Kira's POV
I wake up screaming.
The vines are gone, but I can still feel them—burning like fire around my wrists, pulling me into darkness. My whole body aches like I've been struck by lightning.
"Kira! Breathe!" Tuk's voice cuts through the panic.
I gasp and open my eyes. I'm back in our camp. Mom hovers over me, her hands checking for injuries. Dad kneels beside her, his face tight with worry. Lo'ak and Spider stand guard with weapons ready.
"What happened?" My voice comes out hoarse.
"You collapsed," Dad says. "The vines pulled you across the border, then vanished. You've been unconscious for hours."
Hours? It felt like seconds.
"The Ash warriors?" I ask.
"Gone. They left when you fell." Dad's jaw clenches. "But they'll be back. That wasn't a random patrol. They were looking for us."
Mom touches my face gently. "What did Eywa show you, daughter?"
I close my eyes, remembering. The golden-eyed prince. The way looking at him felt like touching fire. The impossible pull between us.
"Him," I whisper. "She showed me him."
Before anyone can ask more, Tuk grabs my arm. "Kira, look at your hands."
I lift them and gasp.
My palms are marked with glowing orange lines, just like the Ash People. Like lava veins under my skin. They pulse with heat.
"That's not possible," Mom breathes.
But it is possible. Because Eywa did this. Marked me. Changed me.
"We're leaving," Dad says firmly. "This was a mistake. We'll find another way—"
"They're coming back," Spider interrupts, pointing toward the horizon.
My heart stops.
An army emerges from the volcanic wasteland. Not a dozen warriors this time. A hundred. Maybe more. They ride direhorses bred for heat and ash, moving in perfect formation like they've trained for war their entire lives.
And at the front rides him. The prince.
Even from a distance, I know it's him. I can feel him, like a second heartbeat in my chest.
"Everyone stay calm," Dad orders. "Let me do the talking."
But I can't stay calm. Because as the army gets closer, Eywa's voice explodes back into my head—louder than it's ever been, so loud it feels like my skull might crack open:
"FLAME. FORSAKEN. CHOOSE. THE SEED MEETS THE FIRE. DO NOT RUN."
I stumble to my feet despite Mom trying to hold me back. My freckles blaze so bright they hurt. The orange marks on my palms burn hotter.
The army surrounds our camp in seconds. A circle of warriors with weapons ready, eyes glowing like coals, beautiful and terrifying and completely in control.
Then he rides forward, and the world stops.
Up close, he's even more overwhelming than my vision showed. Taller than Dad. Broader. Skin like gray stone crossed with rivers of liquid gold. Hair black as volcanic glass, tied back from a face that's all sharp angles and hard edges. And those eyes—burning gold, furious and confused and locked onto me like I'm the only person who exists.
He climbs off his direhorse with fluid grace, every movement speaking of power barely contained.
"Forest people." His voice is deep, rough, like grinding stones. "You camp at our border without permission. You bring strange magic to lands where Eywa does not speak. Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you all right now."
Dad steps forward, hands raised in peace. "I'm Jake Sully. We received word that your people offered sanctuary—"
"That message was sent to clan leaders for peace talks. Not to refugees running from Sky People." The prince's eyes narrow. "You've brought trouble to our doorstep."
"We're not trouble," Lo'ak snaps. "We're survivors."
The prince's gaze slides to Lo'ak, cold and assessing. "Survivors don't last long in the Ashlands, forest boy."
"Then maybe—" Lo'ak starts.
"Enough." The single word from the prince silences everyone. His attention returns to Dad. "I am Vaelor te Mangkwan Ash'kaar, Crown Prince of the Ash People. I will escort you to our king. He will decide if you live or die."
Then his eyes find mine, and something electric passes between us.
I can't breathe. Can't think. Every instinct screams at me to run toward him and away from him at the same time.
"And you." Vaelor's voice drops lower. "What are you?"
Before I can answer, my legs give out. Not from fear—from power. Eywa's presence floods through me so strong I can't stand under the weight of it.
I hit my knees hard on the volcanic rock.
Vaelor moves instantly, crossing the distance between us before anyone can react. He grabs my arm to steady me, and the moment his skin touches mine, the world explodes.
Fire. Light. Power. Pain.
Eywa's voice doesn't whisper now—it SCREAMS:
"FLAME! FORSAKEN! THESE TWO WERE MADE TO BURN TOGETHER! CHOOSE! CHOOSE! CHOOSE!"
And I hear something else—impossible but real—Vaelor's thoughts bleeding into mine through our touching hands:
What is she? Why does she feel like coming home and burning alive at the same time? Why can't I let go?
The volcanic rocks beneath us crack open. Not with lava, but with vines—glowing green and silver, Eywa's sacred plants growing in soil where nothing should grow.
The Ash warriors gasp. Someone shouts in fear. Weapons raise.
But Vaelor doesn't let go of me. We're locked together, staring at each other while impossible things happen around us.
"What are you doing to me?" he demands, but his voice shakes.
"I don't know," I whisper. "But Eywa says... she says we're supposed to—"
"Stop." He releases me like I burned him and stumbles backward. The vines stop growing instantly. The moment our connection breaks, I feel a terrible emptiness, like losing half my soul.
Vaelor's face has gone pale beneath the gray. His hands shake. His warriors stare at him with shock—clearly, this is not normal prince behavior.
"Bind her," he orders roughly. "She's dangerous."
"No!" Dad lunges forward, but twenty warriors block his path.
"You don't understand," I try to explain, even as warriors grab my arms. "Eywa sent me here for a reason—"
"Eywa does not speak in the Ashlands," Vaelor snarls, but his eyes betray him. He felt everything I felt. He knows something impossible just happened.
A warrior binds my wrists. The rope burns against the orange marks on my palms.
Mom is shouting. Tuk is crying. Lo'ak is fighting guards who easily overpower him.
But I keep my eyes on Vaelor, pleading silently for him to understand.
He turns away from me, his broad shoulders tense. When he speaks again, his voice is cold. Commander voice. Prince voice.
"Take them all to the Citadel. The king will see them at sunset." He pauses, then adds without looking at me: "Keep the girl separated. She's too dangerous to remain with her family."
"What?" Dad roars. "You can't—"
"I can do anything I want, forest man. This is my land. My law." Finally, Vaelor glances back at me, and the pain in his golden eyes nearly breaks me. "She comes with me. Alone."
Terror and something else—something warm and terrifying—floods through me.
Mom struggles against the warriors holding her. "If you hurt my daughter—"
"I won't hurt her." Vaelor's jaw clenches. "But I will find out what she is. And if she's a threat to my people, I will kill her myself."
He stalks toward me and pulls me to my feet, his hand burning hot even through my sleeve.
"Come, forest girl. Let's see if your goddess can protect you in the heart of the fire."
As warriors separate me from my family—Tuk screaming, Mom fighting, Dad shouting threats—Vaelor leans close enough that only I can hear.
"Why?" His voice cracks with desperate confusion. "Why do you feel like the answer to a question I've been asking my entire life?"
I meet his burning eyes. "Because maybe you are the question I've been trying to understand."
Something shifts in his expression. Fear. Wonder. Recognition.
Then he straightens and his mask slams back into place.
"Move," he orders.
As I'm dragged away from my family toward an army of warriors who worship fire instead of the Great Mother, toward a prince who makes my heart race and my soul burn, I hear Eywa's whisper one last time:
"The seed has been planted in the forsaken soil. Now we wait to see if it blooms... or if the fire consumes it first."
And looking back at Vaelor's rigid, conflicted form, I realize the terrible truth:
He's not just the flame I was sent to find.
He's the flame that might destroy me.