The fire had burned low.
Kael sat alone beside the glowing coals, watching their last tongues of flame sway like dancers in slow agony. The others were asleep even Tareth, slouched awkwardly on his side. Sarya lay not far, arm curled protectively near Liora's tiny frame. The child barely stirred, her chest rising and falling with soft, steady rhythm.
But Kael couldn't sleep.
Not with the girl so close. Not with her warmth still clinging to his skin from where she had touched him.
He closed his eyes.
And the dream took him.
It began in golden fire.
Not the devouring kind. Not the crucible flame of the Order. But something older. A living flame soft, vibrant, sacred. It danced across the walls of a high-vaulted chamber etched in runes. A tower? No a sanctum.
And there she was.
Not Liora.
Her.
The woman from the fractured visions. The one whose name his mind still couldn't reach. She stood before a cradle, one hand resting lightly on the edge, the other trailing a glowing ribbon of fire that floated in the air, illuminating her face.
Eyes like Liora's.
Voice like forgotten music.
"You shouldn't be here," she said without turning.
Kael tried to speak, but no sound escaped. He was a ghost in his own memory.
She turned slowly, solemnly and he saw the sadness in her eyes. The weight of love heavy with inevitable loss.
"I wanted to believe we had more time," she whispered. "But you knew, didn't you? You always knew how this would end."
Kael stepped forward.
Behind her, the child in the cradle glowed faintly — a little girl wrapped in light and embers. Her breath pulsed like flame not breathing air, but memory.
Liora.
Their daughter.
The realization struck Kael like a blade.
"You loved me once," the woman said. "Before the Order caged your soul. Before they cut the truth from your flesh and whispered a new name into your mind."
Her fingers reached toward him but just before they touched, fire engulfed the chamber.
Screams. Steel. Shouting in the halls.
The door burst open. Shadow-robed Inquisitors poured in. Kael turned to fight but his arms wouldn't move.
He watched helplessly as they seized her. He saw the pain in her eyes not from the chains or the fire or the betrayal but from him.
"Kael," she had whispered once. "Not even death could sever the flame between us."
She vanished in flame.
And then,
Another place. Another time.
A small garden hidden behind ruined walls. A child, barely walking, toddled between glowing plants.
Liora.
Her laughter echoed like bells, and there Kael was again, whole and young, kneeling beside her.
"Catch the spark!" she squealed.
A tiny mote of flame flitted before her, and she grabbed at it gleefully.
"You're not supposed to chase fire," Kael said, laughing.
"But the fire wants to play," she said with all the certainty of childhood.
Kael lifted her into his arms and kissed her head.
"We'll always be together," he whispered. "No matter what they say. I'll protect you. I swear it."
And then,
The crucible.
A circle of burning sigils. Kael in chains. Inquisitors around him.
"You will forget," a cold voice intoned. "All that you were. All that you loved."
And Kael, broken and kneeling, sobbed a single name
But the dream blurred it.
The name was torn out.
Burned away.
He woke with a start.
Breath sharp. Sweat cold. Heart pounding like a war drum.
The sky was still dark, starlit and unchanging. But the fire had died completely.
Kael sat upright — and found Liora watching him from across the embers.
She was wide awake.
"I saw you," she whispered.
He stared at her.
"You saw…?"
She nodded slowly. "Before you were broken. Before they took her."
Kael's throat tightened.
"Who was she?"
Liora looked down at her hands. "I don't know her name. But I remember her singing. She used to hum when she brushed my hair."
She looked up at him again, eyes glowing faintly.
"I think you loved her more than anything."
Kael's voice cracked. "And I gave her to them."
Liora reached out across the cold ash and touched his wrist.
"No," she said. "They took her. And you let them. That's not the same."
It wasn't forgiveness.
It wasn't judgment either.
It was truth.
And for the first time since Liora had joined them, Kael felt the hollow part of him stir, the part he had sealed away under years of stolen identity and blood-soaked obedience.
He covered her small hand with his.
"I'm going to find her," he said.
Liora nodded.
"And next time," she whispered, "don't let go."