The footsteps thundered closer.
Halvik froze like prey about to be devoured, his breath catching in his throat. I didn't wait for him to gather courage. I yanked him in by his tunic and slammed the library door shut behind him.
"Where's the closest passage that leads above ground?" I whispered, knife still tight in my palm.
He shook, but pointed. "Behind the oldest shelf—there's a stairwell used by the scribes."
"Is it guarded?"
His silence was answer enough.
I looked back at the altar room where the book sat like a cursed heart still beating. The echo of the vision clung to the edge of my mind: a battlefield of ruin, my face smeared in blood, the world tipping into fire.
The world ends when the Flame chooses wrong.
But I hadn't chosen anything.
They had.
And now they'd chase me through the bones of this ancient place until I was either theirs—or dead.
"Move," I ordered.
Halvik led us past tomes that smelled of dust and decay, the torches sputtering against the stone as if even fire feared this place. We reached the far wall. He shoved a shelf aside—he'd loosened the bolts. Clever. It scraped open to reveal a narrow spiral of stairs vanishing upward into darkness.
"Go," I hissed.
We climbed.
And the shouts began.
Steel on stone. Boots. Voices rising. They'd found the cell. Found the body. And they knew.
She's free.
We climbed faster. My legs screamed. The pain from the carvings along my spine had begun to pulse again. A feverish heat blooming beneath my skin. Something inside me was stirring—and not gently.
When we burst into the upper corridor, Halvik gasped. "This way!"
He led me down a curved hallway—one side open to the cliffs, the other lined with sealed doors carved with gold-rimmed symbols. The temple overlooked the back end of Ethen's Spine. I hadn't realized how far we'd descended underground. From here, the jagged mountain drops loomed like the edge of the world.
They were gaining. I could feel them. Smell the sharp, sick scent of their incense.
We reached the last door.
"It's a supply exit," Halvik said. "Opens to a path down the ridge—"
The door slammed shut before he could finish. A gust of wind howled through the corridor, though nothing moved.
A shadow fell across the floor.
And a figure stepped out of it.
My breath caught.
A woman—cloaked in darkness, her face veiled in black silk embroidered with a golden eye. Her presence was wrong—quiet but suffocating. As if she didn't move through the world, but bent it.
"The flame stirs in you," she said, her voice low and melodic. "Good. It's time."
Halvik backed into the wall, trembling. I pushed him behind me and raised my knife.
Her laughter was soft. "Steel will not help you here."
"What do you want?" I spat.
"To prepare you."
"I'm not yours."
"You were born to us," she said, and her voice was almost…kind. "Not by blood, but by fire. And the world has waited long for you to rise."
I lunged.
Or tried.
My body didn't obey. The moment I stepped forward, my legs locked, my spine flared, and I collapsed to one knee with a scream locked behind my teeth.
The sigil had awakened.
She stepped closer. "The Hollow Order wants control. But control is not the same as understanding."
My vision blurred. My chest heaved.
"Why me?" I hissed. "What is the Sunken Flame?"
Her eyes, though veiled, met mine.
"It's not what you think it is. It's not a weapon." She knelt in front of me, voice like silk wrapping around thorns. "It's a decision. A force of choice. When awakened, it burns through lies, through bloodlines, through kingdoms. It reveals what must fall for something new to rise."
"I didn't ask for this."
"No. But it asked for you." She tilted her head. "The Hollow Order believes if they can bind it, they can use it to break the royal bloodline. To end Delyra's rule and usher in the age of their own god."
My heart stopped.
"The royal bloodline…?"
"Your father's blood is what shields the kingdom from the Flame's awakening. That's why they need you. You are both the shield-breaker and the bearer. And when the time comes, you must choose whether Delyra lives."
I stared at her.
I wanted to scream. Deny it. Tell her she was wrong. That I was just a girl with a sword and a wound that wouldn't close. But deep inside me… I already knew.
Something was waiting to be let out.
"What if I refuse?"
She stood, looking down at me like a priestess before the altar. "Then the world will still burn. Just… not the way it was meant to."
Behind her, the hallway exploded in sound.
Guards. Chanting. The Hollow Order had found us.
Halvik pulled at my arm. "Delbeyrah—run!"
I forced myself up, the pain almost blinding.
The woman didn't stop me. She only stepped back into the shadow that had first birthed her and whispered, "The Ashes remember. And so will you."
She vanished.
I didn't look back.
---
Halvik and I burst through the last door into the cold night. Snow fell from the ridge like ash. The path down was steep—almost vertical. But freedom lived in its peril.
And I was done being a prisoner.
We ran.
---
By the time the temple was lost behind us, and the lights of Ethen's Spine glimmered far below, my mind was on fire with more than just escape.
They want my blood to break the crown.
They think they can use me.
But no one uses fire.
Not for long.