The sky above Solarae sat like a lid on a boiling pot. Low, colorless, and heavy with heat that didn’t feel like heat at all. It didn't burn the way a fire did, but it also didn’t feel like the warm embrace of sunlight. It was the kind of heat that came from years of ritual and rule, from stone that had absorbed too much blood and memory to even cool off. There was no wind around the capital that morning, no birds singing, only the dull hush of expectation rolling down the marbled avenues. The air tasted like soot and strong incense. Not the sweet kind which you burned in temples, but something bitter, metallic, the scent of a city trying too hard to appear divine and wise. Like a facade which was trying to be kept up for centuries, but was long gone.

  Kaelra Morwyn stood at the edge of the Plaza of Embers with her rifle strapped across her back, the leather sling digging painfully into the muscle right above her shoulder. Sweat dripped under her armor, sticky and slow. She held herself upright despite the discomfort she was in. Spine straight, chin high, exactly as she'd been trained for years. Eyes forward. Though hers struggled and flicked now and then toward the gathering in the center tier, where Solarae's finest had begun to take their seats. Noble bloodlines draped in red-and-gold ceremonial robes shifted behind fans and jeweled collars, their gazes sharp and calculated even in leisure. Kaelra knew they weren't looking at the guards. Not really. They didn't see the rows of black-armored soldiers lining the edges of the plaza. They saw structure. Control. Reassurance that the Rite would proceed without any interruption. Kaelra was part of that illusion. The illusion which was created and never faltered for years.

  She was only a figure with a weapon and a name no one would even remember unless something went wrong. She knew how the Imperium worked. And she didn't believe in it. But she needed to make it worthwhile, so that she can continue on with her own plan. Only a little bit more time…

  The Plaza of Embers had the look of something cracked open and burning from within. A vast amphitheater sunken into the earth like the imprint of some long-fallen god. Its tiered stone rings descended in wide curves toward a dais of black basalt, and every surface was carved with runes that vibrated faintly with power. Some glowed like embers and others flickered as if trying to relight their own glow. All of the runes were older than most bloodlines in the entire empire.

  At the center of the dais stood the Ashborne Altar, charred, uneven, ringed in braziers, its top polished from the centuries of use and tear. And above it all, untouched by structure, hovered the Ashborne Flame.

  It was not the fire as most knew it.

  It floated midair right above the altar, a coil of blue-white light, and looked more like a thought than something that would burn you when you touched it. No smoke escaped from it. No crackle could be heard accompanied by its motion. But it pulsed. Slowly. Deliberately. And Kaelra could feel it right in the back of her mind.

  She hated being in Solarae. Hated the sound of gold-plated boots clicking against stone. Hated the symmetry of a city built to impress gods it no longer prayed to. Hated that she, of all people, had been reassigned to ceremonial guard duty on the most sacred day in a hundred years. This polished city just wasn’t for her. She wasn't born for this stage. She was borderborn, battle-trained, frostbitten from years of trying to survive in the north. She had fought off raiders in the dead of winter with nothing but a dull blade and broken ribs. She'd stood alone on watchtowers that cracked the ice under her. Those moments had taught her something about survival. About strength. But that kind of knowledge wasn't welcome here, among men and women who thought danger wore crowns and sat behind council tables.

  She didn't know who had pulled the strings to get her posted here. She hadn't asked. Maybe it was a clerical error? Maybe it was a test? Maybe it didn't matter? Probably. Orders were orders and in the Imperium, disobedience got you branded long before it got you buried.

  So she stood her ground, ignored the sweat rolling down her temple, and kept her eyes fixed ahead, not letting herself get lost in her own thoughts.

  To her left, her captain murmured, "Shift your stance. You're bending over." Kaelra inhaled, slow and sharp, but adjusted her weight without comment. She knew better than to argue. Not when he hadn't corrected any of the city-born soldiers, even the one two rows down who'd been trembling since dawn. She could beat any of them. Outlast them. But that wasn't what got you noticed in Solarae. Here, blood mattered more than bone.

  A bell rang.

  The ceremony was beginning.

  A priest emerged from behind the altar, his robe was a layered cascade of red, orange, and gold stitched to resemble tongues of a flame. He moved with the pace of ritual, arms high, voice magnified by his own spellwork as he spoke to the waiting masses. "Thirteen bloodlines have offered their strength," he called, his voice rising like smoke. "Thirteen hearts, forged in legacy. Today, one shall be chosen. One shall be Ashbound."

  The hush that followed was absolute. Even the banners above the plaza seemed to still, frozen midair as if held by invisible hands. The flame above the altar pulsed once, faintly, like a creature waking from a long sleep. Kaelra found herself staring too long. She forced her gaze back down and forward again.

  The first candidate stepped forward.

  He was exactly what she expected. Tall, broad, draped in crimson robes which were so richly embroidered that they shimmered in the low light of the rising sun. His boots didn't scuff the stone. His posture didn't falter. Looking at his expression, it said that he had spent his life preparing for this single moment. A priest handed him the ritual blade. It was slender, curved, made of black obsidian veined with something that shimmered like thick oil. Without a pause, he sliced his palm. Blood poured out slowly and dripped onto the stone below. Kaelra's eyes shifted back toward the flame, curious what it had to say.

  It moved. Just a little. Just enough.

  A ribbon of white light escaped from the sphere above the altar, drifting down. It hovered above the offered blood, pulsing, as though listening to something beneath the surface, deciding.

  Then, like a movement reversed itself, it withdrew. The candidate blinked, surprised. He did not flinch. But his hand lowered just a fraction too quickly as he stepped back into line. This was not how he envisioned it. He was…

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  Rejected.

  The second candidate stepped forward...

  Then the third...

  Each one of them repeated the ritual. Cutting their palm, offering their blood, waiting for the flame. Each time, the flame examined them, hesitated, and ultimately recoiled. And with each rejection, Kaelra felt something in the plaza shift. The crowd, silent but no longer calm, some even panicking. The priests, tense in their postures. The candidates, less certain in their movements. The flame, no longer passive. It snapped tighter with each dismissal, its edges growing sharper, its motion quicker, like something restrained that didn't like being forced to wait. Kaelra narrowed her eyes. The air felt different now.

  Too heavy.

  Charged.

  The scent of the incense in the air had turned sour, and though the stone beneath her boots hadn't moved, she could feel a hum beneath it. Barely there. But there, if you concentrated on it.

  She exhaled, steady and trying to keep herself calm. Whatever was happening, it wasn't going to follow the script of the ritual. The Ashborne Flame responded to the first offering with a shift so subtle, Kaelra might have missed it if she hadn't been staring. But now, it started to become more and more concerning as you couldn’t see it as a coincidence anymore.

  Kaelra didn't know what to make of it. She didn't believe in the old stories. Didn't believe in spirits that chose favorites or flames that thought. She'd spent her life surviving the cold, not listening to it. But there was something about the way the flame recoiled…like it was offended. Like it was looking for someone or something and getting angrier each time it didn't find them.

  By the sixth candidate, the noble tiers had begun to murmur behind their silk fans and armored sleeves.

  By the eighth, priests were exchanging glances they weren’t able to disguise anymore.

  By the tenth, Kaelra's fingers twitched against the side of her thigh, her whole body humming with a pressure that didn't come from her nerves. It came from the air itself. It was charged, unsettled, alive. She swallowed hard, her throat dry, and didn't dare look away from the scene.

  The twelfth candidate was rejected with a snap of light that hissed against the stones of the altar. Not loud. Not dangerous. But final. Only one candidate remained. One last hope. The final candidate rose from her place with the slow and deliberate grace of someone who has never rushed a day in her life. She was young, no older than Kaelra, but she carried herself like a woman born from a prophecy. Something about her was just…different. Her copper hair had been woven into the triple spiral of the eastern Ardent Houses, each strand dusted in fine gold powder. Her robe shimmered like embers, and the runes stitched across the hem of her robe glowed faintly with fire. Everything about her posture screamed certainty. Not arrogance. Expectation. She was certain that things will be going her way and that she was the true Ashbound.

  Kaelra didn't blink as the priest offered the blade. Her eyes fixed on the girl. The girl took it without hesitation and drew it across her palm. She let the blood fall. And waited… The Ashborne Flame flickered. Not forward. Not upward. It blinked. And then it was… Gone.

  A tense silence pressed down across the plaza like a hammer. For half a heartbeat, Kaelra thought she'd only imagined it. But by the looks on the candidates' faces, she realized that it wasn’t just her imagination. So did the wide-eyed disciple of the nearest priest, who staggered back two steps, robes brushing the altar like he'd forgotten it could touch and hurt him. The nobles stood, scared. Someone cried out. Another shouted in panic. The flame, the ancient, eternal flame, was gone and no one knew why.

  Kaelra felt the void like a weight lifted from her chest. But it wasn't in relief. It was the kind of emptiness that follows an unforeseen event. The kind that exists in the breath right before something falls apart.

  Then came the pulse. It wasn't a sound, exactly, but rather a vibration. A pressure that rolled through the stone beneath her boots, up through her legs, right into her ribs. Her lungs seized like she'd taken a hit. Her heart raced against its rhythm. All around her, soldiers shifted, unbalanced by something they couldn't name. Kaelra's knees buckled, but she caught herself with one foot back, breathing shallow, sweat suddenly turning cold.

  She turned her head, looking right behind her. And then the world caught fire. Not the altar. The flame had risen from the ground behind her, erupting like a geyser of light. Brilliant, wild, alive in a way that defied every law she understood or even dared to understand. It didn't burst. It ascended, a flash of blue-white energy that floated right above her head in a spiral that pulsed with thought. She couldn't move. Couldn't blink. All she could do is stare right at it.

  The flame didn't touch her body, but she felt it inside her bones, wrapping around her spine like it had always been there, waiting, just for her.

  Gasps spread through the plaza like a plague. People screamed out of fear. A few priests dropped to their knees. Weapons were drawn but not raised, just held in case of the flame trying to hurt them. But it was useless. No one could aim at what they didn't understand and no one could destroy something, when they didn’t know how.

  Kaelra stood in the eye of it all, motionless, scared for her life. The fire surrounded her. Cradled her. It should have burned her, but it didn't. There was no heat, not the way she knew it. Instead, it was like being submerged in a long gone memory. A pressure behind her eyes. A whisper beneath her skin. And then it spoke. Not out loud. Not in the echoing chants of the priests. But in her blood.

  You will burn.

  Kaelra's throat tightened. She couldn't scream.

  You will rise.

  Images slammed into her vision. She saw mountains she'd never climbed, a river stained red, a sword in her hand shaped like no weapon she'd ever held. A battlefield at dusk. Her own voice shouting words she hadn't learned yet. Her face, older and war-worn, angry, defiant. Everything was coming back to her in small fragments, but she didn’t yet understand it.

  You will carry the fire.

  The light brightened around her and swallowed her until the edges of the world she knew peeled away. Her knees struck the stone underneath her. Her body bowed forward. Something finally cracked open inside her. And then...

  Only white.