đ The Night After the Trial
The Firebloom Trials had ended, but no one in the dormitories slept easily.
Especially not Lumiera.
She lay curled on her cot, blanket shoved aside, breath uneven. Her body was still scorched from the golden flames. No one else had ever triggered that reaction â not in decades.
> "Who am I?" she whispered again into the dark.
"Why do I remember dying⊠when I've never even lived?"
She turned over and saw the mark on her arm â faint, but glowing. A petal-shaped rune.
The same one that had flared in the arena.
The same one from the dream.
Her hand trembled.
Then⊠her room grew warm.
Too warm.
---
đ„ The Flame That Whispers
In his chamber, Rael sat cross-legged, shirtless, flame circle burning beneath him.
The reawakening of Lumiera had disturbed the balance â and stirred something inside him. The power locked beneath his bones pulsed now like a second heartbeat.
> "Let me speakâŠ"
The voice was faint, feminine, and ancient.
Rael's jaw clenched. "Velisandre?"
> "You made me a promise," she whispered. "You took my fire and buried me in silence."
> "But now the girl is remembering⊠and so must you."
He gritted his teeth and slammed his palm to the floor. The circle flared â and his inner plane cracked open.
---
đŻ Inner Flame Realm
He fell into a dreamworld of embers.
Everything glowed red and black â ashes falling like snow. In the center stood a woman wrapped in ribbons of flame.
Her eyes opened.
Velisandre.
"Why now?" he asked.
"Because your other half is waking," she said. "The one you couldn't save before. And this time, she might burn you."
Rael swallowed. "You remember Elarys?"
"I remember everything you locked inside me. All the pain. All the power. You thought you could crown yourself without consequence."
She stepped forward, fingers ghosting over his cheek.
> "But fire remembers what flesh forgets."
---
â ïž The Warning
"She's different now," Rael said. "More powerful."
"More dangerous," Velisandre corrected. "She's bonded to you again â but not fully awakened. You have a window to claim her as flamebound⊠or lose her forever."
Rael looked away. "She's not a weapon."
"She's not a memory either," Velisandre hissed. "And this realm doesn't need a boy with guilt. It needs a king with fire in his teeth."
Rael didn't reply.
Velisandre stepped back into the shadows of flame.
> "Choose quickly, Crownless."
"The gods are watching⊠and so is the man who killed you both."
---
đ Meanwhile: Lumiera's Dream
Back in her dorm, Lumiera tossed violently in her sleep.
She was in a throne room.
Marble soaked in blood.
A crown in her hand.
And Rael, standing across from her, eyes glowing â but this time, not with love.
With rage.
> "You let them take me," he growled.
> "I begged them not toâ" she tried.
> "And still you watched," he said. "While they burned me alive."
> "NO!"
She screamed and jolted upright â sweat dripping, chest heaving.
Someone knocked on her door.
> "Luma?" Rael's voice. "Are youâ"
"Go away!"
> "You saw it again, didn't you?"
She froze.
He whispered through the door.
> "We both did."
---
End of Chapter 13