Seraphina
The night air reeked of smoke and melting metal. Sirens screamed through the city as I sprinted toward the warehouse, my boots splashing through puddles that reflected the blaze like a living hell. Another call. Another fire. Another chance to run straight into the thing that never burned me.
"Vale, wait for backup!" someone shouted through the comms, but I didn't slow. I couldn't. The flames called to me. They always had.
I slammed my shoulder into the door—it gave way with a shower of sparks. The heat rolled out like a living thing, licking at my skin, daring me to step closer. The rest of the crew hung back, masked faces tense in the red glow. I moved forward. Always forward.
"Anyone in here?" My voice cracked against the roar. Smoke swallowed the words.
Then—
A whisper.
Not the kind that comes from the living.
"Seraphina…"
I froze. My name, spoken by a voice I didn't recognize, soft as ash falling from a dying flame. My radio hissed, then died. The air shimmered. The fire moved.
I should have been terrified. Instead, I felt… right. The heat wrapped around me like silk, curling and coiling but never touching. I walked deeper into the inferno, my heart hammering, my body thrumming with a strange rhythm that wasn't mine.
And then I saw her.
A woman, lying in the center of the fire, her skin pale as moonlight, her hair a cascade of silver ash. She should have been screaming. Burning. But she was singing. Soft, broken words that set the air vibrating.
I dropped beside her, yanking off my gloves. "Hey! Can you hear me? We have to—"
Her eyes snapped open—molten gold, bright enough to sear the air between us. I jerked back, but her hand shot out and caught mine. Her skin was cool.
"You must return," she whispered, voice cracking. "The Heartfire dies… Phoenix-born."
"What? I don't—"
Her body disintegrated. Just like that. Ashes, lifting into the air and scattering into the flames like dust in a storm.
My chest clenched. I staggered back, gasping, choking—but not from smoke. The world tilted. The fire roared higher, spiraling up, following me.
"Vale!" a voice shouted from somewhere outside. "Get out!"
But the flames wouldn't let me go. They circled, alive and hungry—but not for destruction. They sang.
Something inside me broke open.
I screamed. The fire rushed toward me—and then through me. A searing wave of light, gold and crimson, burst from my body. The walls shuddered. The windows shattered outward in a hurricane of glass.
When the roar faded, I was standing in the middle of the wreckage, my clothes untouched, my skin glowing faintly beneath the soot. Around me, the floor was scorched with a single mark—two wings of fire, intertwined, burned deep into the concrete.
I stared at it, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it echo.
Behind me, Captain Ruiz stumbled in, coughing. "Jesus, Vale. How the hell—?" His words trailed off when he saw the floor. "What the hell happened here?"
I couldn't answer. I couldn't move.
Because the fire had whispered my name.
And because deep inside, under the rush of adrenaline and fear, I felt something ancient stir—something that had been waiting for a very long time to wake up.