Chapter 5

Ember

The fire crackled low in the ruined catherdral, casting flickering shadows across the stone floor. We had made camp in what was once a place of devotion, though to which god or monster, I wasn’t sure. The stained glass had long since shattered, and vines choked the altar like nature had tried to strangle the holiness out of it. I guess that was fitting, considering who I was stuck with.

Orion stretched out on the remains of a pew, arms behind his head, ankles crossed, as if being magically shackled to someone wasn’t a complete violation of personal space and we weren’t in possible mortal danger.

He watched me pace with casual amusement. “If you keep doing that, Flame, you’ii wear a trench into the floor. Then again..” His eyes flicked to my feet, voice dropping just enough to make my pulse misbehave. “Maybe I like watching you burn your path into things.”

“Stop calling me that.” I snapped.

“ I will stop when you stop glowing every time I do it.”

“I’m not glowing.”

He tilted his head. “You’re smoldering then, which is honestly worse for my concentration.”

I ignored him and crossed my arms. “So, what now? We tried the temple, no broken bond or magical solution. Just a bunch of dusty books and a floor that lit up like a cursed bonfire.”

He yawned. “Yeah, good times.”

“Are you taking this seriously at all?”

He sat up, shadows curling around the edges of his frame and looked at me with something too sharp to be called casual. “I’m taking it exactly as seriously as it deserves to be taken. Which, right now, is somewhere between ‘cosmic joke’ and ‘hellfire disaster’”

“Great,” I muttered. “Good to know we’re on the same page.”

“I’m serious, Flame,” he said, and for a heartbeat, the sarcasm fell away. “This bond, whatever it is ,it’s not just bad luck. It’s something bigger than us. Ancient magic is hard to understand at times but it doesn’t make mistakes.”

I dropped down onto the broken steps of the altar, arms hugging my knees. “So she did want us linked.”

Orion hesitated. “I think… she wanted you controlled. And I was just the unlucky bastard in range.”

“Lucky me,” I muttered.

He grinned. “I’d argue you’re the lucky one, actually. You could’ve been bound to someone with less charm and a lot less attractive.”

“You’re exhausting,” I said, but I didn’t look away.

“Yet you keep sitting near me.” His voice was almost a purr. “Starting to enjoy my company, Flame?”

“I’m only sitting here because it’s cold, and you happen to radiate infernal arrogance like body heat.”

Orion pressed a hand to his chest, mock-wounded. “Your compliments are getting sweeter by the hour.”

“Can we focus?” I snapped, trying to hide the way my lips threatened to twitch. “If we can’t break this thing, then we need to figure out what it’s for. What it’s doing to us.”

“It’s doing exactly what old magic does,” he said. “It’s binding two people who shouldn’t be together and forcing them to face everything they’d rather avoid.”

I raised a brow. “You think this is fate?”

“I think fate is a cruel, ironic bastard with a taste for drama,” he said, then shrugged. “But sure. Let’s call it fate.”

I stared into the fire. “So what’s next?”

“There’s a sanctum,” he said. “Beneath the old quarter. Hidden. Warded against her kind. It’s where the Watchers used to meet before Sariyah corrupted everything. If she’s building power again, we’ll find signs there. Maybe even a way to twist the bond into something we can use.”

I gave him a side glance. “Use it how?”

He smirked. “To our advantage. Unless you plan on pouting and fireballing everything until she comes knocking.”

“You’re one smug comment away from a fireball to the face.”

“Please,” he drawled. “You’d never risk marring perfection.”

I stood up, brushing ash off my pants. “Let’s go. The sooner we find this sanctum, the sooner we end this.”

He stood too, stretching like a cat. “You sure you don’t want to linger? Enjoy the ambiance? The collapsed roof, the haunted altar, the charming company…”

“I swear,” I muttered, turning toward the broken archway, “if I have to be tethered to someone, why did it have to be you?”

Behind me, he followed with a chuckle, steps falling into rhythm beside mine.

“I ask myself the same thing every hour, Flame.”

And yet neither of us slowed.

The sanctum was buried beneath the bones of the city, forgotten by everyone except those with the kind of secrets that couldn’t survive the light. And unfortunately for me, Orion had plenty.

We crept through the crumbling streets, past blackened windows and hollow doorways, until he paused in front of a cracked statue of a woman. Her face had eroded over centuries, but the sorrow in her pose still lingered. Head bowed, hands broken. Like she was mourning something even the gods wouldn’t speak of.

Orion ran his fingers along the base, pressing something I couldn’t see. A soft click echoed beneath us. A narrow grate at the statue’s feet slid open, revealing a spiral staircase descending into darkness. Of course.

“Let me guess,” I said, eyeing the pitch-black tunnel. “You just happened to know about the underground nightmare stairs because you’re a walking cliché of shadow and secrets?”

He gave me a grin that was far too satisfied. “I have layers, Flame. You’re just now peeling back the more charming ones.”

“Let’s just get this over with.”

We stepped into the dark, one after the other, and the stone door groaned shut above us. The stairs coiled like a serpent, winding down past dripping walls and moss-covered glyphs. My flames sparked to life along my palm to light the way. Orion’s hand wrapped around my wrist.

“No fire,” he said softly. “Not down here.”

I blinked at him. “Why?”

“The sanctum doesn’t like new magic. It remembers the old bloodlines. Your flames… might trigger something.”

I hesitated. “And your shadows?”

He gave me a wicked smile. “Mine are older than yours, sweetheart. They’ll whisper before they bite.”

The insult lingered in my mouth, but I swallowed it, letting the fire die to embers. His presence beside me grew more distinct in the dark, more felt than seen. The tether between us hummed and radiated a warmth like a cozy blanket. Finally, the stairs ended in a wide chamber carved from obsidian and bone. Ancient runes crawled across the walls like ivy, glowing faintly with crimson light. The air was heavy. Sacred. Wrong.

“Welcome to the old temple of the Watchers,” Orion whispered.

I stepped farther in, boots echoing across the black stone. “What happened to them?”

“Sariyah,” he said simply. “They thought they could contain her. Thought they were powerful enough to control a god.” His voice darkened. “They failed. Some died. The rest vanished.”

“And you?”

He looked at me, shadows dancing behind his eyes. “I was never one of them. But I was… close. Once.”

There was a pause, heavy between us. “Why are we here, Orion?”

“Because this place remembers things,” he said. “And we need answers.”

He led me toward the far end of the chamber, where a stone altar was etched with the shape of a serpent devouring its own tail. The moment we approached, the tether between us pulsed.

I gasped. “Did you feel—?”

“Yeah.” He turned to face me. “It’s reacting to us.”

A sigil on the floor flared to life beneath our feet. Not just any sigil—her mark. The same one that had been burned onto the ground in the square when Bastion was taken. The same one that bound Orion and I together. Gods, I hated that sigil.

“No,” I whispered, stumbling back. “No, no—this is hers. This place isn’t safe.”

Orion caught my wrist. “Wait—listen. That bond we carry? It’s part of her, but it’s also something older. She didn’t make this magic. She just twisted it.”

I stared at him. “So what does that mean?”

“It means…” He hesitated. “It means if we trace it back to the source, we might find a way to sever it. Or control it.”

“You really think this can be turned against her?”

He looked at me—really looked at me—and said, “I think you can.”

The bond sparked between us again. My heart stuttered. I couldn’t describe why his words carried such weight with me. Why I even cared what he thought, but I did. For a second, we didn’t move. Didn’t speak. I was too aware of him. His breath, the tension in his jaw, the way his hand hadn’t let go of mine. Then I yanked my arm back, stepping away. “Fine. But if you start calling me Flame again, I’m setting your coat on fire.”

“I’ve got others,” he said with a shrug. “But if I didn’t annoy you, you might start liking me.”

“I’d rather die.”

He winked. “That’s the spirit.”

We turned to face the altar, shadows swirling around our feet. Whatever came next, it wouldn’t be easy. But for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was walking into the dark alone.

We stood at the edge of the temple ruin, moonlight bleeding through the cracked spires like silver veins. The stone beneath my feet pulsed—an echo I felt in my ribs. I shouldn’t have stepped onto the circle, but something ancient called to me. A whisper. A flame.

“Don’t—” Orion had lunged forward, but it was too late. My foot touched the carved sigil in the center. The ground ignited in a ring of violet fire. I screamed, not from pain, but from the overwhelming sense of recognition. Something inside me cracked wide open. My blood roared like a storm; my skin shimmered with the same strange black fire that danced in Orion’s veins. He caught me, his hands around my wrists, anchoring me. And then… something shifted. The fire spiraled between us, pulling us together in twin coils of energy, shadows and embers entwining like a heartbeat trying to sync. A rush of heat and shadow surged between us. My knees buckled. My vision blurred.

My eyes rolled back and then I saw Sariyah. Not the cold enchantress from my nightmares. She was younger, softer. She was beautiful, but in a more innocent way. Beside her stood a man. He was tall, dark haired with the same smirk I had come to hate on Orion’s lips. It was not Orion, but a soul like his. Shadow-marked and bound. She touched the sigil beneath their feet and spoke a word I did not understand but it felt like it had been carved into my spine since birth. The bond ignited, not from love, but desperation.

“I won’t let them take you” she whispered to the man. “You’re mine, forever.”

His eyes, so similar to Orion’s but not with the same intensity, were filled with grief. “You don’t bind what you love, Sariyah. You trap it.”

She kissed him anyway, even as the bond etched itself in flame into their skin. Twin markings burned across their wrists. A mirror of the mark Orion and I now bore. The he turned to her, he tried to pull away, tried to break the bond. He failed. She destroyed him for it.

I gasped, stumbling back into my body as if surfacing from a lake too deep to imagine. Orion’s arms were around me. His shadows crackled along his skin. My own hands blazed with fire.

Orion’s eyes went wide. “What the hell did you do, Flame?”

I shook my head, breathless. “I don’t know.” But deep down—I did. This wasn’t just magic. This was old. Forbidden. Buried. A piece of something Sariyah had tried to erase.