When the light faded, the chamber was silent.
The air shimmered with heat, the kind that lingers long after the flames are gone. Luke blinked through the smoke, coughing, searching for Emma's silhouette. The pool had evaporated into scorched stone. The markings were nothing but black scars.
"Emma?" he croaked, stumbling forward.
A figure moved through the haze — barefoot, steady, her skin faintly glowing beneath a veil of ash. Her hair drifted around her like smoke. The golden and crimson hues still pulsed under her skin, slow, alive.
Emma.
But not entirely.
Her eyes met his, and for a moment, he saw everything — the love that had bound them, the pain that had scarred them, and something ancient behind it all. Something that had watched them both since the night the house first burned.
"Luke," she said softly, her voice carrying both warmth and a subtle echo — Mara's voice entwined with hers. "It's over."
He shook his head. "No… you're— you can't be—"
"I took them both," Emma said, stepping closer. "The fire wanted a soul. It got two — mine and hers. We're not enemies anymore."
Mara's whisper slid through the air like a sigh. We remember now. The fire was never meant to destroy. It was meant to choose.
Luke's throat tightened. "Then… what happens now?"
Emma looked around. The chamber began to crumble, the stones hissing with steam. "The house will die. But it'll take me with it."
"No." Luke grabbed her shoulders, shaking his head fiercely. "We can find a way—"
"There isn't one." Her smile was heartbreak and serenity all at once. "You saved me once before, Luke. Let me save you now."
The ground split with a roar. Fire burst upward, not with rage — but with purpose. It spiraled around Emma, wrapping her in light. Her hair lifted like it was caught in a current, her eyes glowing brighter.
Luke reached for her — but the moment his fingers touched her arm, he saw what she saw.
The fire wasn't just memory. It was balance. Every lie, every act of love, every secret held — all of it had been absorbed by this place, feeding something that shouldn't have existed. Until now.
"Tell me you'll come back," he whispered.
She smiled faintly. "You'll see me… in the light. In the fire. In every reflection that remembers."
Then the fire took her — not violently, but gently, like a wave closing over the shore. The chamber went white.
When the smoke cleared, Luke was alone. The ruins of Ashmere Hill stood silent above him, the night wind cold and clean for the first time in years.
He stumbled outside, falling to his knees in the frost. Behind him, the house groaned — then collapsed in on itself, its final breath carried away in embers that rose into the stars.
And for a heartbeat, in the drifting ash, he saw her — Emma's face, soft and calm, watching him.
Then she was gone.