*****************
They had knelt together in the chapel ruins, blood dripping from their palms into the altar's cracked basin. Dren had smiled faintly through the pain as Naeven whispered, "If the world forgets us, promise me you won't."
He didn't answer with words. He kissed her fingers instead—slow, reverent, and trembling.
*******************
Moonlight pooled across the shattered stones of the cavern, catching the arc of blades mid-air.
Naeven Korven pivoted, fast as smoke, as Kaelen's blade slashed past her throat. The wind shimmered behind her, carrying a scent of fire and ash that didn't belong.
"You're holding back," Kaelen growled, silver armor cracked and scorched from their duel. "Dren didn't train you to be soft."
"I don't answer to Dren anymore," Naeven replied, voice low, threaded with something volatile.
They stood at the lip of a subterranean rift, its depths whispering old prayers and secrets no one dared name. Around them, ancient statues of forgotten saints wept molten tears. The heat was rising.
Caldus Thorne leaned against a pillar nearby, bleeding from a gash in his side. "You're both insane," he hissed. "This isn't training. You're going to kill each other."
Kaelen flicked blood from his blade. "She's hiding something."
"I'm hiding everything," Naeven murmured. And then the fire inside her—whatever force had long been dormant—ignited.
The stone beneath her feet blackened. Her eyes lit with a red-orange gleam, pupils dissolving into flame. Heat erupted in pulses around her, and her voice, once soft, fractured into two tones, one her own and one older—deeper, cracked with rage.
"Kaelen, if you want answers—try surviving them."
Her next strike didn't come from steel. It came from light, a lash of burning energy that sliced the air like a whip. Kaelen barely dodged it, his cloak catching fire.
"What the hell are you?" he spat, scrambling behind a pillar as firestorm after firestorm rained from her hands.
"I was Dren's reckoning," she whispered, voice echoing across stone. "And maybe... still am."
Far above the rift, in Ashengar, Lysara jolted awake from a dream that hadn't belonged to her.
A dream of Naeven. Of fire. Of Dren kneeling in the flames, lips parted in a silent scream as Naeven—tear-streaked and furious—pushed him deeper into the inferno.
She gasped. Blood soaked her palms—her old wounds had reopened in her sleep.
"He dreams through others now," said a voice near the window. Selene's shadow.
"I don't want him in my mind," Lysara muttered, dragging herself upright.
"But he wants you everywhere." Selene stepped into the moonlight. "He's pulling at the threads. All of them."
Back at the rift, Naeven's body hovered above the stones, flames wreathing her limbs. The cave ceiling cracked. Statues melted. Kaelen shielded his eyes.
Caldus moved.
Despite his wound, he limped toward her, golden blood leaking from his torn side.
"Naeven," he called, hoarse. "This... this isn't who you are."
She turned toward him. And for a moment, her fire dimmed.
But then she saw it—his golden veins, pulsing under his skin like rivers of sunlight.
"You're cursed too," she said, something breaking in her tone. "He touched you."
"Dren didn't curse me," Caldus rasped. "The Inquisition did."
She blinked.
And suddenly, she was on the floor, knees hitting stone. The fire extinguished in a gust. Her hands trembled.
Kaelen lowered his weapon.
Caldus approached slowly. "I know what it's like to burn on the inside. You don't have to do it alone."
Naeven didn't meet his eyes. Her voice was a whisper.
"He told me to forget him. Said if I remembered, it would kill me. But I can't stop. I see him in every reflection. I smell him in the smoke. I still hear his voice when I close my eyes."
Caldus crouched beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "What did he mean to you?"
A pause.
Naeven looked up. Her eyes gleamed wet with tears, not fire.
"Everything."
Elsewhere, in a ruined tower overlooking the sea, Dren Talovar stood at a fractured mirror. He traced his fingers over the glass.
"She remembers," he murmured. "Even after the flames."
Behind him, the Raven Prince—Valcian Myrrh—stood with arms crossed, amusement curling across his lips.
"I told you," Valcian purred, "they always come back to the fire."