The world burned around her, Screams, smoke, and sparks blurred together into chaos. But when the masked figure stepped closer, everything else fell away.
Aria's fire stilled. Not gone never gone but frozen, as if the Watcher's presence commanded it to kneel.
The mask tilted, carved lines catching the glow. "You fight your blood," the voice murmured, deep and strange, neither man nor woman. "You choke on it, yet you cannot let it go. You are bound, Aria."
Her name on their tongue made her flinch. She had never told them.
"I'm not bound," she forced out, though her voice shook. "I'm nothing like him."
A whisper of amusement drifted from behind the mask. "Nothing like your brother? He chose shadow. You carry flame. Two sides of the same chain."
Her chest tightened, a scream rising but refusing to leave her throat.
Another Watcher stepped from the smoke, mask etched with jagged spirals. "The village cannot hold you. Their fear is too small for what you are. Already you taste it the power. The hunger, The fire that wants more."
Aria shook her head, tears hot against her cheeks. "I didn't ask for this!"
"You were born for it," the first Watcher said. "Your brother tried to fight. He broke. You will break too."
The words slid under her skin, cutting deeper than any blade. The oak's voice whispered inside her urgent, low, but distant this time, as though even it faltered before their presence.
Stand… or fall.
The fire surged in her wrists, struggling to break free again. She wanted to deny them, to scream she was different but a part of her knew the truth. She had felt it, the hunger in the flames. How easy it would be to stop fighting, to let the fire claim everything.
"Aria!"
Her head snapped up. Through the smoke, she saw Tomas struggling against the crowd, hammer raised, his eyes fixed on her. Fear warred with something else in his face something like belief.
"You're not like him!" he shouted. "I saw you fight him! You're not!"
The Watchers turned their masks toward him, slow and deliberate. One lifted a hand, and shadows stretched toward Tomas like chains.
"No!" The word tore out of her before she could think. Fire burst from her palms, wild and bright, slamming into the shadows. Sparks showered the square. The villagers screamed again, scattering into the dark.
The Watchers staggered not destroyed, but forced back a step.
The first mask turned toward her once more. This time the voice was colder. "You think you are free. But you are still in chains. We will return, daughter of fire."
And as quickly as they had appeared, the Watchers melted into the flames, their shadows slipping back into the forest's grasp.
Aria dropped to her knees, chest heaving, wrists scorched raw. Her fire dimmed, leaving only pain, smoke, and the weight of their words pressing on her skull.
She was shaking. Not from the ropes anymore, not from the villagers' fear. From the truth she couldn't escape.
Maybe she wasn't breaking the chain, maybe she was the chain.