Elira had almost forgotten the way to the lower spire.
It wasn't on any official map. The path was carved into the heart of the Skyspire itself—beneath the courts, beneath the sanctums, beneath even the dragon vaults. It was a place for those whose names no longer echoed in the halls above.
The summons hadn't come through the usual channels. No attendant. No royal scroll. Just a slip of paper beneath her chamber door with a single word written in faded ink:
"Come."
And beneath it: Kiran's seal.
She found him in the archives.
Dust floated in the candlelight like forgotten memories. The shelves were bowed under the weight of scrolls no one had touched in decades. The air was thick with silence, broken only by the scratch of a quill and the faint shuffle of Kiran's footsteps.
He didn't greet her.
Didn't even look up.
"I didn't think you'd actually come," he said instead.
Elira stepped fully into the chamber. "You summoned me."
Kiran gave a faint smile—one that didn't reach his eyes. "Summons only work when someone still believes the sender matters."
Elira folded her arms. "What is this place?"
"History," he said, walking between shelves with the ease of someone who knew them like old friends. "The kind no one likes to read. The kind that gets rewritten. Burned. Buried."
He stopped at a narrow alcove and drew out a sealed wooden case.
The wax was black. Ancient. Marked with a sigil Elira didn't recognize.
Until the mark on her chest pulsed in answer.
She drew in a sharp breath. "That's—"
"Yes," Kiran said quietly. "It's tied to your blood. To your mother's. And to Kaevros."
He set the case on the table, motioned for her to sit. When she hesitated, he gave her a long, level look.
"Elira, if you truly want to know what your mother gave you—what she gave up—then sit."
She did.
Kiran broke the seal with a small dagger. The wax hissed faintly as it cracked, as if alive. Inside were two scrolls—one in her mother's hand, the other far older.
He passed the first to Elira. She didn't need to break the seal.
It opened at her touch.
> To my daughter,
If you are reading this, the mark has awakened. The pact has chosen. And the fire no longer sleeps in your veins.
Know this: I did not enter the pact as a queen. I entered it as a mother.
Kaevros was never meant to be a prisoner. He was once my ally. My friend. Some say more.
But when the Council feared him, they demanded his chain. And I... I did not resist them. I bargained with them.
In return for peace, I gave them you.
*You were born not to inherit my crown, but to carry my failure. To wear it like a sigil branded in fire.
But you are not me.*
And you do not have to choose as I did.
Forgive me.*
— Serelith of Ashenhold
Elira's hands trembled. Her mother's words blurred through burning tears. Her mother—who had always been so composed, so cold—had bled regret into parchment.
"You knew," she whispered to Kiran.
"I suspected," he replied. "But the queen bound me with more than loyalty. She sealed my memories. Swore me to silence. Only when the pact awakened in you did the old bindings begin to break."
He reached up and brushed his thumb along a thin, barely-visible scar at his temple.
"She used dragonfire to seal the truth. Not all of it came back."
Elira stared at the second scroll. "And this one?"
Kiran hesitated, then unrolled it himself.
The script inside was sharp, jagged. Written in old Draconic. The air around it seemed to hum.
"It's from Kaevros," he said. "A message left just before the sealing. Smuggled out of his prison by a sympathizer."
He read it aloud:
> I do not regret the fire I raised.
I regret only that I trusted mortals to understand it.
The pact was not forged for peace—it was forged for control. To chain what they feared. To bind dragons into guardians and gods alike into symbols.
I broke their laws to remind them we were never made to kneel.
And now, in her daughter, the flame awakens again.
Not to destroy.
But to choose.
Burn or bind.
Rise or sleep.
The gate is opening.
Let her decide.
Kiran's voice went quiet.
Elira couldn't move.
The fire in her chest twisted like a question left unanswered.
Burn or bind. Rise or sleep.
Kiran leaned forward, his voice soft but urgent. "Elira, the story you've been told is only half the truth. Vaerenth is not your enemy—but he is part of the lie. So is the Council. So was your mother."
She met his eyes, her own burning. "Then what am I?"
"You are the first true heir of fire," he said. "Not just to the throne—but to choice. The pact bound Kaevros to silence. But your blood may unbind him—or end him forever."
A beat passed. Then another.
And Elira whispered: "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Kiran touched her shoulder. "You're not supposed to do anything. You get to choose. And that terrifies them."
---
That night, Elira stood alone on her balcony. The letter from her mother gripped tightly in one hand, the draconic scroll in the other.
The mountain groaned beneath her. The wind howled like it remembered names no one dared speak aloud.
In the distance, lightning cracked. A storm rolled across the peaks.
And in her blood, Kaevros stirred.
---