Zara's POV
I wake up choking on smoke.
No. Not smoke. Fire. Actual fire pouring down my throat, into my lungs, burning through my veins like liquid metal.
"Stop fighting it," a voice commands. Ashram's voice. "The bond is trying to stabilize. Let it."
"It hurts!" I gasp.
"Everything worth having hurts."
I force my eyes open. We're not in the temple anymore. We're in ruins—old stone walls crumbling under a starry sky. How did we get here?
Ashram crouches nearby, watching me with those impossible gold eyes. "I transported us. Fire travel. We're twenty miles from the temple now."
Twenty miles. In an instant. My brain can't process that.
"The guards?" I manage to ask.
"Still searching the rubble. They think you died in the collapse." He tilts his head. "They'll realize their mistake soon enough."
I try to sit up. My body screams in protest. Every muscle feels like it's been torn apart and put back together wrong. The brand over my heart burns with every breath.
"Why does it hurt so much?"
"Because you're dying." Ashram says it like he's commenting on the weather. "The bond is trying to anchor my power to your life force, but you barely have any life force left. You're dehydrated, starving, exhausted. The ritual is draining what little energy you have."
"Then break it!" I yell. "Break the bond! I didn't ask for this!"
"I can't." His voice is sharp. Cold. "Only death breaks an Ember Bearer bond. Your death or mine. Those are the only options."
I want to scream. Want to cry. Want to hit something. Instead, I just laugh. It sounds crazy even to me.
"So let me get this straight," I say. "I escaped execution, walked through a desert that should have killed me, accidentally freed a fire spirit, and now I'm going to die anyway because his magic is eating me alive?"
"Essentially, yes."
"That's just perfect." I laugh harder, and now I'm definitely crying too. "That's just absolutely perfect! Even when I try to die on my own terms, the universe says no!"
Ashram stands. Flames dance along his arms, reflecting his irritation. "Stop your hysterics. You're not dead yet."
"Give it an hour!"
"I don't have an hour." He turns those burning eyes on me. "If you die, I go back into that prison. Three hundred more years of torture. Of being drained. Of screaming in the dark while they steal pieces of my soul."
The rawness in his voice stops my laughter. I see it in his face—absolute terror hiding behind anger.
He's not afraid of dying. He's afraid of going back.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I didn't mean to trap you."
"Your intentions don't matter. Only results matter." He paces like a caged animal. "We're bound now. Your life is my life. My power is your power. If I lose control—"
His form flickers. Flames burst from his skin, wild and dangerous. The air around us heats up so fast I can barely breathe.
"Stop!" I gasp. "You're burning me!"
He pulls the flames back with visible effort. "That's the problem. My magic has been compressed for three centuries. It's unstable. Every second I exist out here, I'm one moment away from exploding. And when I explode—"
"I burn with you," I finish. "You said that already."
"Then understand what it means!" He crouches in front of me again, grabbing my shoulders. His hands are hot but don't hurt. "We have maybe three days before my power tears itself apart. Three days to figure out how to stabilize this bond, or we both die in a fireball that takes half the kingdom with us."
Three days. Just enough time for hope to hurt.
"I don't know how to stabilize anything," I tell him honestly. "I don't have magic. I don't have power. I'm just a thief who got betrayed and tried to die with dignity."
"You have spirit-blessed blood," Ashram says. "I can smell it on you. Ancient bloodlines that were hunted to near extinction. That's why the temple wards let you pass. That's why you survived the binding ritual."
"But I've never had magic! Not once in my entire life!"
"Because it's been sealed." His finger touches my spine, sending heat through my back. "Right here. A suppression seal carved into your bones. Someone hid your power when you were very young."
My grandmother's face flashes through my mind. The way she always told me to hide, to be small, to never draw attention.
"Who would do that?" I whisper.
"Someone trying to protect you from people who hunt spirit-blessed children." Ashram's expression darkens. "The Magistrate and his kind have been killing your bloodline for generations. Your mother was probably murdered for—"
Pain explodes in my spine.
I scream. It feels like someone shoved a hot knife between my vertebrae and twisted. Something deep inside me cracks. Not bone. Something deeper.
The seal. The seal is breaking.
"What's happening?" I can barely get the words out.
Ashram's eyes widen. "The bond. It's too strong. It's breaking through the seal."
"Make it stop!"
"I can't! Just breathe! Let it—"
Another crack. Louder. The pain spreads from my spine through my entire body. Every nerve ending catches fire.
And then—
Power.
It floods through me like a dam breaking. Real power. Magic I never knew existed roaring to life in my blood, in my bones, in every cell of my body.
I look down at my hands. They're glowing. Actually glowing from the inside, like I swallowed the sun.
"Impossible," Ashram breathes.
Flames dance across my skin. Not his flames. Mine. Silver and gold mixed together, beautiful and terrible.
"What's happening to me?" My voice sounds different. Stronger.
"Your power." Ashram stares at me like he's seeing a ghost. "It's not just spirit-blessed blood. You're—you have—" He stops. Starts again. "Your bloodline is older than I thought. Much older."
The flames spread up my arms. I should be terrified, but I'm not. This power feels right. Like something that was always supposed to be mine.
"Tell me," I demand. "What am I?"
Before he can answer, the ruins explode with light.
Guards. Dozens of them, surrounding us with weapons drawn and magic glowing in their hands.
And at the front, riding a black horse with a smile that makes my blood boil—
Davos.
"Hello, Zara," he says cheerfully. "Miss me?"
Behind him, Isla sits on her own horse, dressed in fine clothes I could never afford. She waves at me like we're old friends.
"Surprised?" she calls out. "We've been tracking you since you escaped. Did you really think you could hide?"
Ashram moves in front of me, flames erupting around his body. "You want her? You'll have to go through me."
Davos laughs. "We were hoping you'd say that. The Magistrate has been waiting three hundred years to recapture you, fire spirit. And now you've delivered yourself right to us."
More guards appear. Hundreds of them. All carrying weapons designed to capture spirits—chains that glow with binding magic, nets woven from spells, cages made of pure light.
We're completely surrounded.
"Zara." Ashram's voice is tight. "Can you fight?"
I look at my glowing hands. At the power flowing through me that I don't understand and can't control.
"I don't know how."
"Then learn fast."
Davos raises his hand. "Take them. Both of them. Alive."
The guards charge.
And my power explodes.