Alina couldn't sleep.
She found herself drawn to the medical room more often than she wanted to admit. The boy, whose name was Kai, was healing fast—faster than any of them expected. But it wasn't just his wounds that intrigued her. It was the way he looked at her. As if he already knew her somehow.
One morning, while helping him sit up, he smiled.
"You're stronger than most of the fighters I've met," he said.
She smirked. "You've been unconscious for two days. Don't go judging people just yet."
They laughed, and for a moment, the darkness outside the village faded.
Over the next few days, Kai told her more about The Flameborn. How they were raised in chaos. How he ran away from them when he realized the truth. How he had been hunted since.
But it wasn't the horror in his stories that stayed with her—it was his honesty, his courage, and the way he looked at her like she wasn't just a survivor, but a spark in the middle of all this ash.
One night, after a council meeting ended in more panic and no solutions, Alina stormed out. Kai followed her into the woods.