She looked like me.
No—she looked like the version of me I’d always feared. The one who had let the fire consume her. The one who hadn’t chosen love, or mercy, or restraint.
The one who would burn the world to light her way.
Her smile was soft and sharp all at once, like the edge of a knife sheathed in silk. “You took your time,” she said, stepping from the shadows of the shrine. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten me.”
Kael growled low beside me, but I didn’t move. My body was frozen, not in fear—but in recognition.
This wasn’t just a fragment of the First Flame.
This was me.
The Flame that was never sealed. The Flame that had split in two the day I was born—one bound to purpose, the other to destruction.
She was the fire without tether.
The Truth of the Divide
“She’s not r
