The wind howled through the scorched Vale of Cinders, carrying the stench of burned steel and blood. Smoke still curled from the battlefield, rising in ghostly tendrils toward the pale morning sky.
Kael stood at the edge of the ridge, the obsidian blade still warm in his hand. His breath came in slow, controlled drags, but inside, a storm raged.
Elara walked up beside him, wiping blood from her cheek with a frayed cloth. "We lost two. Tam and Leif didn't make it out."
Kael closed his eyes. The names hit like stones. "They shouldn't have died for me."
"They didn't," Elara said. "They died for the cause. For all of us."
He didn't answer. His mind replayed the moment Veyra had siphoned his flame. The helplessness. The way it had vanished from his grasp like smoke through fingers.
What if it happened again?
What if he really wasn't worthy?
A sharp crack echoed through the cliffs—Merek and Nyra arriving through the western path, their cloaks battered by wind.
"You survived," Nyra said, relief thinly veiled beneath her usual sternness. "That alone is a victory."
"She was more than a Judge," Kael said. "She stole the flame. Controlled it like it was her own."
"Veyra was once a firebearer herself," Nyra replied. "Before she turned to the Flame Court. That's how she knows what to look for. How to break us."
"She didn't break me," Kael said, voice harder than he intended.
Nyra met his gaze. "No. But she rattled you—and that's a warning. Next time, she won't hold back."
Merek stepped forward, placing a hand on Kael's shoulder. "You did well. You stood your ground. And most importantly, you came back."
Kael nodded, though the weight in his chest didn't lift.
---
Back at Ember Hollow, the dead were honored in silence. Candles were lit in carved alcoves, one for each soul lost. Elara knelt at the shrine, her fingers grazing the flame of Tam's candle.
Kael stood nearby, watching her. She hadn't said much since they returned. None of them had.
"How long were you part of the rebellion?" he asked softly.
She glanced up. "Since I was thirteen. After they took my sister for having ember marks."
"The Court killed her?"
"No. Worse." Elara's voice trembled. "They erased her. Burned her name from the town's records. Made everyone forget she ever lived. My parents included."
Kael's heart twisted. "That's why you fight."
Elara looked at him then, something fragile flickering in her eyes. "Why do you?"
He hesitated. "Because I was born with something I didn't ask for—and I'm tired of being punished for it."
They sat in silence for a moment, candles flickering between them. Then, gently, Elara reached out and touched Kael's wrist—where the charm she gave him still clung.
"Then we fight together," she said.
He nodded, the fire within him answering in kind.
That night, Kael returned to the forge chamber. The flames burned steadily now—not wild, but warm. He sat before them, the obsidian blade across his knees.
He wasn't just a weapon.
He was a firebearer. A phoenix.
And the Court was afraid.
He pressed his palm to the stone and whispered, "You chose me. Why?"
The fire didn't speak—but it pulsed in time with his breath. A quiet reassurance.
He wasn't alone.
Behind him, Nyra's voice echoed from the shadows. "The phoenix doesn't choose lightly."
Kael didn't turn. "I want to know what it wants from me."
She stepped forward. "Maybe not what it wants. But what it remembers. The phoenix is rebirth. You're meant to rise."
Kael stared into the flame, and this time, it stared back.