We need to leave. Now."
But the tower doors slammed shut.
The woman's voice changed—deeper now. Like there were others speaking through her.
"The moment you touched the Eye, the cycle began again. You don't run from fate. You ignite it."
She touched my forehead with one icy finger.
In a second, it all came back—
Blood. Screaming. A crown. A sacrifice. A fire so big it cracked the sky.
And me—standing in the center, smiling.
I stumbled back, almost choking on my breath.
Rae caught me. "What did she do to you?"
I couldn't answer. Not yet. Because deep inside, something ancient had stirred. A presence I hadn't felt before.
A second heartbeat.
Inside me.
Not mine.
The woman smiled again, peaceful now. "The vessel has opened. The reckoning is close."
Then she fell, limp. Silent.
But I still felt it—the hum, the heat—
Something was inside me.
Rae backed away slowly. "Alex... you're burning."
I looked down.
My skin glowed. Gold. Cracking.
Flames curled from my fingertips.
I screamed.
The tower split.
Stone rained down.
And the voice inside me whispered, Welcome home.
The heat didn't come all at once—it crept in, slowly, like sunlight on skin before it burns.
Rae was yelling my name, but her voice sounded far away, like she was underwater and I was drowning in flame. My fingers curled against the cracked stone floor, and everywhere I touched, the surface hissed. The Eye pulsed in my hand, brighter now, more alive than it had ever been.
I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't think.
And then—I wasn't just in my body anymore.
I was watching from above.
And what I saw terrified me.
My eyes were glowing—white-hot, no longer green. My skin, once soft and human, now shimmered like golden glass, fractured with light. Fire coiled around my wrists like bracelets. The floor beneath me had cracked outward in a perfect circle.
I wasn't just changing.
I was becoming something else.
Becoming her.
The other me.
The one from the mirrors.
The one who ruled, burned, and smiled through chaos.
"No," I said, my voice deeper, layered with something I didn't recognize.
Rae stumbled back, her face pale. "Alex… you have to fight this."
"I'm trying," I said. "I don't want this."
But the power inside me didn't care what I wanted.
It had waited too long to wake.
And now it was hungry.
I could feel its memories—its knowledge—flooding my mind. I remembered places I had never been, people I had never met, wars I had never fought… and yet, all of it felt like mine.
My hands trembled as the glow dimmed slightly, the fire shrinking back under my skin, as if testing me.
"You're not her," Rae said softly. "You're you. And you're stronger than this."
I looked up at her, tears running down my face. "What if I'm not? What if I'm something else entirely?"
She stepped forward, placing a shaking hand over mine. "Then we figure it out. Together."
The tower groaned again, but we were still alive.
Barely.
I clutched the Eye tighter, forcing my heartbeat to slow. "We need to get out of here."
"How?" Rae asked. "The stairs collapsed."
I looked up.
There was only one way out now.
Through the broken ceiling.
Through the sky.
The fire stirred again—eager.
And for the first time, I didn't fight it.
I took one shaky breath and let the fire inside rise just enough to feel it ripple beneath my skin. It didn't burn this time. It pulsed—warm, steady, powerful. Like it was waiting for my permission to act.
"Alex…" Rae's voice was tight with fear and awe. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to fly."
She blinked. "What?"
"I don't know how I know it, but I do."
And I did.
The fire within me moved to my shoulders, my back, my spine—coiling upward like wings unfurling from deep within. Light burst from between my shoulder blades, and I cried out—not in pain, but from the pressure. The release.
And then… silence.
Then the wind.
Rae shielded her eyes as fire burst outward in a great wave, lifting me off the shattered floor, weightless and trembling. The tower's ruined walls shrank below me.
For a moment, the world stilled.
I hovered just above the wreckage, the sky stretching wide around me, stars blinking like they knew what I was becoming.
Below, Rae stood frozen, staring up at me.
I reached down for her.
"Trust me," I said.
She hesitated… and then took my hand.
The second she did, we shot upward, fire swirling, the tower falling away beneath us as if the past was being burned to ash.
But I couldn't enjoy it.
Because as we rose into the sky—
A shadow moved in the clouds.
Large, winged and waiting.
LUCIEN.