As the bird's feet hit the obsidian ground with a soft crunch. Immense heat radiated from the environment in pulses, as if the mountain itself still breathed beneath their feet.
But even the molten breath of Mount Blanc wasn't enough to distract him.
His gaze remained fixed on the woman before them.
The Firebird.
Or rather… the woman who had been the Firebird.
She looked human.
That was what unsettled him.
If not for the crimson irises—slit like a hawk's—and the faint shimmer of heat distorting the air around her, Alex would've mistaken her for an ordinary human. No wings, no tail, no flame-etched feathers trailing behind her. Just a barefoot woman in the center of a molten arena, wearing a flowing red gown, wrapped in power like a second skin.
