Elena stirred by the second night.
Her golden-flecked eyes fluttered open beneath the watchful hush of moonless sky. She said nothing at first, only looked at Seraphira with wordless understanding as though she remembered everything, even the parts she hadn't lived.
Did I kill them? Elena asked softly.
Seraphira shook her head. You defended yourself.
They're dead.
They tried to bind you.
Elena looked down at her hands. The ashmark on her shoulder still glowed faintly, its spiral shape now blooming inward toward her heart.
I felt something… when I screamed. Like I wasn't alone. Like something answered me.
Seraphira didn't speak right away.
She understood that feeling too well.
I think, she said finally, we're being called. Not by voice. By blood. The fire inside us isn't just power, it's memory. And it's waking.
Elena nodded slowly. And it's pulling us toward him.
Seraphira's jaw clenched. Yes.
A silence fell between them.
Finally, Elena reached into the leather pouch at her side. She pulled out the black stone the scout had left behind Kaelreth's sigil and held it up to the fire.
It pulsed once.
And so did Seraphira's wrist.
The flames between them flared blue.
Even the witches fear him, Seraphira said.
Do you? Elena asked.
…I fear what I'll become if I follow the fire.
Elena looked at her then, not as a frightened girl, but as an equal.
And said, Then let's swear something.
Seraphira's brow furrowed. Swear what?
That no matter what wakes in us… we won't lose each other. We won't become what the world wants. Or what the fire wants. We stay who we are.
Seraphira hesitated.
But then, slowly, she nodded.
They pressed their marked wrists together, the fire between them rising in a spiral of blue and gold.
I swear, Seraphira whispered, by the flame that chose me.
And I swear, Elena echoed, by the light I didn't ask for.
The wind stirred.
Somewhere far off, a tree cracked.
The flame between them hissed into smoke, then settled again.
The oath had been made.
Not to gods. Not to the Devil King.
But to each other.
And in the underworld, Kaelreth felt it.
Two threads, newly bound.
Two souls resisting.
And still… they moved closer.
He stepped down from his throne and summoned his blade from the fire.
"Then let the next gate open," he said.
And beneath the earth, the chains that bound him shuddered.