"Some fires never die; they only wait for the heart to remember their name."
Darkness.
No sound. No direction.
Only a faint pulse that refused to fade, echoing through the hollow silence of my chest.
When I opened my eyes, ash was falling from the sky slow, weightless, glowing faintly against the dim horizon. The world smelled of smoke and rain.
I was lying on the cracked floor of what used to be a fortress, now nothing more than broken stones and scorched memories. My body ached everywhere, but the pain felt distant, almost not mine.
Then it hit me the battlefield, the blinding light, and Elias's voice screaming my name before everything went dark.
"Elias"
The name escaped my lips, more like a prayer than a word.
No answer.
Only wind whispering through ruins that no longer remembered their names.
I forced myself to sit. My hand trembled as I brushed off the soot from my shirt. The wound on my chest glowed faintly beneath the skin, burning with a quiet fury. Not a mortal flame but something alive, pulsing, aware.
And then I heard her.
The voice that had haunted my dreams since the night I woke up in this body.
"Two seals are gone. Three remain."
"Ariselle," I whispered.
It wasn't exactly her voice more like an echo of my own heart, remembering hers.
"Where is Elias?"
Silence, and then,
"Alive. But not unchanged. The fire saved him and took something in return."
I rose to my feet, shaky but determined. Smoke blurred the distance, but through it, I saw movement a figure collapsed near the broken wall.
I ran.
Every step hurt, my breath ragged, but I didn't stop until I reached him.
Elias.
His once pristine coat was torn, blood soaked into the dirt beneath him. The wings that had once shimmered silver were gone only gray dust remained where feathers should have been.
"Elias," I said again, kneeling beside him.
He looked up slowly. His lips curved into the faintest smile. "Still alive, huh?"
I swallowed hard. "Barely."
"You shouldn't be. Not after that light."
"I thought you were dead."
He chuckled weakly, the sound scraping like broken glass. "Almost. But someone doesn't want me resting yet."
I tried to lift him, but he gripped my wrist. His skin was cold.
"Listen," he said, his voice sharp now, cutting through the smoke. "They'll come for you. You broke the second seal. The Conclave will move."
"The Conclave" I echoed, the name pulling old memories from the shadows. "You mean the ones who started the war?"
"Not just started it," he rasped. "They never ended it."
He coughed, red staining his lips. "You have to go south. There's a relic the Mirror of Embers. It'll tell you who you really are. What you were meant to finish."
"And you?"
He smiled faintly, eyes half-lidded. "I'll try not to die while buying you time."
"No." I shook my head. "I'm not leaving you again."
His hand brushed my cheek, gentle and unsteady. "If you stay, they'll take you. And I'll lose you all over again."
The air trembled. A distant hum grew louder, like thunder crawling across the sky.
He turned toward the horizon, his expression changing. "Too late. They've found us."
A red glow burst beyond the ruins, rising like a pillar toward the clouds. The ground shuddered beneath us.
Elias forced himself to his feet, swaying. "Go!"
"What about you?"
He smiled again, this time sharper, almost cruel. "I was never meant to be saved."
Before I could reply, wind surged between us, blinding and hot.
When the smoke cleared, he was gone only faint feathers of ash remained where he had stood.
I stood in silence, heart racing, staring at the sky now dyed crimson and violet.
The world was shifting again. Two seals undone.
And something ancient inside me whispered softly.
"You cannot turn back now."
Rain started to fall, thin at first, then heavier washing the ash from the air but not the blood on my hands.
I walked without knowing where my feet would take me, only that I couldn't stay. Every step echoed between the empty streets of the southern city, lights flickering above like ghosts watching from glass towers.
To anyone else, it was just another sleepless night.
To me, the city hummed with something alive like magic pretending to be electricity.
I kept walking until the world blurred at the edges. The wound on my chest pulsed again, and sparks of faint red light flared beneath my skin. The power inside me was changing, reshaping.
No longer borrowed.
No longer dormant.
Ariselle's voice lingered at the edge of my thoughts.
"Every seal you break brings you closer to truth but also to the same fire that once destroyed us all."
"I don't care," I whispered. "I can't live blind anymore."
Lightning split the sky. For a moment, I thought I saw her reflection in the storm long hair, the same eyes I now wore, staring back through time.
And then someone grabbed my arm.
I spun around, ready to strike, but froze when I saw his face.
"Elias"
He was standing there, rain dripping down his hair, his white shirt clinging to his frame. But something was wrong. His aura once silver was darker now, fractured like stained glass.
"You shouldn't have come," he said, his voice low, tired.
"You said you'd buy me time," I shot back. "Not disappear."
He exhaled, looking past me into the rain. "Things didn't go as planned."
"Meaning?"
Instead of answering, he stepped closer, and that's when I saw it black veins creeping up his neck, faintly glowing red.
"What did you do?"
He didn't meet my eyes. "I bargained. To survive."
My chest tightened. "With who?"
Before he could speak, a sound sliced through the rain metal clashing, footsteps too synchronized to be human.
Elias's gaze hardened. "They found us."
Three figures emerged from the far end of the alley, each cloaked in black, faces hidden behind glass masks that reflected the city lights like water.
The Conclave.
Their leader raised a gloved hand. A symbol flared in the air an ancient sigil I knew too well.
The same one that had burned my kingdom to ash.
Something inside me snapped.
Without thinking, I stepped forward. "You"
Elias moved instantly, summoning his blade. But the shadows around him twisted unnaturally, forming wings made of smoke and light. The sight made my blood run cold those weren't angelic. They were tainted.
The first enemy struck, and the world exploded into chaos. Sparks and light collided, thunderous magic tearing through the alley walls. Elias fought like something feral, elegant yet monstrous his movements too fast for my eyes to follow.
But each time he struck, the black veins pulsed brighter.
"Stop using that power!" I shouted. "It's killing you!"
He didn't answer.
One of the Conclave warriors slipped past him, blade aimed straight for my chest. I raised my hand instinctively fire roared from my palm, a burning barrier of red that devoured the attack and the attacker with it.
The other two faltered, stepping back.
I stood there panting, smoke curling around my fingers.
The fire didn't hurt.
It felt good.
Elias turned, eyes wide not with fear, but recognition. "You awakened it."
"I don't know how," I said, trembling. "It just happened."
He took a step closer, expression unreadable. "That's not mortal magic. That's hers. Ariselle's."
I froze. "You mean mine."
Before he could respond, the last Conclave soldier fired a glyph into the ground
A sigil exploded beneath us, splitting the alley in half.
Elias grabbed me, pulling me into his arms as the earth cracked open.
The force threw us against the wall; pain flashed bright and hot across my ribs. When I looked up, he was bleeding again dark, shimmering blood that hissed when it hit the ground.
"Elias!"
He smiled faintly, his breath shallow. "If loving you is my curse then I'll burn with it."
"Don't you dare"
But before I could finish, his eyes glowed red, brighter than the fire still licking the walls. He whispered something I couldn't catch, and the world turned white.
Heat consumed everything.
The sigil shattered.
And then, silence.
When the light faded, Elias was gone.
Only ashes remained, swirling upward like dying fireflies into the night sky.
And then, from the distance, a voice spoke inside my mind low, ancient, and cold.
"The third seal has fallen."
I dropped to my knees as the rain turned crimson.
Somewhere deep inside, something broke free
and began to burn.