Flamebound

CHAPTER ONE – “Flamebound”

The worst thing Rowan Blake could do was draw attention. And yet, somehow, just walking into Arcadia Academy’s gym felt like stepping under a spotlight.

She tugged at her borrowed gym shirt, a size too big and stained from the secondhand box the nurse called “donation wear.” The other girls wore sleek uniforms in deep crimson, the school’s colors stitched in gold thread, gleaming under the overhead lights. She didn’t belong—and they knew it.

“Who let the charity case in?” a voice sneered behind her.

Rowan flinched, turning slightly.

Ember Vire. Tall, blonde, and dragon-blooded. Her cheekbones looked carved from stone, and her molten-orange eyes glowed like embers under a dying sun. Everyone knew her. Daughter of a High Flame Council member. Queen of the fire-born elite. And ruthless to anyone beneath her.

“Maybe she’s the new janitor,” another girl snickered. “Came to mop up our sweat?”

Laughter followed, sharp and pointed.

Rowan said nothing. She never did. It was safer that way—for girls like her. No legacy. No powers. No name. A nobody with a scholarship and secondhand clothes.

Be invisible. Keep your head down. Survive the year. Then disappear.

That was the plan.

But today, invisibility failed her.

“Hey,” Ember said, stepping right into her path. “When someone of fire speaks to you, you bow.”

Rowan didn’t move.

Ember’s eyes narrowed. “I said—” She shoved Rowan hard, catching her off guard.

Rowan stumbled, sneakers skidding on the gym floor. Her palms scraped the ground as she caught herself. More laughter. Cruel. Loud.

“Oops,” Ember smiled. “Did I knock the little human down?”

The laughter rose again. Even the gym walls seemed to echo with it.

Rowan stayed down, breath catching in her throat. Her chest rose and fell, ragged. Her hands stung. But it wasn’t pain that made her eyes blur.

It was something else.

Heat.

Not the kind that came from embarrassment or shame.

This came from deeper—from somewhere buried.

Anger.

A quiet, searing rage that clawed up her spine and curled around her ribs.

Her skin began to prickle, and her fingertips trembled. The air around her shimmered.

“Back off,” she said, voice low, shaking—but steady.

Ember stiffened. “What did you say?”

Rowan stood slowly. Her shoulders square. Her eyes steady.

“I said back. Off.”

The gym seemed to grow still for a breath.

Then everything shattered.

A burst of fire exploded from Rowan’s palms with a loud, cracking pop. It hit Ember square in the chest, launching her into the bleachers with a crash. Flames tore across the gym floor like wild vines, curling up the walls, devouring banners and mats like dry leaves.

Screams erupted. Sprinklers hissed overhead, but the water did nothing. The fire kept climbing, spinning, roaring.

It didn’t burn the walls.

It defied them.

Students scattered. A teacher shouted. Someone pulled the alarm. But in the center of the storm, Rowan stood perfectly still.

The fire didn’t touch her.

It danced around her.

Her hands still burned, glowing orange and blue, yet she felt no pain. Just heat—wild and alive, pulsing through her body like a second heartbeat.

She stared at her palms, dazed.

What… what was this?

This wasn’t human.

This wasn’t supposed to be possible.

Then the pain hit.

It tore through her chest, sharp and splitting. She gasped, dropping to her knees, clutching her ribs as something inside her cracked open—like a faultline giving way to fire.

She was falling—drowning in heat and fear—when a shadow moved through the blaze.

A boy.

He walked through the flames like they were mist. Untouched. Unafraid. The fire parted for him, like it recognized him. Like it bowed to him.

He stopped at her side and knelt down.

His hair was black, wild as smoke in a storm. Golden scales shimmered faintly along his cheekbones, catching the flicker of firelight. His eyes, a deep, burning red, locked onto hers.

Rowan tried to speak, but her voice had vanished. Her thoughts scattered like ash in the wind.

He reached out—stopping just short of touching her.

“You shouldn’t exist,” he said quietly, his voice like rough stone and thunderclouds. “You’re not in any record. You’re not from any line.”

She blinked, chest heaving. “What…?”

He didn’t answer right away. His gaze moved to her hands, still glowing. Flames curled from his knuckles too, but his fire was calm—controlled. Familiar.

The two of them burned in sync.

His voice dropped lower. “And yet,” he said, eyes meeting hers again, “here you are.”

He leaned in just slightly, his words like a secret meant only for her. “Burning like the bloodline you were never meant to have.”

Rowan’s heart skipped.

The fire between them no longer felt dangerous.

It felt… connected.

Their flames pulsed together—his breath, her breath. One rhythm. One heat. As if they shared the same ember, split across two souls.

Then, slowly, he closed his hand, extinguishing the fire around his fingers.

Rowan’s followed, as if it had been waiting for his signal.

Her flames flickered out like a candle finally allowed to rest.

She blinked again, the world tilting slightly beneath her.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Water still poured from the ceiling. Ember groaned somewhere behind them, coughing under scorched bleachers. But Rowan didn’t look back.

Only at him.

“Who… who are you?” she managed.

He stood, his gaze unreadable.

“No one important,” he said. “Yet.”

Then he turned toward the door just as teachers burst in, magic crackling in their hands.

Before he disappeared through the smoke and flickering lights, he glanced over his shoulder one last time.

“But you?” His voice was softer now, almost reverent.

“You just changed everything.”