The moment Wren stepped through the standing stones, the forest died behind her.
No wind. No birds. No sound.
Only silence, heavy and absolute, like the world itself had been carved from bone and left to rot beneath a dying sun.
The ritual gate vanished the second they passed through, swallowing the forest behind them like it had never existed. In its place sprawled a bleached valley of ash and char, its ground cracked with veins of red-glowing ember. Above them, the sky was sickly and dark—no stars, no sun, only a swirling, smoke-colored void.
Wren's breath caught in her throat. "Where are we?"
Cassian's nose wrinkled. "Not anywhere that belongs to nature."
"This is a dead place," Veylan murmured, his voice hushed with reverence and dread. "A wound left open. The Bone Circle doesn't just hide here—they feed from it."
Wren stepped forward, boots crunching on powdery ash. She could feel it beneath the surface—ancient magic, like a heartbeat under the dirt. It pulsed in rhythm with hers, every throb echoing through her bones like a forgotten drum.
"They built this to contain the Worldfire," she whispered.
Cassian's eyes narrowed. "Then why does it feel like they're trying to unleash it now?"
Veylan didn't answer. Instead, he lifted a hand and pointed toward the distance. A pale structure—jagged and high like the spine of a buried god—rose from the valley's center.
A citadel. No, not stone. Bone.
Its spires twisted toward the sky, ribbed and sharp, etched with blood-sigils that pulsed faintly like veins beneath skin.
"There," Veylan said. "That's the heart of it. Where the Circle waits."
Wren's fingers curled into fists. Her fire didn't burn this time. It simmered—low and angry.
"Then let's end this."
They moved quickly, but not carelessly. The land around them was too still, too staged, like a trap waiting to spring. Every step sent tremors into the ground. Wren could feel the citadel listening.
The closer they drew, the more the world warped.
Whispers slithered through the air—soft, seductive, poisonous. They came not from ghosts this time, but from the stone itself.
"Daughter of Fire…"
"Breaker of Circles…"
"Come and burn…"
Cassian snarled. "They know you're close."
"I want them to," Wren said darkly. "I want them to feel it."
Veylan slowed at the edge of a fractured ridge. "Hold."
Below them sprawled a great amphitheater—once ceremonial, now defiled. The bones of thousands littered the arena, fused to the earth. And in its center stood a circle of hooded figures, robed in black and gray, their hands outstretched in ritual.
They were chanting. Not in words Wren knew—but her blood responded.
One figure turned.
She wore a crown of thorned silver and a veil made from sewn shadows. Her mouth was painted in ash and blood.
Wren's breath caught. "That's her."
"The Bone Queen," Veylan confirmed. "She leads the Circle. She's the one who marked you."
Cassian's hand brushed Wren's. "We end her. Tonight."
Wren's gaze never left the Queen. Her heartbeat was steady, the magic inside her coiled tight like a storm not yet released.
"She's been waiting for me," she said softly. "Let her wait no more."
Wren descended into the amphitheater like a spark falling toward dry tinder.
Each step down the jagged slope echoed, not in sound, but in pulse—her magic meeting the Bone Circle's like opposing tides. Cassian flanked her right, silent and watchful, his eyes fixed on every figure below. Veylan walked on her left, shadows tightening around him like armor.
The hooded figures didn't flinch.
They merely parted.
Like the forest, like the flame, like prophecy itself—making way.
The Bone Queen stood in the center, her silver crown tilted slightly, the sewn-shadow veil billowing despite the still air. Wren could not see her face. But she felt her smile.
"You've brought both your monsters," the Queen said, her voice layered with centuries of rot and silk. "The loyal beast and the half-dead prince."
Cassian's snarl was instant. "Say that again."
"I don't need to," she purred. "You've already believed it."
Veylan's eyes narrowed. "She's trying to split us."
Wren didn't take the bait. "You've summoned me for centuries. I'm here now. So speak."
The Queen tilted her head. "Do you truly think we want to kill you, child?"
Wren's fire flickered in her palms. "You tried."
"We tested," the Queen corrected. "What is fire without proving?"
Veylan spat. "What do you want from her?"
The Queen raised a bony hand, and the Circle chanted louder—low, rhythmic, primal.
"The Worldfire lives only in the last daughter of flame. We seek not to destroy it, but to contain it. To wield it. With her as the vessel."
Wren's stomach turned. "I'm not your weapon."
"But you are," the Queen said gently. "You were made to burn. And burn you shall—either by your own hand, or by ours."
Cassian stepped in front of Wren, his voice low and deadly. "You'll have to go through both of us first."
The Queen chuckled. "We intend to."
The chant broke.
And the ground exploded.
Bone spikes erupted from the arena floor, carving a jagged prison around them. Cassian shoved Wren back as a skeletal serpent burst from the ash, its eyes lit with witchfire. Veylan's shadows lashed out, striking true—but more creatures followed, stitched from bone and blood and hate.
"They've been binding beasts from the old war," Veylan growled. "Guardians of the gate!"
Cassian shifted mid-leap, fur erupting, teeth bared. He landed on the serpent's back with a snarl, driving his claws deep.
Wren summoned fire—hot, hungry. It surged from her like a geyser of wrath, incinerating a wall of clawed wights that charged from the west. But even as she fought, the Queen stood still—watching. Chanting. Controlling.
"She's channeling them!" Wren shouted. "She's using the old spellwork!"
"Then break the spell!" Veylan cried, ducking a flaming blade hurled by a skeletal knight. "You're the only one who can!"
Wren spun, looking past the chaos—into the Circle itself.
There, behind the Queen, hovered a crystal vessel, suspended in air by threads of silver fire. Within it, something pulsed.
Something that looked exactly like her flame.
"My magic," she whispered. "They've already started taking it."
Cassian slammed a beast into the ground with a roar. "Then take it back, Wren!"
She raised her arms.
And the Worldfire answered.
Wren's magic erupted in a pulse so violent the earth cracked beneath her boots. The fire wasn't red anymore—it was white-hot, almost blinding, shot through with gold and silver veins. It roared from her skin in waves, not flames, but something older. Purer.
Something that remembered.
The Bone Circle reeled back, their chanting breaking apart into screams. The crystal vessel hanging in the air shattered, fire spiraling upward and pouring back into Wren's chest like water finding its riverbed.
Her breath hitched. And then she remembered.
The Thorned Bride's voice. The ancient lullaby. The first flicker of power at her birth. A thousand years of bloodlines, curses, sacrifices—woven into her bones.
She wasn't just a vessel.
She was the vault.
And now it was open.
The Queen let out a screech, one hand rising, trying to call the bone beasts again. But Wren turned toward her and said, with a calm like the eye of a storm, "Enough."
The magic answered.
The fire hit the Queen like judgment. It wasn't wild—it was precise. It seared through the veil, through the silver crown, through centuries of stolen power—and reduced her to ash before her scream could finish.
The other Circle members broke ranks in panic.
Cassian tore through the last serpent, his muzzle bloodied and eyes glowing. Veylan moved like a shadow-born storm, his blades of darkness severing limbs and curses alike. Together, they cornered the remaining witches.
But it was Wren they feared now.
She stepped into the center of the ruined amphitheater, her boots crushing the scorched bones of monsters, her fire illuminating the Circle's last survivors.
"You bound the Thorned Bride. You fed on her for centuries."
One witch tried to run.
Wren raised her hand.
A column of fire fell from the sky, swallowing him whole.
"You called me a weapon," she said quietly. "You were right. But I choose what I burn."
Another lunged at her with a dagger carved from child-bone.
Wren didn't even blink.
The fire wrapped around the attacker like a cocoon and then vanished—leaving nothing behind but soot.
Veylan moved to her side, panting. "It's done."
Cassian joined them, bruised and bleeding but alive. "Almost."
Wren turned to the cracked stone dais where the Thorned Bride had once been bound. Now it stood empty, but magic still clung to it, thin and sorrowful.
"She's gone," Wren said.
"No," Veylan said. "She's free. You set her free."
Wren closed her eyes.
She could feel it—the change. A shift in the weave of the world. Where once the Bone Circle had drained the old power, now that magic pulsed wild again, rejoining the land.
And in the deep places of the forest, forgotten spirits stirred.
Cassian touched her shoulder. "What happens now?"
She looked up at the smoky sky.
"Now," she whispered, "we build something better. From the ashes."
But even as they stood among the ruins, Wren knew it wasn't over.
Power like hers didn't go unnoticed. The world had watched the fire rise again.
And there would be others who came for it.
For her.
But for the first time, she didn't feel afraid.
Because she wasn't alone.
Because she had burned, and survived.
Because she was no longer the hunted.
She was the flame.