The flames had died down, but the echoes remained.
Kael and Ember stood in the center of the scorched ruin, separated by a ring of ash, panting, bloodied, and raw. The Bond Breaker had vanished, but his power still coiled in the air, leaving their connection torn and fraying at the edges.
Ember's heart thudded painfully against her ribs. Her body ached, her magic flickering like the last flame of a dying candle. She looked at Kael his eyes wild, his jaw clenched. He was still standing, but only barely. The trial had drained them both.
And yet, they hadn't failed.
The bond hadn't returned but it hadn't been destroyed either.
Someone was blocking it. Burying it beneath layers of guilt, pain, and untold truths.
They were close. But the path forward wasn't just about facing external enemies anymore.
It was time to face each other.
"Tell me the truth," Kael said hoarsely, breaking the silence. "Why did you doubt the bond?"
Ember's shoulders sagged beneath the weight of his voice. "Because I was afraid," she whispered. "Not of you but of what the bond would demand of me. Of what I'd become."
Kael stepped forward slowly, as though every movement cut into him. "You never told me that."
"I couldn't," she said. "I wanted to be strong. To be Luna. To be the flame you needed."
He stopped just in front of her, his voice cracking. "You were always strong. But I needed your truth more than your fire."
A tear rolled down her cheek. "And I needed to know I was more than the power inside me. More than fate's pawn."
They stood in silence, hearts pounding in the quiet of a forest that watched with bated breath.
Then Kael reached into his coat and pulled out something wrapped in worn leather, a scroll, old and marked with an unfamiliar crest. "I found this," he said. "In the ruins where the Bond Breaker dwells. It wasn't meant for me but for you."
Ember took it, her hands trembling as she untied the seal. The parchment inside crackled with age. But the moment her fingers touched it, it glowed faintly responding to her fire.
She read in silence, lips moving, heart pounding.
The letter wasn't from her parents. Not the adoptive ones. Not even from her mate.
It was from her birth mother.
"To the child born beneath the cursed moon, the flame that will rewrite prophecy…
You were never meant to be part of this war. But you were born from it. I gave you away not to hide you, but to protect you from what I've done. I am the one who struck the first bargain with the Bond Breaker. To save your life… I offered him my bond.
He shattered it. And the curse followed you."
Ember's breath hitched.
"He took more than my bond. He took part of your soul. Your fire. That is why you burn so wildly. That is why your flames are never still. But you are not broken, my daughter. You are whole. You are the flame and the ash. The bond and the breaker. You were born to end what I began."
The letter ended with a mark half crescent moon, half flame.
Her mother's mark.
Kael looked at her, jaw slack. "You're…"
"Born of a broken bond," Ember finished, lowering the scroll. "My whole life, I thought I was cursed. But I am the curse. And the cure."
Kael stepped closer. "Then this isn't just about restoring our bond. It's about ending the Bond Breaker's hold over every fated mate he's ever touched."
Ember nodded, her eyes blazing with new purpose. "And stopping the Council from hiding the truth."
Because that was the real buried secret the one even the Council had feared would rise again.
That bond magic wasn't infallible.
It could be corrupted.
It could be rewritten.
And their child half Alpha, half flame, touched by the Bond Breaker's curse might hold the power to do it.
But there was more.
The parchment had another folded section, tucked carefully inside. Ember pulled it free and gasped.
It was a birth record. Her mother's. Detailing not one, but two births.
Twins.
She had a sibling.
A twin, lost or taken at birth.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "You think the Bond Breaker took the other child?"
Ember's voice was hoarse. "No. I think the Council did."
Suddenly, the pieces fit together too easily.
Why the Council had interfered in their mating.
Why her powers had always felt unstable.
Why someone had gone to great lengths to break their bond and suppress their child's awakening.
Because there was another.
Another with her fire. Her blood. Her fate.
And if the Council raised that child in secret…
They could use them to destroy everything Ember and Kael had fought for.
"I need to find them," Ember said, fire pulsing in her veins again.
Kael gripped her hand tightly. "Then we do it together."
Behind them, the ruins glowed faintly, as if stirred by truth. The ashes shifted, revealing something glinting in the debris.
A dagger.
Old, silver, engraved with moonstone.
Ember picked it up, and instantly, flames wrapped around the hilt but didn't burn it. It welcomed her.
"A weapon," Kael murmured. "Forged for you."
"Maybe more," Ember said. "Maybe it's the key to severing his hold."
The forest around them darkened as a chill spread through the trees.
A howl echoed in the distance not Kael's. Not any wolf they knew.
It was older.
Colder.
Watching.
Waiting.
"Do you hear that?" Ember asked, her grip tightening on the blade.
Kael's wolf stirred beneath his skin. "He knows we found the truth."
"And he's coming," Ember whispered, fire blooming in her
palm once more. "But this time, we're ready."
––––
But what will they do if the twin they're hunting… has already chosen the darkness?