Alexandra's POV
Hold your breath. Hold your fear. Hold the fire—until it becomes your wings.
The moment Rae's hand gripped mine, we soared.
The tower crumbled beneath us in a storm of ash and dust, but I didn't look back. There was no point. That place no longer held answers—only echoes. The wind stung my skin, but it wasn't cold. Not anymore. Not with fire beneath my bones.
Rae clung to me, wide-eyed, the city below shrinking into a blur. I could feel her panic, her trust, and I held her tighter.
But then the sky changed.
The air grew heavy.
A shadow fell over us.
I looked up—and saw him.
Lucien.
Wings like torn midnight. Eyes like frozen stars. He didn't flap or glide. He hovered, motionless, as if the world bowed to him, not the wind. His smile was calm. That was the worst part. Like this was exactly how he had planned it.
"Hello again, little queen," he said, his voice like velvet wrapped around a blade.
I stopped flying. My fire wavered.
Rae gasped, holding on tighter.
Lucien floated closer, just out of reach. "You unlocked the first seal. I'm impressed. But it was never meant to be yours alone."
"I didn't do it for you," I spat. "I don't want your war."
He tilted his head. "And yet you wear the crown of flame. You carry the Eye. And the magic sings your name."
"Leave us alone."
Lucien's gaze flicked to Rae, then back to me. "You don't even realize what you're becoming, do you? You think this is power? It's only a fraction."
"I don't care," I said, my voice rising. "You won't control me."
Lucien chuckled. "No, Alexandra. I don't want to control you. I want you to wake up."
Before I could answer, the air around him shimmered—and suddenly we were somewhere else.
The sky was gone. The world was red.
We stood on black stone, surrounded by flames that didn't burn. Rae was gone. The Eye pulsed hot against my chest.
Lucien stood beside me, calm and silent.
"This is the Realm Between," he said. "Where the truth cannot be hidden. Where the past burns forever."
I backed away. "Bring me back."
"No."
He raised his hand—and the flames shifted.
Scenes rose from the fire like ghosts.
My mother. My father. A child—me.
But not the life I remembered.
A different version.
My mother was weeping. My father was screaming. Magic. Blood. Fire.
"You were born in fire," Lucien said. "They tried to smother it. To bury it under a name, a lie, a mask."
"No," I whispered. "My mother loved me."
"She did," he said gently. "That's why she hid the truth. She wanted to protect you from this."
I stared into the fire. And there I saw it.
A woman in white armor, standing in a city of ash.
Eyes gold. Hands blazing.
"Who is she?" I asked.
Lucien smiled.
"You."
The fire roared higher. The vision shifted.
Now I was older. Stronger. Leading armies. Fighting monsters. Ruling.
But alone.
Always alone.
Tears welled in my eyes.
"I didn't ask for this."
"No one ever does," Lucien replied. "But you were made for it. The prophecy wasn't about kings or alphas. It was about her. About you."
I clutched my chest. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because you're running out of time."
He stepped forward, expression deadly serious.
"There's another," he said. "Someone born with a shard of your power. Hidden. Raised as nothing. But they found him first."
"Who?" I asked.
Lucien looked into my eyes. "Your brother."
The fire shattered.
We were falling again.
Back into the sky.
Back into chaos.
And in my ear, Lucien's whisper:
"He will rise to destroy you—unless you find him first."
The air slammed back into my lungs as I fell from the sky and hit the earth hard—rolling across the ground in a blur of dust and fire until everything stopped spinning. Rae's panicked voice pierced through the ringing in my ears.
"Alexandra! You're back! What happened? Where did you go?"
I pushed myself up slowly, chest heaving. My whole body trembled. Not from the fall, but from what I'd just seen. What I'd just learned.
"I… I was with Lucien," I whispered. "He took me somewhere—some kind of in-between realm."
Rae helped me sit upright. "You disappeared. One second you were in the sky and then you were just… gone."
I wiped at the blood trickling from my nose and looked at her with wide, burning eyes. "Rae… he told me something."
Her face tensed. "What?"
"I'm not the only one," I said. "There's another. A boy. A… brother."
She froze. "Your mother never mentioned—"
"She didn't know," I cut in. "Or maybe she did, and she was hiding him like she tried to hide me."
The weight of it hit me all over again. Not just the betrayal or the secrecy—but the fear. If what Lucien said was true, this brother of mine had already been found. Already been turned.
"Lucien said he's being raised to destroy me."
Rae's hand found mine, her grip strong. "Then we find him first."
I looked into her eyes. "And what if it's already too late?"
Rae didn't blink. "Then we stop him anyway."
I felt the fire stir inside me again—hotter this time. Sharper.
Because now this wasn't just about surviving Lucien, or embracing some ancient legacy.
Now it was about saving someone who shared my blood.
Or facing the impossible choice of stopping him.
Even if it meant destroying the last piece of my family left.