Kael's POV She looked like Amara.But she wasn’t Amara—not completely.The woman who stepped from that pillar of flame moved like she remembered humanity, but had left it behind. Her feet didn’t touch the ground so much as command it. Her skin glowed faintly, each breath illuminating the mark over her heart, the one that pulsed in sync with the ruined sky.I wanted to run to her.Instead, I stayed still.Because I saw the hesitation in her eyes. The fear she didn’t want to name.“Kael,” she said, and even her voice had changed—layered, like two versions of her were speaking at once.“Tell me you’re still in there,” I whispered.Her lips trembled. “I don’t know.”The battlefield was silent. Wolves on both sides watched her with a reverence that bordered on worship—or fear. Even Alexander stood frozen, sword lowered, as if he too sensed the shift in the air. The storm had passed, but the aftermath wasn’t peace.It was rebirth.Victor approached slowly, eyeing Amara with a mix of awe an
Amara's POV I didn’t hear the world break.I felt it.The impact of Derrick’s first strike cracked the ground, sent rivers of heat splitting through stone, and pulled screams from the wolves behind us who hadn’t realized they were standing on the edge of annihilation. My feet didn’t move. I held.Because I wasn’t just fighting him.I was fighting what he made me feel.The anger. The betrayal. The hunger to burn back.“You can’t win this,” he called through the smoke and magic. “You don’t know what this power wants from you.”I stepped forward. Fire followed.“I know exactly what it wants.”Derrick launched another pulse of shadow-magic—slick and ancient, wound tight with stolen spirits. I raised both hands and met it with flame, silver and gold bursting from my palms. The collision roared like thunder, rattling the bones of the world.I didn’t care that my skin blistered.Or that every step I took scorched the earth.What I cared about was the way his voice cracked when he tried to s
Amara's POV I didn’t hear the world break.I felt it.The impact of Derrick’s first strike cracked the ground, sent rivers of heat splitting through stone, and pulled screams from the wolves behind us who hadn’t realized they were standing on the edge of annihilation. My feet didn’t move. I held.Because I wasn’t just fighting him.I was fighting what he made me feel.The anger. The betrayal. The hunger to burn back.“You can’t win this,” he called through the smoke and magic. “You don’t know what this power wants from you.”I stepped forward. Fire followed.“I know exactly what it wants.”Derrick launched another pulse of shadow-magic—slick and ancient, wound tight with stolen spirits. I raised both hands and met it with flame, silver and gold bursting from my palms. The collision roared like thunder, rattling the bones of the world.I didn’t care that my skin blistered.Or that every step I took scorched the earth.What I cared about was the way his voice cracked when he tried to s
Kael's POV I felt it the moment she did.The shift in the air. The weight behind Derrick’s stillness. The way his eyes didn’t blaze with rage but gleamed with satisfaction—like a man watching his trap snap closed. It wasn’t the look of someone defending power.It was the look of someone who had already won.Amara froze mid-step.“He’s not afraid of me,” she murmured. “He wanted me to come.”I moved in front of her instinctively, shielding her with my body even though I knew it wouldn’t matter. Whatever Derrick had become wasn’t something I could fight with claws and teeth.“You’re not going to him alone.”“I wasn’t meant to survive this,” she whispered, voice fraying like silk in flame.I turned to her, heart pounding harder than it had even during my fight with my father.“That’s not his choice. And it sure as hell isn’t fate’s.”Victor and Alexander moved to flank us as the wind howled through the valley, carrying with it a thick, metallic stench—blood, magic, and something older.
Amara’s POV The war drums weren’t just sound.They were a heartbeat—rising from the earth, echoing in my bones, vibrating through the soles of my feet like the ground itself had chosen a side.And it wasn’t mine.Kael’s hand gripped mine tightly as we stood in the center of the ruined Vault, surrounded by the remains of the crown and the silence it left behind. My blood still shimmered where the shards had cut me, each drop reflecting a flicker of light that didn’t seem to belong to this world.“I thought breaking the crown would end it,” I whispered.“No.” Kael’s voice was quiet but steady. “It changed it.”Behind us, Alexander moved cautiously through the debris. He picked up a single shard, turning it between his fingers. “The curse was bound to a legacy, not an object. Destroying the crown severed the ritual. It didn’t break the chain.”Victor stood with his arms crossed near the entrance, staring toward the surface like he already saw the fire waiting for us above.“Then how do
Amara's POV Fire always knew its queen.When I lifted the crown from the pedestal, it didn’t burn. It breathed. The metal pulsed in my palm, neither warm nor cold, but alive—like it recognized me. Like it had been waiting for my blood to return and finish what my mother started.Kael watched me silently. His eyes carried the weight of everything we’d survived—his body still bearing the shard’s glow, his soul still reshaping itself around the power he’d taken to save me.He should have been the one to wear the crown.But this fire was mine.“I was born for this,” I whispered.“Or cursed for it,” Victor murmured behind me.Maybe both.The scroll in my other hand trembled. My mother’s words bled across the parchment, reappearing like ink drawn from memory.To break the chain, you must become what they feared.Not a weapon. Not a Luna. Not a daughter.A queen.I turned to Kael.“If I put this on, I might lose who I am.”He stepped closer. “Then remember who you were before anyone told yo