They said the fire was meant to purify.
But all I saw was execution disguised as worship.
The courtyard of the Crimson Court was carved into the mountain's heart, an amphitheater of black stone and whispering arches. Torches ringed the pyre — not torches of wood, but silver-braided stands filled with oil so dark it shimmered like blood under the moon. The night was windless. Every flame burned perfectly upright, unmoving, as if afraid to flicker before Marcus.
And at the center —
Liam.
He lay upon the pyre like an offering. His wrists were bound in iron chains. His hair was matted with ash. To them, he was already dead. To me, he was mine.
My bond still pulsed faintly beneath my ribs — the forbidden thread that tethered us. He was quiet, buried deep in that fragile space between life and whatever came next. But I could feel him.
They couldn't.
Marcus stood above us all, high on the obsidian dais. His cloak moved like a living shadow, every motion deliberate, every breath a sentence. He looked neither at me nor at the body on the pyre. His gaze was turned skyward, where the red moon hung low and swollen, as though ready to bleed.
"Tonight," he said, voice soft but heavy, "we cleanse impurity. We unmake betrayal. And we honor the law that binds us all."
The crowd repeated the last word, their voices like a thousand blades scraping stone.
"Law."
Kaylan stood close to the pyre, her armor darkened from battle, her smile feral. "Shall I light it, my lord?"
Marcus's head tilted. "No. Let the one who broke the law finish it."
The crowd stirred. Eyes turned toward me.
Two guards shoved me forward until I stumbled into the ring of torches. The heat licked my skin. I could taste iron on my tongue, the faint echo of Liam's blood.
Kaylan shoved a torch into my hand. "Do it," she sneered. "Let the fire consume the last of your weakness."
I stared at the flames trembling at the torch's edge. My throat burned.
The shadows beneath my skin shifted restlessly. They wanted. They hungered.
Marcus watched me in silence. His eyes were bottomless — patient, cruel, and knowing.
I stepped closer. The torchlight painted Liam's face in gold and crimson. His lips were pale, his chest still. But the bond between us thrummed like a faint heartbeat — his, echoing inside me.
He was alive. Barely.
If I played this wrong, the Court would burn us both.
I raised the torch. Every motion felt like moving through water. The crowd held its breath.
And then, the moment the flame brushed the edge of the pyre — the world changed.
The fire did not roar upward. It shrank.
Folded inward, devoured by shadow.
The air screamed — not with sound, but with pressure, like a great hand gripping the night and wringing it dry.
I stumbled back. The torch disintegrated into smoke in my palm. Black flame — alive, liquid, whispering — coiled around Liam's body, licking up his limbs like serpents made of dusk.
The vampires shouted, some in terror, some in awe. Kaylan drew her blade.
"Witchcraft!" she spat again. "She corrupts even the pyre!"
Marcus did not move. He merely tilted his head, studying the black fire that refused to burn, that consumed light instead of giving it.
And then I heard it — a whisper.
Not from the Court. Not from Marcus.
From the fire itself.
"Aria…"
My name, carried on the crackle of ash and breath. My vision blurred. The shadows at my feet lengthened, reaching toward the pyre like grasping hands.
He was speaking.
Liam. Through the bond. Through death.
"Not yet," I whispered back. "Not yet, my heart."
The flames shuddered. The bond flared so violently my chest arched with the force of it. I dropped to my knees as black tendrils lashed out, curling around the pyre, the torches, even the marble pillars.
Fire bent toward me — literally bent — as though answering my command.
The crowd panicked.
Some screamed. Others ran.
A few — the old ones — stayed still, watching, fascinated by what could not be possible.
Marcus raised his hand. The movement was gentle, almost indulgent. "Do not interfere."
Kaylan's blade halted mid-strike, frozen by his word.
The fire pulsed again, brighter, red inside black, an infernal bloom. Heat licked my cheeks. Tears burned down my face. I felt my shadows merge with the flame — feeding it, twisting it, making it mine.
The fire spoke again, deeper this time, not with words but with memory.
The sound of Liam's heartbeat.
The brush of his hand.
His voice in the dark saying, You're not a monster.
I screamed.
Not in pain — in power.
Every torch exploded, spilling black fire into the courtyard. The crowd scattered. The sky itself seemed to split, and for a heartbeat, I could swear the moon bled.
Liam's body lifted from the pyre, cradled in shadows made of flame.
I rose with him.
Kaylan lunged, shouting, "STOP HER!"
Dozens of guards leapt forward, weapons gleaming.
I turned, and the shadows turned with me.
Flames curved outward like wings — vast, tattered, screaming. They didn't burn me; they sang. They roared through my bones, through every drop of blood that dared still call itself mortal.
I extended my hand.
The fire obeyed.
It struck the first line of guards like lightning — not searing their flesh but erasing it. Their armor turned molten; their screams vanished in smoke.
Kaylan fell back, shielding her face. "She's lost control!"
"No," Marcus said softly. "She's found it."
His voice carried easily even over the chaos. I looked up and met his eyes. He was smiling faintly — not with joy, but with recognition. As though he had expected this. As though he had wanted this.
I realized then that this was no accident.
This was the lesson. The test.
And he was letting me burn his Court alive just to see what I'd become.
The fire cracked again. The air reeked of scorched iron and salt. I turned to Liam, floating above the blackened pyre. His body was limp but his pulse thrummed faintly through our bond, alive in the dark.
I reached for him.
The flames parted.
Marcus spoke again, voice smooth, deliberate. "Where will you go, Aria? Where will you run when every shadow now answers to you?"
I looked down at him, the lord of my nightmares, my maker, my judge.
"Anywhere you can't follow," I said.
The shadows screamed as the fire devoured the last of the torches, plunging the Court into red-black storm.
And then I vanished — swallowed by my own darkness.