The dawn broke cold, but the cold never truly touched Raine.
She sat curled on the wooden steps of the small house, her knees drawn to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them as though she could hold herself together. The world before her blurred with mist, pale ribbons of silver coiling low across the forest floor. The air smelled of damp earth and faint smoke, a reminder of the battle from the night before.
She had not slept.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw fire. Not the gentle kind, but the blinding blaze of her father's last stand — though she had no right to remember it so clearly. She had been three years old when he died. Three. And yet, the images now stormed through her mind with a precision that felt almost too sharp to be memory. Her father's figure framed in gold and green fire. His voice, steady and defiant. Her mother's desperate cries. And the fire — oh gods, the fire — burning so brightly it swallowed the stars.
Her breath came unsteady, uneven. She pressed her palms hard against her temples, as if she could hold back the storm gathering in her mind.
The oath chose you that night.
Her mother's voice rang over and over. The words sat heavy on her chest, heavier than the air itself. What oath? Why her? She had never asked for fire, never asked for legacy, never asked to inherit pain older than her understanding.
She should have been ordinary. She should have been free.
Footsteps stirred the mist.
Raine stiffened, her arms tightening around herself. She didn't need to look up. She already knew.
The Guardian.
He came like the forest itself — quiet, immense, inevitable. His boots pressed into the damp earth with a weight that was not merely physical but ancient. The folds of his cloak trailed behind him, whispering against the fog. And his eyes — those golden-green eyes that mirrored her father's — fixed on her with the kind of steadiness that made her want to break.
He stopped a few paces away, letting silence breathe between them. For a moment, the only sound was the soft drip of dew falling from the eaves of the roof.
"You spoke with her," he said at last, his voice low and calm, though it carried something harder beneath, like iron hidden in velvet.
Raine did not answer immediately. She kept her gaze down, watching her fingers dig crescents into her skin. Her throat felt tight, her voice raw from words unsaid.
Finally, she whispered, "She told me. She told me I was there. That I saw him burn. That I carry his fire. She said the oath chose me that night." Her voice cracked. "But she wouldn't explain what it means."
Her words fell into the mist like stones sinking into deep water.
The Guardian's gaze did not waver. "And what do you believe it means?"
Raine's head snapped up, frustration flaring. "If I knew what it meant, I wouldn't be asking! I don't understand any of this. Why the shadows want me. Why the fire won't leave me alone. Why my chest feels like it's… alive." She pressed her hand against her sternum, feeling the faint heat pulsing there, steady as a second heartbeat. "I don't want this. I never asked for it. And I don't know how to carry it."
The Guardian studied her for a long moment. Then, finally, he moved — slow, deliberate steps until he stood at the edge of the steps. The mist curled around him like a living thing, yet it never touched his boots. He seemed apart from it, as though the world itself bent around his presence.
When he spoke again, his voice was steadier, heavier. "Your father was the Phoenix. His fire was not just flame but life itself. His oath was not made lightly."
Raine's breath caught. "What oath?"
"The oath of flame." His words carried weight, each syllable burning into the air. "An oath to hold back the darkness. An oath sworn with his final breath, bound into the fire itself. He could not stop the shadows, but he could burn them back long enough to give the world a chance. And in that moment, his fire chose. It passed to his heir. It passed to you."
Raine's chest tightened. "But I was a child. I didn't even understand what was happening."
"And yet the fire understood," the Guardian replied. "It saw what you could not. It knew what you were."
"What I was?" Her voice trembled.
The Guardian did not answer at once. His eyes softened only slightly, but his face remained unreadable. "You are his heir, Raine. The oath binds you because you carry his blood. That is enough."
Raine's hands curled into fists, her nails digging hard into her palms. "Then why do I feel… different? Why does it hurt when it stirs inside me? Why do I feel like I'm carrying more than just his fire?"
For the first time, something flickered in the Guardian's expression — the faintest crease at the corner of his mouth, the subtlest shift in his eyes. A hesitation.
"You notice the difference," he said quietly.
Raine's frustration boiled over. "Of course I notice! My skin burns when I sleep. My dreams are full of voices I don't recognize. Sometimes I feel like I've lived lives that don't belong to me. And when the fire rises…" She shuddered, her breath coming fast. "When it rises, I feel like someone else is staring out through my eyes."
Silence fell, thick and heavy.
The Guardian's gaze deepened, golden-green and endless, as though he were seeing not just her but every shadow behind her. "Because heirs are more than children," he said finally, his tone low and deliberate. "Fire does not vanish. It remembers. It carries will, memory, destiny. You think it is only your father's gift. But it is more. It always has been."
Raine blinked, her pulse racing. "You're saying… the fire itself remembers?"
"Yes." His voice was firm, certain. "And memory can be more dangerous than any enemy."
The words rooted themselves inside her, twisting and burning. She could not tell if he meant her father's memory, or something older, something buried in the fire itself.
Her throat tightened. "What do you mean?"
But the Guardian only looked at her, silent as the trees. His gaze said what his mouth would not: Not yet.
Raine trembled, her frustration and fear knotting together. "Why does everyone speak in riddles? Why won't anyone just tell me the truth?"
The Guardian stepped closer, until his shadow fell over her. His presence loomed, vast and unshakable, yet not crushing — steadying, as if he were anchoring her to the earth.
"Because truth is not a single flame," he said. "It is a wildfire. To face all of it at once would consume you."
Her breath hitched.
He crouched, lowering himself to her level. The mist curled between them, and for the first time, Raine saw something in his eyes that was not just duty or burden — but a quiet sorrow.
"For now, know this: you are the Phoenix's heir. The oath binds you. The shadows hunt you. And the fire will test you." His gaze pierced into her, steady as steel. "But whether it destroys you or makes you rise — that choice will always be yours."
Raine's breath shuddered. She hugged her arms tighter around herself, trying to contain the storm inside. His words should have comforted her, but they didn't. They only deepened the weight pressing on her chest.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to demand every secret. She wanted to tear open the silence and see what lay inside the fire that haunted her. But her voice failed. Only a whisper slipped out.
"I'm afraid," she admitted.
The Guardian did not flinch. "Good. Fear sharpens. Only the reckless burn without it."
He rose then, the moment breaking like glass. His cloak swirled faintly as he turned toward the mist-draped forest.
Raine watched his figure begin to fade, swallowed by the pale morning. Her chest burned with unspoken questions.
"Wait!" she cried, her voice cracking. "Don't leave me with half-answers again! Please—"
The Guardian paused at the tree line. His back remained to her, his head tilted just enough that she could see the sharp outline of his jaw.
"When the time comes, you will not need my answers," he said quietly. "The fire will give you its own."
And then he was gone.
The mist closed behind him, erasing his presence like he had never been there at all.
Raine sat frozen, her hands trembling. The silence pressed close once more, broken only by the steady thrum of her heartbeat — or was it the fire's?
The fire remembers.
She pressed her palm flat against her chest. Heat pulsed beneath her skin, steady, insistent, alive. Not just her father's gift. Not just his sacrifice. Something more.
Something waiting.
Her breath came ragged. She curled tighter into herself, whispering into the dawn, "What am I becoming?"
The fire stirred in reply, a low hum beneath her ribs, pulsing steady as a heartbeat.
A memory waiting to be born.