Star POV
Ash tastes like regret.
It sticks to my tongue, coats the back of my throat, and settles in my lungs until breathing feels like swallowing the dead. I wake buried beneath the charred ribs of my home. The walls are gone—burned down to bones—and the roof is a collapsed halo of scorched timber above me. The world smells of smoke, blood, and something sharp beneath it. Magic, maybe. Or whatever's left when magic fails.
I don't remember falling asleep. Or surviving.
I push up with shaking arms, and pain blooms like fire in my palms. I lift one hand to the pale morning light—my skin is blackened, cracked. Burned down to the wrists. But I feel nothing. No pain. No heat.
Just the ember.
Throbbing faintly in my chest like a second, unwelcome heartbeat.
I shouldn't be alive.
Everyone else is gone.
I find my mother's body in the well.
Her dress clings to her like wet parchment, her hands reaching up as if she'd tried to climb out before the flames found her. I don't cry. There's nothing left to cry with. My eyes are dry, my throat is dust. I kneel beside the stone rim and whisper her name.
No answer. Only silence.
The village is a corpse, hollowed out by fire and fear. The sky weeps gray. The fields are blackened. And still the ember pulses inside me—stronger now, louder.
As if it wants something.
I stumble to my feet. My legs barely hold me. My body is smoke and bruises. I step over broken fences, ash-stiffened bodies, shattered pottery. No other survivors. Only me.
And the mark.
A symbol scorched into the skin above my collarbone—a shape I've never seen before. Circular, with jagged rays. Like a sun bleeding shadows.
I trace it with one finger, and it burns cold.
Voices rise from the hills.
Steel clinks. Hooves crush charred grass. Soldiers.
I duck behind what's left of the baker's wall. My breath comes short, too loud in my ears. There are five of them. Riders. No banners. No insignias. Just heavy black cloaks and blades on their backs. Clean. Unbloodied.
Scavengers. Or worse—Relic Seekers.
They dismount, walking slowly, surveying the ruin like they're inspecting property. One kicks over a body and curses. Another laughs. The tallest kneels, runs a gloved hand through the ash, then lifts it to his face.
He licks it.
I gag. They hear it.
Their heads turn as one.
I try to run. I really do.
But my foot catches a beam, and I hit the ground hard. They're on me before I can crawl away. Hands grip my arms. A boot presses my head into the dirt. One of them grabs my chin, forcing my face up.
"Still breathing," he says. His voice is slick with amusement. "Look at that. Thought the fire took everyone."
The one who licked the ash kneels in front of me, his eyes scanning my face, then my collar. His fingers pull my torn dress aside just enough to reveal the mark.
He stares.
And then—
He kneels.
"Praise the flame," he whispers.
The others echo it.
They bow.
To me.
They don't explain. They don't ask questions. They shackle my wrists with silver and push me into a caravan drawn by a sickly gray horse. There are no windows. Just slats of light and the stench of old blood.
Someone else is inside.
He's tall. Too tall for the space. A sword strapped across his back. His clothes are torn, his hair silver like the edge of a knife. One arm is bound in a sling. The other dangles a shackle from his wrist, same as mine.
He watches me as the doors shut.
Then he says, voice hoarse but low, "You're the reason they bowed."
I press myself against the far wall and say nothing.
He smiles—but it's tired. Not cruel.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you."
I still say nothing.
He nods toward my chest. "That mark. It's an ember seal, isn't it? Thought they were all dead."
I look away.
"I was a knight once," he continues, like he needs to fill the silence. "Fought in the War of Embers. Watched gods burn. Thought we were saving the world."
He glances at me again. "But then I saw what rose from their ashes."
His smile fades.
"I never asked your name."
I shake my head.
"Don't remember it?"
I shake it again.
He shifts forward. "You don't talk?"
My voice scrapes out, hollow. "Not for them."
He stares at me a long moment.
Then, softer, "Good."
The wagon jostles for hours. We don't speak again.
But as night falls, the pain starts.
Not from my burns—but from the ember.
It beats faster, hotter, like it's waking. I press my hands to my chest and gasp. Flames crawl behind my ribs, licking my spine. My fingers splay in the dirt, and sparks dance at my skin.
Kael—he told me his name earlier, though I didn't care—lunges forward and covers my hands with his.
"Breathe," he says.
"I can't—" The light pushes through my skin. My eyes burn.
"You're not dying," he says. "It's remembering. And so are you."
I scream.
The world burns again.
When I wake, everything is quiet.
The wagon is still. The door is open. The air smells of char and iron.
Bodies lie outside. Burned, blackened, unrecognizable.
Only Kael remains, kneeling in front of me, one hand clenched over his heart.
"I should be dead," he says quietly. "You saved me."
I look at my hands. No chains. No blood. Only smoke rising from my skin.
"You called the ember," he whispers. "That's a relic flame. A god's heart, maybe. It chose you."
I shake my head.
"No," he says. "It marked you."
I lean back against the wall. The fire inside me is quieter now. Not gone. Just watching.
"I don't want to be saved," I whisper.
Kael nods once.
Kael's words settle into the air like smoke.
"Then let's burn everything down together."
I stare at him. Not just at his face, but the thing behind it—the hollow ache in his eyes, the weight in his voice. He isn't promising vengeance because he believes in me. He's promising it because he doesn't believe in anything else anymore. And somehow, I understand that.
I don't nod. I don't speak. But I don't look away either.
Outside, the flames have long died, but the world still stinks of ruin. The sky above us is bruised purple, the kind that comes after a storm, or before a worse one. Wind whistles through the broken trees. No birds. No stars.
Only the quiet.
And us.
Kael shifts, then sits beside me, close but not touching. His arm is still in that sling, his shirt crusted with dried blood. He doesn't wince. He doesn't complain. Maybe he's too tired to.
"I once swore an oath," he says, voice low. "To protect the innocent. To uphold the realm. To serve the crown."
He laughs softly—bitter.
"All of them lied. The crown. The realm. Even the ones I saved. They used me until I broke."
He turns to me, his eyes catching the faint glow pulsing beneath my collarbone. "But you… you didn't ask for this, did you?"
I shake my head slowly. "I didn't ask to survive."
"Still," he says, "you did."
And for a heartbeat, I hate him. For saying it like it means something. Like survival is a kind of victory. Like it didn't cost me everything.
"My mother died in that well," I whisper. My voice is raw. "And the last thing she saw was fire."
Kael doesn't look away.
"They made you a grave, and you clawed your way out of it. That ember inside you? It's not mercy, girl. It's war."
He stands then, offering me his good hand. "The world thinks you're a relic now. A vessel. An omen. They'll come for you. Kings. Priests. Monsters. You're going to need someone to swing the sword while you carry the fire."
I don't trust him.
But I'm done being dragged, shackled, used.
So I take his hand.
His grip is warm. Steady.
The moment I touch him, the ember stirs—and Kael breathes in sharply, like the fire passed into him for just a second.
He doesn't let go.
"I don't want to be saved," I repeat.
"And I don't want to be forgiven," he says.
The silence between us is sacred. Broken. And unbreakable.
The sky groans above. Somewhere in the distance, a low horn bellows. Riders. Searchers.
It begins again.
Kael draws his blade.
I draw breath.
And together, we vanish into the smoke.