The scent of smoke clung to her skin long before the fire ever reached her.
Aria Valen stood bound to the pyre, the ropes biting into her wrists like a final insult. The crowd below roared for justice, but their eyes—once filled with awe when she healed their dying children—were now alight with hatred. Her white gown, stained with blood and ash, fluttered in the bitter wind as though mourning her before the flames could.
She looked up—not at the banners of the royal house that had sentenced her, not at the priest who read her death sentence from a golden scroll—but at the one person who should have saved her.
"Brother," she whispered.
Prince Cassian stood tall at the edge of the execution platform, his ceremonial armor shining like a mockery of the sun. His expression was unreadable, jaw tight, eyes fixed on a place just past her shoulder. As if he couldn't bear to look her in the eye. As if killing his own sister was just another royal duty.
Aria smiled bitterly. So this was how loyalty ended. Not with a sword to the back, but with silence in the face of your screams.
The priest raised his hand. "Aria Valen, former princess of Arderra, daughter of Queen Elenora, and wielder of forbidden magic—you are hereby sentenced to death by cleansing flame. May the gods have mercy on your soul."
The torch bearer stepped forward. The first tongue of flame kissed the dry wood beneath her feet.
And yet Aria did not scream.
The fire was supposed to hurt. It was supposed to cleanse. But instead, it welcomed her.
A warmth unlike any she'd ever known surged through her chest—not pain, but power. The roaring of the crowd faded, replaced by a sound older than language. A voice that spoke not in words but in heat, in rhythm, in rage.
"You are not done," it said.
"You are mine now."
The world vanished in a burst of light.
---
When Aria opened her eyes again, she was no longer tied to a stake.
She lay in a bed of embers, deep beneath the earth, in a cavern carved from obsidian and fire. Her skin glowed faintly, veins lit with molten gold, and above her—etched into the cavern ceiling—burned a sigil older than the kingdom itself: a phoenix encircled by flame.
Her heartbeat thundered with new strength. Her hands trembled with power not her own.
And in that moment, Aria Valen died.
But something else rose in her place