The scroll lay untouched on Isabella's bed, its wax seal cracked, its contents scorched with a heat that didn't match the room's still air. The words had burned themselves into her memory:
"When two rise, fire and water shall burn the blood that betrayed them."
She had read it over and over, her fingers trembling. Not out of fear — but something else. Something ancient, coiling beneath her skin like a silent wave, waiting to crash.
Down the hall of the Romano estate, the echoes of gunfire practice faded into whispers. Training had ended, but she knew her father was still watching from the shadows — as always. Trust was a foreign language in the Romano family. Even children weren't spared.
---
Meanwhile, across the city at the Russo compound, Adrian stood alone in the basement arena. Shirtless, bruised, and breathing heavily, he stared at the cracked wall before him — the one he had shattered with a single punch.
No normal child could've done that.
He had felt it again.
That thing inside him.
That burn.
He didn't tell anyone. Not even his father. Especially not his father. The last boy who showed signs of "the Gift" had vanished by morning.
Adrian didn't fear death.
He feared becoming something he couldn't control.
---
The next day, the Romano and Russo heirs were dragged once more into the neutral training grounds overseen by The Circle — the elders who kept the bloodlines from annihilating one another.
Their eyes met across the ring.
Adrian's jaw clenched. Isabella's fingers twitched. The scent of danger hung thick, but it wasn't just rivalry anymore.
Something else stirred — tension, recognition, and something neither of them could name.
They lunged.
Adrian's fist met air as Isabella dipped under and struck low. He twisted, reacting faster than he should've been able to, pinning her by the wrist. A flash of warmth surged up his arm — not the warmth of touch, but heat.
Flames flickered at his fingertips.
Real flames.
She gasped.
For a second, time paused.
Then, Adrian yanked his hand back, eyes wide, as the fire disappeared as quickly as it came. Isabella stepped back, her breathing uneven, not from the fight — but from the flicker of light dancing across her vision, just beneath her skin.
A pulse. A whisper.
Like water boiling under her veins.
They didn't say a word.
But they both knew.
---
Camille watched from the edge of the training field, her emerald eyes narrowing.
She'd seen it. Not the fire, not the glow — but the way Adrian looked at her. The Romano girl. The one who should've been dead a long time ago.
Her fists clenched.
She had been by Adrian's side since they were toddlers. She knew his smile. She knew his temper. She knew how to make him laugh — and how to keep him distracted from everything else.
She had plans.
And no half-blood prophecy girl would ruin them.
---
That night, Isabella crept into the library of her estate. The scroll had started glowing — subtly, but unmistakably. The symbols on it now pulsed like a heartbeat. And when she touched them, they burned, not in pain... but in recognition.
There were seven seals on the scroll. Only one had broken.
A warning?
A countdown?
She didn't know.
But someone in her family did. Her grandfather — long buried, once called "The Seer of South Italy." They said he could read shadows like books and silence like sirens.
She'd read his journal once.
Just one line stayed with her:
"When the fire boy meets the water girl, the blood shall boil until the truth rises from ash."
---
Adrian couldn't sleep.
His hand still tingled.
So he climbed out of his window,