The night splits open.
It happens as I cross the ridge, boots sinking into frost and ash. The world goes still—too still—and then I feel it.A pulse.Sharp, deep, familiar.Like a heartbeat beneath the skin of the world.
Kael.
The sound of his name in my mind is enough to make me falter. For two years, I've buried it under silence, under exile, under blood. But the bond—what's left of it—flares to life, burning through the scar on my wrist until the air hums with it.
I press my palm to the wound. The heat bites back. The mark glows faintly beneath the bandage, veins of gold threading up my arm. For a heartbeat, I almost give in to it. Almost let it pull me toward him.
Then I remember what happened the last time I followed that pull.How the fire took everything.How the world burned for our choices.
"No," I whisper, forcing the power back, pushing the whisper out of my mind. "Not again."
But the forest doesn't listen. The trees sway without wind, their branches twisting toward me as if to watch. The air trembles. Every creature within miles must feel it too—the awakening, the tether straining between us.
And underneath it all, that voice returns."You cannot outrun what you are, flame-born."
The same voice from the ruin. The same echo that haunted my dreams.It laughs softly now, curling around me like smoke."He calls for you. Even now. You think you can deny the pull?"
"I've denied worse."
"Have you?"
The ground shifts. I stumble, my breath catching as images flash behind my eyes—Kael's face, blood and fire and grief, his hand reaching through the smoke as the world fell apart. The memory tears at me, beautiful and unbearable.
I fall to my knees, clutching the earth to stay grounded. The soil is warm beneath my fingers, pulsing faintly. The Flame is everywhere. Inside me. Around me. Whispering that all I have to do is let go.
And for a terrifying moment, I almost do.
But then, something cuts through it—a faint sound, almost lost in the wind. Not fire. Not magic.Wings.
I look up. In the distance, dark figures move against the sky—creatures I don't recognize. They fly in formation, too controlled for beasts. Too wrong for humans.
The Flame inside me shivers.
Whatever is coming… it's not Kael.And it's not human.