Eira's POV
The sun rose slowly over the forest, brushing the frostbitten world in pale gold. Trees glittered. The ruined stones of Dorvin's Reach shimmered under a thin crust of snow, as if the world itself had momentarily softened in its pursuit of her.
But peace was never real. Only borrowed.
Eira stood at the edge of the clearing, her cloak tight around her shoulders, watching smoke curl from the ashes of last night's fire. The Dreamwalkers were gone. The bond was stable. But something inside her had shifted again — subtly, silently, like a blade turned sideways in the gut.
She no longer dreamed alone.
Kael emerged from the ruins behind her. His footfalls were careful, as though he, too, felt the air was sacred now — heavy with memories, with meaning.
"You didn't sleep," he said.
Eira didn't turn. "Did you?"
"Not really."
A pause.
Then his hand slipped gently into hers, his fingers warm despite the cold.
She let him hold her.
"We need to leave today," she whispered.
"I know."
"South."
He nodded. "The Flame Court."
Kael's POV
The Flame Court had always been a myth to Kael — a place whispered of in old war stories, where fireborn queens had ruled cities of molten glass and magic had poured through the veins of its citizens like living flame.
But to Eira, it wasn't a myth.
It was home.
Or had been, once.
The path southward wound through blackened woods and forgotten watchtowers. They traveled on foot, slow and silent. Their horse had bolted after the Dreamwalker attack, and neither of them had spoken of retrieving it. The bond hummed quietly between them now — a low current, steady, unshaken.
By nightfall, the forest broke into an expanse of scorched stone and brittle grass.
Kael stopped beside Eira, eyes fixed on the horizon.
There, rising from the earth like the bones of a dead god, stood the crumbled remnants of the Flame Court's outer wall — red stone, half-buried, burned black at the tips.
"Gods," he murmured.
Eira's voice was low. "It still remembers."
Eira's POV
The Flame Court ruins were older than the Northern kingdom. Older than most of the world, really. Built in the age of fireborn empires, before laws tried to tame them.
As they entered the archway, Eira could feel the Court's heartbeat beneath the ground. A rhythm. A memory. It didn't speak with words — only with heat.
Kael slowed beside her. "This place is alive."
"It remembers what was taken."
She could still see it — the hallways once lined with molten lanterns, the temples carved from obsidian, the pyres burning for birth and death alike. Her mother's voice echoing in the atrium. Her father's hand tightening around hers during the last purge.
She closed her eyes, swallowing hard.
"I buried them here," she said.
Kael looked at her, surprised. "Your parents?"
She nodded. "There wasn't much left. But fire doesn't forget."
She took his hand again, guided him down a narrow stairway beneath a broken dais. Below, in the ruins of the temple vault, a soft glow pulsed from a cracked seal etched with flame sigils.
She knelt before it, pressing her palm to the stone.
Kael didn't ask what it was.
He waited.
And when the seal gave way with a low hiss of steam, he didn't flinch.
Inside was a chamber of ember-glass and memory.
And in the center, a small, fire-carved chest.
Eira lifted it carefully. "My mother left it for me."
Kael knelt beside her. "What's inside?"
She opened it.
Inside was a pendant — gold and obsidian, shaped like a phoenix in flight. And beneath it, a folded letter. Eira touched the paper with trembling fingers.
"It's still warm," she whispered.
Kael's POV
He couldn't take his eyes off her.
The soft torchlight caught the curve of her cheek, the tear clinging to her lashes, the way her fingers brushed the parchment like it might crumble beneath her grief.
She didn't cry loud.
She just… felt.
And Kael realized then how much she had carried alone. How much she had lost — not just family, not just safety — but a whole kingdom. A culture. A history they tried to burn away.
And yet she remained.
He reached forward and brushed a thumb across her cheek.
Her gaze lifted to his.
"You're still standing," he said.
"Only because I stopped trying to run."
She leaned into him then — not for passion, but for presence. Her head found his chest. His arms wrapped around her, slow and protective.
They stayed that way for a long time.
Two hearts in a tomb of fire.
Eira's POV
That night, they found shelter in one of the temple's upper chambers. The roof had collapsed, but it blocked most of the wind. Kael built a fire from dried moss and fallen beams. She watched him from the edge of the bedroll, hands tucked beneath her cloak.
"Do you ever wonder what would've happened if you hadn't followed me?" she asked.
He looked up. "Yes."
"And?"
"I'd still be cold," he said. "And alone."
She smiled.
He stood, dusted off his hands, and crossed to her. "Do you regret it?"
"The bond?" she asked.
"No. Me."
She stared up at him, the fire flickering between them.
"I think," she said slowly, "that I was always going to burn."
She reached up, brushed a hand against his jaw. "You just gave me something to burn for."
Kael's POV
He kissed her.
Not out of lust. Not out of urgency.
But because she'd given him the most dangerous thing of all — a reason to hope.
Their mouths met gently. His hands cupped her waist, slid beneath her cloak. She gasped softly as his lips found the hollow of her throat, then her collarbone, then lower.
Her body trembled under his touch, but not from cold.
When she pushed the cloak from her shoulders, he moved with reverence. He lowered her to the bedroll, kissed her slowly, like there was no war outside, no kingdom hunting them, no fate demanding pain.
Only her.
Only this.
And when they moved together, it wasn't just physical.
It was worship.
A slow, sacred communion of skin and soul, flame and frost, whispered names and trembling breaths.
They didn't speak after.
Words would have broken it.
Instead, he pulled her into his arms, tucked her close.
And she slept in the ruins of her past.
Safe in the arms of her future.