I did not sleep.
Not truly.
The room they gave me was too large to feel safe and too quiet to feel empty.
The walls were carved from black stone that shimmered faintly like glass beneath dying light. Veins of dark red ran through it, pulsing slowly as if the palace itself possessed a heartbeat buried somewhere deep beneath its foundation.
They had left me alone after guiding me down corridors that twisted in ways that did not make architectural sense. The ceilings stretched impossibly high above me, and the windows did not reveal a sky so much as a moving abyss streaked with crimson light.
This was not a place meant for humans.
And yet, when the door sealed behind me, I did not collapse.
I stood in the center of the room for a long time, listening.
There were no crickets.
No wind brushing against shutters.
No distant village noise.
Only a low, constant hum that seemed to vibrate beneath my ribs.
As if something far below the palace was aware of me.
Watching.
I wrapped my arms around myself, not because I was cold, but because I needed something solid to hold onto.
I should have cried.
I should have screamed until my throat tore itself raw.
Instead, I replayed my father's voice in my mind.
Take her instead.
Not even my name.
Just her.
As if I had always been interchangeable.
I moved toward the window slowly.
The glass was warm beneath my fingertips.
Outside stretched a vast landscape of dark stone plains and jagged cliffs, lit faintly by rivers of glowing red that cut through the earth like open wounds.
This was his world.
Kaelith Voryn.
Even thinking his name felt dangerous.
There was something in the way he looked at me — not with hunger, not with cruelty — but with calculation.
As if I were an equation he had not yet solved.
I did not know if that frightened me more than hatred would have.
A sudden sharp pain shot through my wrist.
I gasped and pulled back my hand.
The mark.
It glowed faintly beneath my skin, the symbol pulsing once before fading again.
It glowed faintly beneath my skin, the symbol pulsing once before fading again.
"I didn't agree to this," I whispered into the silence.
The silence did not answer.
But the hum beneath the palace grew slightly louder.
I staggered back from the window as warmth spread slowly up my arm.
Not painful.
Not yet.
Just present.
It felt like something stretching inside me after a long sleep.
I clenched my fist.
The warmth intensified.
The air around my hand shimmered.
And then—
A flicker.
Small.
Barely visible.
A thread of white light slipped between my fingers before vanishing as quickly as it appeared.
I froze.
My heart began pounding violently.
"No," I breathed.
I shook my hand as if I could throw the sensation away.
But the warmth did not leave.
It settled deeper.
Like an ember tucked beneath my skin.
Footsteps echoed faintly outside my door.
I turned toward it instinctively.
The handle did not move.
No one entered.
But I knew, suddenly and with strange certainty—
He could feel it.
Whatever had just stirred inside me.
He knew.
The thought should have filled me with dread.
Instead, it filled me with something far more dangerous.
I did not want him to see me weak.
I did not want him to think I would break.
I straightened slowly.
If this place intended to swallow me, it would choke first.
The thought startled me.
It did not feel like my own.
I had never been cruel.
Never violent.
Never the kind of person who imagined harm.
But here—
Here something in me was shifting.
I moved toward the bed — an enormous structure carved from dark wood and draped in heavy crimson fabric — and sat carefully at its edge.
The mattress dipped slightly beneath my weight.
It was softer than anything I had ever known.
That alone angered me.
Why should comfort exist here?
Why should he rule in luxury while my family knelt in fear?
My family.
A bitter laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
They were not mine anymore.
They had severed that tie themselves.
Another pulse of warmth spread across my palm.
I looked down slowly.
This time, I did not clench my fist.
I let it happen.
The air above my skin rippled like heat rising from sun-scorched stone.
A thin line of white-gold light formed along my fingertips.
It did not burn me.
It did not hurt.
It felt—
Right.
The flame grew slightly brighter.
Edges deepened into crimson.
I stared at it, mesmerized.
It was not wild.
It did not flicker chaotically like ordinary fire.
It moved slowly.
Deliberately.
As if it were aware.
My breath came shallow.
"If you're going to destroy me," I whispered to the empty room, "do it."
The flame did not lash out.
It did not consume the bed or the curtains or the walls.
It simply hovered.
Waiting.
For what?
For permission?
For anger?
I thought of my sister stepping back.
I thought of my mother refusing to look at me.
I thought of the word instead.
The flame brightened.
The air grew warmer.
The curtains nearest me began to sway though there was no wind.
The stone floor beneath my feet cracked with a sharp, violent sound.
I gasped and pulled my hand back instinctively.
The flame vanished.
The crack remained.
I stared at it.
I had done that.
Me.
Not him.
Not this realm.
Me.
A slow, trembling breath escaped my lungs.
I was not powerless here.
That realization settled over me with frightening clarity.
Perhaps that was why they gave me away.
Not because I was weak.
But because they were afraid of what I might become.
The thought sent a strange thrill through my chest.
Fear and excitement tangled together in a way that made my pulse race.
A knock sounded at the door.
Sharp.
Controlled.
I froze.
"Enter," I said before I could stop myself.
Why had I said that?
The door opened slowly.
He stepped inside.
Kaelith did not look surprised.
He did not look angry.
He simply looked at me.
Then at the crack in the floor.
Then back at me.
"You are adjusting quickly," he said.
His voice was calm, almost conversational.
"I don't have a choice," I replied.
His gaze lingered on my hands.
"You do," he said quietly. "You may collapse. You may rage. You may beg."
"And if I choose none of those?"
His eyes darkened slightly.
"Then you will be… interesting."
The word lingered in the air between us.
Heat flickered faintly along my palm again.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
"What am I?" I asked, the question spilling out before I could stop it.
His expression did not change.
"That," he said slowly, "is what I intend to discover."
I swallowed.
"And if you don't like the answer?"
A pause.
Long.
Measured.
"Then I will end you."
The words should have shattered me.
Instead, they sparked something reckless.
I stepped toward him.
Not close enough to touch.
But close enough that I could feel the controlled power radiating from his body like a contained storm.
"You won't," I said softly.
The torches along the walls flared violently.
His eyes sharpened.
"And why," he asked, voice dropping lower, "would you assume that?"
Because you could have already.
Because you felt it too.
Because something in this realm answered when I arrived.
But I did not say those things.
Instead, I met his gaze.
"Because you don't know what I am yet," I whispered.
Silence fell.
Heavy.
Charged.
For a moment, I thought he might reach for me.
He did not.
He stepped back instead.
Controlled.
Always controlled.
"You will learn restraint," he said.
"I didn't ask for this."
"No," he agreed. "But you will learn."
He turned toward the door.
Before he left, he paused.
Without looking back, he added, "Do not attempt to summon it again without supervision."
Summon.
So he knew.
The door closed behind him.
I stood alone once more.
My hands trembled slightly.
But not from fear.
From anticipation.
I looked down at the crack in the stone again.
It had not repaired itself.
The palace was not healing the damage.
It remained.
Proof.
I crossed the room slowly and knelt beside it, pressing my fingertips lightly against the fracture.
Warm.
The warmth answered me faintly.
Like something waiting beneath the surface.
I exhaled slowly.
They had exiled me.
They had handed me to a monster.
But as I knelt in that silent room of ash and stone, I realized something that sent a shiver down my spine.
Monsters are not born in darkness.
They are shaped by betrayal.
And I had been shaped tonight.
If fire truly lived beneath my skin—
Then I would not waste it trying to escape.
I would learn it.
Control it.
Master it.
And one day—
I would decide who burned