The rain had not stopped in three days.Cold and unrelenting, it drummed against the iron-plated transport cart as it rattled through the misty ravine toward Virewyn's gates.
Kael sat shackled inside, wrists raw, his dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and blood. His body ached from the fall, and the flames he had resisted from the memory of his men falling around him now silent beneath the mud.
Outside, obsidian-cloaked soldiers marched in perfect unison. The royal sigil of the High Court (a sword through a crown) gleamed on their armor.He didn't look at them he looked only at the fog, trying to find stars beyond it.
But there were none.
Years ago, Nareth.
The bonfire cracked, and laughter danced around it. He remembered his mother's voice, singing old lullabies of the Phoenix Kings. Of fire that healed, not destroyed, of crowns earned, not stolen. His sister had danced with wreaths of flame around her arms, her gift bright and fearless.
"One day, you'll burn too," she had whispered to him, eyes sparkling with joy. "It lives in you, Kael. You just don't see it yet."
He hadn't believed her then.
But now…
He closed his eyes, and the fire in his chest throbbed again, quiet and hungry.
The cart halted.
Kael opened his eyes, the air shifted, like a sword drawn in silence.
She was here.The door groaned open, and the scent of smoke and steel filled the space before her shadow did.
Lady Seris Valen.
Her presence was command and fury bound in flesh. Black and crimson armor wrapped her like war's embrace, and the silver pins of her station glinted along her collarbone. Her expression was carved in stone.
Only her eyes moved, scanning him, measuring, dissecting.
"So," she said. "This is the great Kael of Nareth. The last flame of the rebellion."
He raised his chin, gaze level. "You came to gloat?"
"I came to see if the stories were true."
She stepped into the cart, the door shutting behind her with finality.
The cold tightened between them. He could hear the rain hiss against the roof, the distant stomp of soldiers outside, but in here it was just her and him.
Five winters ago, Thorne stronghold.
Seris stood in the snow, fourteen years old, trembling with fury as her brother was dragged away in chains. The guards avoided her eyes. Her father stood silent.
"You said he was loyal," the inquisitor spat.
"Then he wouldn't have hidden what he was."
Her brother looked back only once not in fear but in apology.
The pyre burned for hours. That night, she swore she'd never again be fooled by softness, by blood, by mercy not even her own.
She moved fast, grabbing Kael's chin and forcing him to meet her gaze. "Where is your magic, Ember born?" she hissed. "Where's the fire you're so proud of?"
He didn't flinch. His lips curled in that same defiant smile he'd worn on the battlefield.
"Careful, Lady Valen," he murmured. "Get too close, and you might burn."
The slap came without hesitation sharp, loud, precise, not to humiliate but to remind she was in control, or so she thought.
Kael's face stung, but he didn't react. He watched her. Watched the tiny flicker of doubt in her pupils, the hitch in her breath. She'd felt it, the warmth beneath his skin the pulse of something ancient.
The mark was stirring again.
Kael's memory: The Ember lands, childhood
The trees had whispered to him. He'd gotten lost chasing fireflies, and the ash covered ground had suddenly bloomed with warmth beneath his feet. Symbols in the dirt shaped like flame, like wings. He'd touched one, and for a moment, he heard a voice that wasn't his.
"Sovereign Flame… not yet ready."
He never told anyone.
He thought it was madness.
Now, he wondered if it had been prophecy.
Seris pulled back from him like she'd touched a live coal, lips tight, eyes narrowed. She turned to leave.
But Kael's voice followed her like smoke. "Tell me, Seris… when did you decide to stop believing in anything but orders?"
She froze at the door.
"I bet you used to dream," he whispered. "Before they taught you how to kill."
A wounded silence between them grew heavy.
She didn't reply but her hand lingered on the door just a second too long before she yanked it open.
"I'll see you again before the execution," she said.
Kael leaned back, closing his eyes. "I look forward to it."
The door slammed shut.
And in the quiet that followed, beneath the rain and the fog and the breath between thoughts, something impossible began to take root, neither trust nor desire but recognition.