Ember Academy
The flame answered her, somehow, the way it always seemed to, curling brighter for just a moment, and then, without warning, it changed.
The fire stopped being fire and became something else, an image, hanging suspended in the flame's shifting light, and Sera's breath caught hard in her throat. A throne, black stone, half swallowed in shadow. And above it, hovering where a head would rest, a crown, simple, unadorned, made of something that glowed faintly orange, like it was forged from the very fire showing it to her.
"What are you," Sera whispered, and the flame flickered like it was listening, like it understood the question and simply had no way yet to answer it.