Raven
The rain hadn't stopped.
It slicked her hair to her face as she stood just behind Aurelio, watching the flames rise in the distance. The standoff on the bridge had ended in chaos, but not the kind Cesare Marone had planned.
Aurelio's power had manifested fully.
Fire had answered his call—not wild and reckless, but precise. Controlled. Deadly.
Now, Cesare and his men had scattered, but Raven knew it wasn't over.
Not yet.
They had retreated to a safehouse Isabella secured—a crumbling monastery buried deep in the hills, shielded from most surveillance. It wasn't perfect, but it was quiet. And for the first time in days, they had time to think.
Luna was asleep in a candle-lit side room. Exhausted. Glowing. Dreaming things no six-year-old should.
Raven stood in the chapel alone, staring up at the shattered stained glass window above the altar.
"I used to come here with Isabella," she whispered, sensing Aurelio behind her. "When we were kids. When your mother was still alive."
He didn't answer, just stepped beside her, his presence as overwhelming as ever.
"She told me you used to sneak into the chapel at night," Raven said. "That you'd sing to the candles. That they always listened."
Aurelio's voice was low. "I didn't know what I was doing back then. But she did."
"Your mother?"
He nodded. "She was trying to protect me. From my father. From the bloodline."
Raven turned to face him. "She knew?"
"She was the last of the Santoro witches," he said, barely a whisper. "The fire in me comes from her. The reason it slept… was because she sealed it after she died. Luna must've awakened it when she was born."
The silence between them crackled like embers.
"I'm sorry I took her from you," Raven whispered.
"I'm sorry I gave you a reason to," he replied.
Then he reached for her hand, slowly, deliberately.
The second their fingers touched, warmth pulsed between them—not magic, not fire. Connection.
She looked up at him, eyes burning.
"We don't get a normal life, do we?"
Aurelio shook his head. "No. But we do get this one. And we'll burn down anything that tries to take it from us again."
---
Elsewhere – Cesare Marone
He sat inside a chamber deep beneath the city, watching Luna's file projected on the wall. Her drawings. Her energy readings. Her voice speaking in the language of the ancients.
He turned to the hooded figure standing beside him.
"She's the vessel. But the father…"
The figure nodded. "Is the weapon."
"We'll break them both," Cesare said coldly. "Or we'll burn the world with them."