The flames didn't retreat.
Not this time.
They curled around Sarya's hands like silk, threading through her fingers, whispering her name in tongues she hadn't spoken in lifetimes. But she didn't flinch.
She welcomed it.
Not as Aelira reborn.
As Sarya.
As both.
She sat alone at the edge of the ruined tower, eyes closed, breathing in smoke and cold mountain wind.
Inside her, the fire pulsed like a second heartbeat. Not wild. Not devouring.
Waiting.
"You're not my master," she whispered to the flame. "And I'm not your prison."
A gust of heat surged up her spine.
Painful. Raw.
She didn't scream.
Instead, she reached inward and pulled the fire to her palm.
It danced there, bright and blue. Not the crimson of Kael's fury. This was clarity. Precision. Cold flame.
It hummed with memory.
Aelira's magic had never been about destruction. It had been about balance.
Binding stars. Severing fate. Guarding the line between realms.
And now that power belonged to Sarya.
She stood, fire licking her shoulders.
Behind her, footsteps crunched against gravel. Kael.
He watched her in silence.
Not speaking. Not reaching.
Good. She didn't want comfort.
She wanted control.
Sarya turned toward him.
"You used to think this power needed to be shackled."
Kael nodded slowly. "I still do. For me."
She tilted her head. "Then don't try to shackle mine."
Kael didn't look away. "I won't." A beat. "But will you?"
Sarya considered that.
The part of her that was Aelira whispered warnings. The cost of choosing fire. The cities lost. The lives uncounted.
But the girl who had been hunted, who had been lied to, who had been seen only as a relic—she was done hiding.
"No," she said. "I won't bind it. I'll wield it."
Kael stepped forward, his voice low.
"Then let me stand beside you, not in front of you."
She let the fire fade from her palms, stepping close enough to feel his warmth.
Their lips almost touched.
"Then stop mourning the woman you lost," she murmured. "And see the one I've become."
Kael's breath hitched.
He didn't kiss her.
He didn't have to.
The air between them burned with possibility.
And behind them, the others stirred.
Nerra. The priest. The survivors.
They could feel it.
Something had changed.
Not rebirth. Not memory.
A new force was rising.
And the flame had chosen its bearer.