POV: Lyra
The stone burned hotter tonight.
I held it in my hand long after Kairo left, even though my fingers were red and trembling. I didn't know what this thing was — a key, a curse, or a warning — but it pulsed like it had a heartbeat, like it knew me better than I knew myself.
When I finally drifted to sleep, the dream came fast. Violent. Like it had been waiting.
I stood in the center of a scorched battlefield, ash falling like snow around me. The sky was dark red. The earth beneath me cracked and bled with light. And in the distance, flames shaped like wolves ran in circles, howling with voices that didn't sound like wolves at all.
They sounded like screams.
I turned in place, my bare feet sinking into burned soil. Something was coming. I could feel it — fast, ancient, furious.
Then a figure appeared in the fire. No face. No form. Just flame shaped like a woman, her voice a thousand whispers layered in one.
You have forgotten.
"I don't want to forget anymore," I whispered.
Then remember.
The flames reached for me.
I braced myself for the pain, but there was none. Only warmth. Only light. And in that heat, memories began to surface like shadows rising through fog.
A cradle of gold. A mother with eyes like fire. A voice singing in a language I hadn't heard in years. Then screaming. Fire. Steel. And me — smaller, crying, as arms pulled me away from the flames.
They sealed your blood to protect you, the voice said. But the seal is breaking.
I fell to my knees, clutching my chest as a burning pulse rocked through me.
What am I?
You are what they fear. The daughter of fire and blood. The girl who can burn the bond. The one who can destroy the Alpha's hold.
"No," I whispered. "Kairo's not my enemy."
But the fire didn't answer.
Because deep down, I knew what scared me more than the truth.
That I might become the enemy.
I woke up gasping, drenched in sweat. The stone had rolled to the floor. I didn't pick it up.
Instead, I stood in front of the mirror, pulled up the sleeve of my nightshirt, and saw it — faint, glowing just beneath the skin of my upper arm.
The same mark from the dream.
And it was real.
A burn in the shape of flame-wings and a crescent moon.
I traced it with shaking fingers.
It hadn't been there yesterday.
And now it was glowing brighter.
Kairo was right.
Something was waking inside me.
But neither of us were ready for what came next.