Alaric didn't flinch when the lightning struck.
He sat alone in the war room, back straight, fingers steepled beneath his chin. The storm outside roared like a beast denied, but he welcomed it. Thunder had always been more honest than silence.
Across the obsidian table, maps were splayed out like bloodied skins—regions marked in red ink, outposts circled, and rebel territories carved with sharp black strokes. But none of it held his attention.
Not tonight.
Not since that name had returned to him like a blade slipped beneath his ribs.
Selene.
He had heard it before, long ago, in another life he'd locked behind iron doors in his mind. The girl now leading resistance was not just a problem to eliminate. She was a problem he thought he'd buried.
Literally.
He closed his eyes, and for a flicker of a moment, the fire returned—her voice echoing in the chamber where she once stood proud, a crown of moonlight on her brow, her people kneeling before her. Seraphina. That was her name then.
He had ended her.
Watched the light leave her eyes as his blade found her heart.
So why was it back?
Why did Selene sound like thunder beneath his skin?
---
Twelve Years Ago
The prophecy had been written in blood.
The High Seer had whispered it to him under a lunar eclipse, her eyes rolled back and mouth trembling as if possessed.
> "The Queen of Flame shall fall, but not forever. She will rise from ash with a name of the stars. Her blood will stir rebellion. Her soul will remember. And when she returns—she will burn the moon king to dust."
He had laughed then. Arrogance had been his shield.
Until the rebellion had started again, small and sharp, like glass splinters in his kingdom's heel. Until a name began slipping through his spies' reports.
Selene.
Always Selene.
---
Now, twelve years later, Alaric opened a drawer beneath the war table and retrieved the sealed parchment he'd once mocked. The prophecy's ink had faded, but the words screamed louder than ever.
He didn't believe in fate.
But he did believe in war.
And the worst war was one fought against the dead.
---
Present
A knock interrupted his brooding.
He didn't answer.
The door creaked open anyway.
Cassian, his informant and court shadow, stepped in with the reluctance of a man delivering poison.
"My king," he said, voice low. "There's…something you should see."
---
The west wing had been sealed for nearly two decades.
No guards. No servants. No mention of its existence in any public record. The world had moved on—and so had Alaric. Or so he thought.
But now he stood before that locked chamber again, the key he hadn't touched in years digging into his palm.
"This is foolish," he muttered.
Still, he unlocked it.
The door groaned like something alive.
Dust clung to every surface. The air smelled like memories and dried roses. At the far end of the room hung the portrait he'd ordered destroyed.
But someone had kept it.
Her.
Seraphina.
Selene.
Same eyes. Same fire. Same defiance, painted in oil strokes across her old throne. And beside her, Caelum—his most hated enemy. The man she'd trusted more than him.
Alaric stepped forward, rage simmering.
How was it still here?
Then he saw it—tucked beneath the portrait, nearly hidden behind the drapery.
A journal.
He picked it up and flipped through it, every page steeped in memories he'd sworn to kill.
> "I see the hunger in his eyes. It is not love. It is conquest. He will not rest until every light is smothered."
He snapped the book shut.
---
Somewhere deep in his chest, something coiled.
It wasn't guilt.
He'd never regretted claiming her throne.
She was too powerful, too dangerous. Her vision for a peaceful alliance between species would've undone centuries of fear his ancestors had carefully cultivated.
And yet…
Alaric had underestimated the power of memory
. The soul didn't forget its battles—even after death.
Selene was remembering.
That terrified him more than any army ever could.
Alaric slammed the journal onto the table, the sound echoing off stone and steel. Dust bloomed in the air like smoke from an old battlefield.
"She remembers," he muttered. "Gods, she remembers."
He paced the chamber, the hem of his dark coat brushing against the marble floor. His reflection in the glass of the sealed window caught his eye—sharp, hollow, too still. The years had sharpened him like a dagger honed on bone, but even now, there was something softer buried beneath.
Something she used to see.
A mistake.
His hand hovered over the portrait again. Her painted eyes glared at him like they had in life—unyielding, regal. Flames seemed to flicker behind the brush strokes, and for one terrifying breath, he almost believed they could reach through the canvas and sear him.
He tore the drapery over it down, the fabric ripping like a scream.
She was no ghost.
She was fire reborn.
And he'd been too blind to see it coming.
---
Later, in the silence of his private quarters, Alaric stood beneath the moonlight leaking through his cathedral windows.
He didn't pray.
He never had.
But he watched the stars—those same stars that once crowned her hair the night she'd challenged him in court, trembling but unbroken.
He remembered her words from that night. They haunted him now, more than her death ever had.
> "Kill me if you must. But know this—fire always finds a way back to the wind."
He had laughed.
Then.
Now?
He clenched his fists.
Across the room, Cassian shifted, trying not to draw attention. He had known Alaric long enough to sense the mood bleeding through his king's stillness.
"What do you want done?" Cassian asked finally. "She's becoming more than just a nuisance. The people are whispering."
"I know."
"Some of the border towns…" Cassian hesitated. "They've started flying her symbol."
Alaric turned, slow. "Which one?"
Cassian didn't need to answer. They both saw it in their minds: a silver phoenix rising from a bed of thorns.
Selene.
Selene the resurrected. Selene the rebel. Selene the flame.
"She doesn't just want her throne back," Alaric murmured. "She wants justice."
"Then we silence her before she finds it."
"No," Alaric said quietly. "Not yet."
Cassian's brow furrowed. "Why not?"
Because I need to see her, he thought. I need to know what else she remembers. What else is coming.
Alaric spoke instead with the chill of command. "Track her movements. Don't engage yet."
Cassian hesitated. "You're giving her time."
"No," he said coldly. "I'm studying my enemy."
---
That night, Alaric dreamed.
Not of blood. Not of war.
But of her.
In the vision, she stood in a field of violet flame. Her eyes were aflame with sorrow. Her crown was broken, but her spine was straight. She held a blade in one hand and a child in the other.
He stepped toward her.
She didn't flinch.
"I killed you," he said.
She smiled.
"No," she replied. "You created me."
He woke gasping.
The sheets were damp with sweat.
A storm brewed beyond the windows again.