They brought me to the chamber before dawn.
The air tasted like rust and ash — old sacrifices and burnt promises. I could feel the heat even before I stepped inside, the kind that didn't come from torches or coals, but from something deeper, something alive. The stones themselves seemed to breathe, exhaling warmth with every heartbeat.
Seraphina waited at the center.
She stood barefoot on a circle of molten glass, her robes gone, replaced by thin gold threads that clung to her like veins of light. The flames reflected off her skin, and for a moment she didn't look human at all — just flame given shape.
"You came," she said softly, and the way she said it made it sound less like a greeting and more like a victory.
I stopped at the threshold. "Did I really have a choice?"
Her smile deepened. "Choice is a mortal invention. You are something older now."
The chamber filled with the murmurs of her coven. They stood in the shadows, faces half-lit, eyes gleaming like the teeth of predators waiting for blood. Neris, Valor, Mira, Kade — all of them watching, all of them silent.
Seraphina motioned to the circle. "Step into the fire, Liam."
I looked down. The molten lines carved into the floor pulsed faintly, forming the same spiral mark that burned on my wrist. It seemed to move with its own rhythm — a heartbeat that wasn't mine but somehow knew me.
"What happens if I refuse?" I asked.
Seraphina's gaze softened, though there was nothing gentle in it. "Then the fire will eat you from the inside out. It's already begun. You've felt it, haven't you?"
I had. Every breath burned lately, as though I'd swallowed embers. Every heartbeat left a trail of smoke behind it. The flame inside me was growing impatient, restless — hungry.
She extended a hand. "Let me make you whole."
I hesitated for one more heartbeat, then stepped forward.
The moment my foot crossed the boundary, the world changed.
The air thickened; light twisted. The floor beneath me turned liquid and solid all at once, glowing like living metal. I could feel the heat through my bones, pressing into my skin until pain became indistinguishable from light.
Seraphina circled me slowly, her eyes never leaving my face. "This is the Ember Rite," she murmured. "The trial that unbinds the divine from the mortal. You will burn. You will break. And what remains will be truth."
"And if nothing remains?"
She smiled. "Then you were never meant to exist."
The coven began to chant. The words weren't human — I felt them more than I heard them, like vibrations crawling under my skin. The spiral beneath me ignited, and the fire climbed.
I gasped as it reached my knees, my chest, my throat. Every nerve screamed, every muscle trembled. I could smell my own skin burning.
"Breathe," Seraphina said. "Don't fight it."
The heat rose higher. I tried to move, but my body was no longer my own. The flames crawled inside me, burrowing beneath flesh and blood until they reached my heart. Then they stopped.
For a moment, everything went silent.
The fire waited. Watching.
Then it spoke.
Not with words, but with something older — a voice made of instinct, of memory, of hunger. It wanted to consume. To devour everything. To turn the world into light and ash and silence.
I saw flashes — temples burning, children screaming, my own reflection splitting in the flames. A boy holding a wooden sun. A woman's voice whispering my name: Solan.
Seraphina's voice cut through the madness. "Don't hide from it. It's who you are."
"No," I gasped, "I'm not—"
She stepped closer, her hand pressing against my chest. "You are fire's heir. Its will. Its vengeance."
The flames flared violently. My skin split with light.
I felt the fire eating through me, burning away every fragile memory I'd tried to hold onto — my mother's laughter, the farmhouse, the scent of rain after harvest. It all turned to smoke.
And beneath it all, something darker stirred.
A power deeper than the fire itself — not heat, but hunger. It reached outward, grasping for anything it could devour.
Seraphina's eyes widened. "Yes," she breathed. "That's it. Feed it. Let it consume."
But it wasn't listening to her anymore.
The fire surged outward, exploding in every direction. The chanting stopped. I felt the ground shatter beneath my feet, the walls melting into molten stone. The coven fell to their knees as the light swallowed the room whole.
Through the roar, I heard Seraphina's voice, distant but trembling with awe. "My Phoenix."
The world vanished in gold.
...
When I opened my eyes, the world was quiet again.
Smoke drifted lazily through the air, curling around the ruins of what had once been the ritual chamber. The stone floor was cracked and molten, still glowing faintly in places.
I was lying in the center of the spiral. The mark beneath my skin burned brighter than ever — not red, not orange, but gold.
I sat up slowly. My body didn't hurt. It should have — I remembered the burning, the splitting, the screaming. But now I felt… nothing. Just warmth. Just light.
When I looked down at my hands, I saw faint trails of smoke drifting from my skin. The air shimmered where I touched it.
"Liam."
Her voice was soft, fragile in a way I'd never heard it before.
Seraphina knelt beside me, her usually perfect composure cracked by something dangerously close to fear. Her golden eyes scanned me as if I were a miracle she didn't understand.
"You survived."
"Did you doubt I would?" I said, surprised at how calm my voice sounded.
She smiled shakily. "No. But I didn't think you'd take the flame with you."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
She held out her hand, conjuring a flicker of fire — her signature crimson glow. For a heartbeat, it danced between us, beautiful and alive. Then it faltered.
The flame dimmed.
The color drained from it until only smoke remained, curling into nothing.
Seraphina's eyes widened. "You devoured it."
"I didn't do anything."
"You did," she whispered. "You consumed the fire itself."
I blinked, feeling a strange pulse beneath my ribs. The warmth spread outward, rippling through the air — a soft hum that bent the light around us. I realized then what had changed: the fire no longer burned me. I burned it.
Seraphina stared at me like she was seeing the dawn for the first time. "You've become the flame that feeds on other flames," she said in wonder. "A phoenix born from the ashes of all creation."
"Stop," I said quietly. "Don't call me that."
But she only smiled, a dangerous sort of reverence in her eyes. "Phoenix," she whispered again, tasting the word like it was a prayer.
I turned away. The air shimmered where I stepped, heat bleeding from me even though I didn't feel hot. Everything around me was fragile now — the stone cracked under my touch, the torches flickered and died when I walked past.
"Liam," Seraphina called softly. "Look at me."
I did.
Her expression had changed. Gone was the awe — now there was something sharper in its place. Possession. "The world will kneel when it sees you," she said. "They will worship again, as they once did."
I shook my head. "You're still thinking like a priestess."
"I am thinking like the one who raised a god."
"I'm not your god."
She stepped closer, her fingers brushing my cheek. "Then what are you?"
The question lingered. I didn't have an answer.
Because somewhere beneath the fire and the hunger, I could still feel a heartbeat that wasn't mine — faint, but steady. A pulse that came from far away, through the threads of darkness and light that tied me to her.
Aria.
The moment I thought her name, the flames around us trembled.
Seraphina's eyes narrowed. "You feel her still."
"She's alive."
Her lips curved, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. "For now."
I clenched my fists, the gold light flaring around me. "If you've touched her—"
"Oh, my love." Her voice was silk and poison. "You'll see soon enough that she's the only thing standing between you and what you were meant to become. And when the time comes, you'll burn her too."
The air cracked like thunder. Heat surged through me, but I forced it down, the same way I used to steady my breath before battle. "You think I'll be your weapon?"
"You already are," she whispered.
I met her gaze, feeling the fire stir beneath my skin, that new consuming heat ready to devour whatever it touched. "Then maybe you should be careful where you aim me."
For the first time since I'd known her, Seraphina's smile faltered.
The chamber fell silent except for the low hum of power vibrating in the air between us. I turned and walked toward the shattered doors, my steps leaving faint golden prints in the soot.
Behind me, I heard her murmur one last time, barely above a whisper.
"My Phoenix."
I didn't look back.
Outside, the sky was just beginning to lighten — a faint, red-gold dawn bleeding over the horizon. I stood there for a long while, watching the sun rise, and for the first time, the light didn't hurt.
But it didn't feel warm either.
Only empty.