Ariya stopped trying to fight the chains.
Not because she'd given up — no, never that — but because she had learned something far more dangerous.
The fire was changing.
It no longer roared and burned beneath her skin. It pulsed. It whispered. It listened. Like it had finally stopped seeing her as a vessel… and started recognizing her as its voice.
Each time Ruvan left her in silence, each time she breathed in the cold air of her enchanted cell, she wasn't growing weaker.
She was growing sharper.
Sitting cross-legged in the center of the stone floor, Ariya focused on the mark on her wrist. The flame-shaped symbol glowed faintly — even in the frost-infused chains. But now, when she focused, it did more than glow.
It moved.
Slowly. Subtly. Like a creature stretching after sleep.
She didn't fully understand it. But it was connected to her past — and to something far older than flame or crown. It reacted to her pain. Her anger. Her clarity.
And lately, it had been pulsing strongest whenever he entered the room.
Prince Ruvan.
Sometimes she wondered if the mark hated him. Other times, it felt like it hungered for him. Either way, it flared most violently when he was near.
And yet… he hadn't hurt her again. Not since the battle. Not since she collapsed into his arms, half-conscious and bleeding, and he'd carried her here instead of letting Corven finish what he started.
She didn't know why he spared her.She didn't know why he looked at her the way he did.
But she was done wondering. Done waiting.
Ariya opened her eyes. The room was dim — the magical lanterns barely flickering. But the flame inside her? Brighter than ever.
"I'm not staying," she whispered to herself.
Not here. Not in this place. Not in this lie.
Meanwhile…
Kael stood at the top of the mountain ridge, frost biting at his cloak, eyes locked on the outline of Ruvan's citadel far below.
"She's in there," he muttered.
Behind him, Lyra dropped into a crouch, pulling her hood tighter against the wind. "You think she's still okay?"
"She's Ariya," Kael said simply. "If she's breathing, she's fighting."
Jax popped his head up between them, chewing something that definitely wasn't food. "Sooo, breaking into the most dangerous fortress in the frostlands with zero backup and a ninety-nine percent chance of death. We're definitely doing this, right?"
Kael glanced at him. "You don't have to come."
"Pfft," Jax said, grinning. "And miss the chance to set off an alarm or two? Please."
Lyra rolled her eyes. "We'll need to time it perfectly. Wait for the shift change. Get in, get her, get out."
"And if Ruvan finds us first?" Kael asked.
Lyra shrugged. "We improvise."
Jax held up a hand. "I vote we improvise with explosions."
Kael's jaw tightened. "No. We do this clean. Fast. Quiet."
He looked back at the citadel.
His fist clenched.
"Hold on, Ariya," he whispered. "We're coming."
Inside her cell, Ariya's eyes snapped open again. She felt it.
Them.
Like a ripple in her chest, faint and fast — a bond sharpened by months of survival and something deeper. The people she'd fought beside. Bled beside.
They were near.
Her heart raced.
The chains still held, but the flame inside her stirred like a sleeping dragon.
And this time?
She wouldn't be the one to burn.