(POV: Nyra)
The whispers found me before the dawn.
They rose from beneath the earth, curling through the cracks in the silver glass, breathing my name like a promise and a curse. I didn't dare answer. The last time I had, the world broke.
Kael still slept beside me, though his hand never strayed far from the hilt of what was left of his blade. He slept like a man who didn't trust rest — shallow breaths, a furrow between his brows even in silence. I envied him for dreaming, even if his dreams were dark.
Mine were always of fire.
I sat up slowly, the mark on my wrist flickering faintly beneath the skin. Not bright, not burning — alive. I could feel it pulsing in time with the whispers, like the world itself had learned my heartbeat.
When I pressed my fingers against it, the air around me shivered. The glass ground beneath me hummed like a living thing.
Nyra.
The voice wasn't cruel. It wasn't kind. It was… familiar. Like hearing my own thought spoken aloud.
I rose, careful not to wake him, and stepped into the strange twilight. The forest of silver trees loomed quiet — but I could feel them watching. Their leaves caught the faintest shimmer of crimson now, as if touched by my pulse.
"What do you want from me?" I whispered.
The answer came not as words but feeling — warmth flooding my veins, a low, thrilling hum beneath my skin. My body remembered before my mind did. The Flame wanted release. It wanted to breathe.
And I… didn't fight it. Not this time.
The power stirred, slow and sinuous, like smoke curling in the hollow of my throat. It felt nothing like the chaos that had once consumed me. This was control — or something pretending to be it.
Then came a second sound.
Not the whisper.
A heartbeat.
Kael's.
It faltered once, and I turned.
He was awake — standing behind me, the faint red glow from my skin painting his face in something half awe, half fear.
"You heard it too," I said softly.
He nodded once. "They're calling for you."
"Not me," I murmured. "What's inside me."
He took a step closer, his presence grounding even as the air thickened between us. "Then let me stand between you and whatever answers."
I wanted to tell him not to. That the thing inside me couldn't be shielded against, not by steel or will. But the words caught somewhere between my chest and my throat. Because a part of me — the part that was more fire than flesh — wanted to see what waited if I followed the call.
The wind picked up, faint at first, then strong enough to scatter the silver ash beneath our feet. It swirled around us, alive, singing low through the branches. The whisper became a song — ancient, mournful, seductive.
And in it, I heard my own voice.
The one that wasn't mine anymore.
"Nyra," it breathed, closer now, wrapping around my spine. "Do you remember what you promised the fire?"
Kael reached for me, but the ground split before his hand found mine. Crimson light flared upward, consuming the horizon.
I stumbled back — not falling, not fleeing — just suspended between worlds again.
And as the light reached for me, I understood what the whisper truly was.
Not the Flame.
Not memory.
But summoning.
The Blood Mark had been claimed.
And something — someone — was coming to collect it.