🏛️ The Day of Testing
The air within the Grand Emberium thrummed with power.
Banners of fire-sigil silk hung between obsidian pillars. Golden runes pulsed across the walls, shifting with every student's nervous heartbeat. The annual Firebloom Trials had begun — the rite that ranked mages across the Academy by pure affinity.
> "You'll each step into the Bloom Ring," barked Instructor Varn. "You will not cast. You will not speak. The flames will read you. Judge you. And if you are found false—"
He gestured to the melted wall scars from a previous year. "—you'll remember why fire has no mercy."
Students swallowed hard.
Rael stood at the far back, cloaked in silence. He wasn't here to prove himself.
He was here to watch her.
---
🌸 Lumiera Steps Forward
"Lumiera Veynn," called the instructor.
Snickers rippled through the crowd — a commoner's name.
Luma stepped forward, chin up, jaw tight.
Rael's eyes narrowed. She doesn't even know what's buried inside her yet…
She entered the circle. The sigil on the floor flared red-orange, then pure white — a rare reaction.
Everyone hushed.
The flames spiraled up her legs, around her arms, brushing against her skin like an animal greeting its own. For a moment, it looked like the fire bowed to her.
Then—
The flames turned gold.
The sigil flared.
And the entire chamber went silent.
---
đź’Ą Memory Fragment: A Touch of the Past
Luma blinked — and the world fell away.
She was no longer in the Emberium.
She was in a garden. Moonlight through flame trees. Petals in the air. She was holding someone's hand.
> "You're going to be a Queen," the boy whispered.
> "Only if you promise to be my King," she replied.
She turned to look at him—
But the vision cracked.
Screams.
Fire.
Blood on stone.
She gasped—and the flames around her exploded upward in a vortex.
Students screamed and scrambled back.
Rael didn't move.
---
🌪️ Power Unleashed
Lumiera's hair whipped around her face, eyes wide with firelight. Golden flames danced around her, forming petal-shaped runes no one had seen in centuries.
> "Get her out!" Varn shouted, rushing forward.
Rael stepped into the circle.
"No," he growled. "Let her finish."
"You want her to erupt—"
"I want her to remember."
At Rael's presence, the flames flickered… then calmed.
Luma fell to her knees, panting. Her eyes locked with Rael's.
> "Who am I?" she whispered hoarsely.
---
🌕 Aftermath
The crowd was stunned. The instructor dismissed the others.
Luma stood unsteadily in the corridor, gripping the stone wall, whispering to herself.
Rael approached quietly. "What did you see?"
"I don't know," she said. "But it felt… real. Like I lived it."
"You did," Rael murmured.
She glanced up sharply. "What did you say?"
He offered his hand.
"Walk with me."
She hesitated. Took it.
And behind them, etched into the burned floor of the circle, remained a single golden sigil — the ancient crest of the Flamebound Crown.
---
End of Chapter 12