Chapter Ten – The Fire’s Vow

She was still covered in smoke and every time she closed her eyes, she remembered the knife and how her throat was only a few inches from the blade. It was so brutal like her fire was exploding.

Elara fled before dawn, leaving the academy walls behind. She walked into the remains of the old god's temple lying in ruins, the temple  engulfed in silence and  the stone pillars laid like broken teeth as ivy strangled the carvings.

She stood among the ruins with a heart pounding, and as the cold air biting her lungs then a vision came.

Flame coiled in her veins, a crown of fire pressed heavy against her head. She staggered, clutching a cracked pillar. Her father’s voice echoed faintly. Little flame, don’t let them take you.

But it wasn’t his voice anymore. It was something older. Something divine.

She saw Derek burning alive, Robert bleeding in the dust, and Ariana kneeling while being pulled down by fire chains. The images terrified  her as she screamed.

“No! I won’t be like this!”

The  fire responded by roaring all around her and licking the stones until they glowed like old carvings. She fell  to her knees and tears burned more than her cheeks as the heat poured out of her.

“Not them. Not Robert.”

The fire didn’t care. The vision had been shown. Nobody can outrun fate.

––

Something inside her had shifted after emerging from the ruin at dawn. The fire no longer whispered. It commanded.

––

Elara walked in, her gaze steady, her body still trembling from the night’s visions, she walked into the nosy cafeteria full of students.Robert spotted her from across the hall but stayed where he was with an unreadable face.

Alice didn’t wait. With Evrin at her side, she sauntered over, a goblet of wine glinting in her hand.

“Well, if it isn’t a charity case,” Alice sang. “Heard you almost burned yourself to death. Fitting, really.”

Evrin chuckled, too loud, too eager. “A toast to ashes.”

Before Elara could move, Alice tipped the goblet forward, spilling the Red wine down Elara’s white uniform, staining her chest like blood. Gasps echo through the hall.

Elara froze. The old her might have shrunk, cheeks burning with humiliation. But something ancient rose in her throat.

“Kneel.”

She commands.

 Something strange suddenly happened, Alice laughed, but then her knees gave way and slammed into the stone floor and Evrin fell beside  her eyes wide with fear.

They both trembled, fighting invisible chains. Elara hadn’t touched them. Hadn’t raised a hand. Only spoken.

The hall fell silent. Every student stared.

Alice choked, struggling to lift her head. “What—what are you doing—”

“I said kneel.” Elara’s voice was no louder than before, but it carried weight, divine and merciless.

Alice’s forehead hit the floor. Evrin whimpered, clutching at his throat as though something strangled him.

The silence deepened as the students watched the dynamic power change in front of them, dozens of students sat motionless, their meals unaltered.

 Robert got up with a pale face scraping his chair on the floor.

Derek only smirked from across the hall, his green eyes burning with something darker.

Elara’s fire pulsed beneath her skin, begging to go further. To burn them, to punish them. She forced herself to step back. “Enough.”

The chains broke. Alice collapsed sideways, gasping. Evrin crawled toward the door as her dignity lay in tatters.

Whispers erupted. Fear. Awe. Excitement.

Robert approached her slowly in fear  as though she were a snarled beast. He spoke in a lower but urgent tone.

 "What have you just done?”

Their eyes  met as her own glow faintly. “I made them kneel.”

His jaw tightened. “That wasn’t human.”

––

He walked to the dorm and  slid in to Elara room without knocking, closing the door behind him silently.

"Elara." He spoke rough though like he was begging  "Do not let it carry you."

Sitting at the edge of her bed, she stare at her hands flickered with  flame in the darkness. "This was never my intention.

 The words just came out.

Robert crossed the room, kneeling in front of her. “That’s the point. It’s inside you. It wants to control you. You can’t let it.”

She lifted her gaze, tears shimmering. “What if this is who I am now? Fire doesn’t ask permission to burn.”

His hands trembled as they brushed against hers, not pulling away even when heat licked his skin. “Then let me help you hold it. Don’t lose yourself, Elara. Don’t lose your humanity.”

Her breath caught leaning  closener, and  his voice shaking as his thumb lingered against her palm igniting something fragile and forbidden inside her chest.

Her lips parted, words failing her. For a heartbeat, the world was only them.

The door slammed open.

Derek stepped in, his eyes narrowing at the sight of Robert’s hands on hers. His voice was venom wrapped in silk. “Touching. The noble knight saving the cursed princess.”

Robert stood instantly. “Get out.”

“Or what?” Derek’s smirk widened. “You’ll bleed for her?”

Robert respond with a fist. Cracking Derek’s jaw echoing through the room. Derek staggered, then laughed wiping blood from his lip.

“You hit like a Sinclair.” He swung back, his punch driving Robert into the wall.

Elara shot up, fire flaring in panic. “Stop it!”

Neither listened. Robert lunged, driving his shoulder into Derek, both of them crashing against her desk, splintering wood. Derek’s fist slammed into Robert’s ribs, Robert’s elbow caught Derek’s nose—blood sprayed.

“Both of you—” she screamed, but her words drowned in the sound of fists, of rage, of two men fighting not for survival but for her.

Robert’s face was bloodied, Derek’s grin wild, his knuckles dripping red.

Elara’s fire roared higher, clawing to be unleashed. Her heart pounded with terror, fury, and something far more dangerous.

She was no longer shielded.

Her heart belonged to the fire now.

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