Chapter 12: Midnight in the Courtyard

The wind tasted of memory.

Lyra stood beneath the open arch of the hidden courtyard, moonlight stretching long and silver across the flagstones like the sweep of a ghost's hand. Midnight had come and gone, but sleep still evaded her.

Too many voices.

Too many shadows curling in the corners of her thoughts.

The Echo's whisper still lingered in her chest, a coil of warning and prophecy she couldn't shake. Kael had been silent since their return, his golden eyes shuttered, his presence distant even when he stood near.

She needed to breathe.

To move.

The courtyard had once been a sanctuary, Soreya said, a place where Seers trained their minds and balanced the flames within. Now it was abandoned, overgrown with ivy and secrets, but the magic still clung to the stone. Lyra could feel it in her bones.

She took a slow breath and stepped into the courtyard.

The moss was cool beneath her feet. The night air was damp, heavy with the scent of night-blooming lilies and old stone. At the far end stood a circle of ancient columns, their surfaces etched with runes Lyra had begun to recognize, not letters, but songs. Magic woven into language.

She approached the center of the circle and sat cross-legged, the bone dagger resting across her lap. The silence here wasn't empty. It hummed.

"What are you trying to tell me?" she whispered to the dark.

For a long moment, there was no answer. Just the rustling of leaves.

Then, light footsteps.

She turned sharply, dagger rising.

Kael stood at the edge of the arch, arms folded across his chest. "You move like you're trying to disappear."

"I didn't think you'd follow."

"I didn't," he said. "You called me. Without meaning to."

Lyra blinked. "I what?"

He stepped forward, slow and cautious, as though approaching a cornered creature. "Your fire and mine, our magic is linked deeper than blood. I feel it when your thoughts turn loud."

She looked down at the dagger. "I'm sorry. I just needed… space."

He came to stand opposite her, the columns rising behind him like watchful sentinels. "Space doesn't have to mean alone."

Lyra sighed. "The Echo got in my head."

"I know."

"It said things," she murmured. "Things about me. About you. About what's coming."

Kael's jaw tensed, but he didn't speak.

She looked up at him. "I need to know what the mirror really showed you, Kael. Not just the part where I burn. All of it."

He hesitated. Then slowly, he sat across from her, mirroring her position. The space between them seemed both infinite and threadbare.

"The first vision came when I was ten," he began, voice quiet. "I touched the pool of reflection in the Silver Vale, during a royal ceremony. I wasn't supposed to."

"What did you see?"

"You. A girl wrapped in ash and light. I didn't know your name. Only your eyes." He swallowed. "You were standing on a field of ruins. Everything burning. My people. The Ascended. The sky."

Lyra's breath caught. "And me?"

"You stood at the center of it," he said. "Your back to me. And when you turned, your face was cracked like porcelain. Bleeding flame. You looked at me like you'd never known me. And then you said, 'It's done.'"

Silence swelled between them.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked.

"Because I didn't want to believe it. I kept hoping… that there was a mistake."

Lyra traced the hilt of her dagger with her thumb. "Do you still think that?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I know the girl in that vision, she was powerful. But also alone."

"I'm not her yet."

"No. But you're becoming her." He leaned forward. "And if you're going to survive what's coming, you need to know what you are."

"I thought that's what we've been doing."

Kael shook his head. "Not just your powers. Not just the prophecy. You. What you were before the flame."

Lyra frowned. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying…" Kael hesitated. "I think your human blood isn't just human. And someone's been hiding that truth."

Lyra's heart skipped. "Who?"

"I don't know yet. But Soreya knows more than she's saying. And that dagger," he nodded to the bone blade in her lap, "isn't just bonded to you. It recognized you. That's relic magic. Ancient. That blade should have turned to dust the second it left the vault."

"But it didn't."

"No. Because you're not just carrying a legacy. You are one."

Lyra's head spun. "I don't know how to be that. A symbol. A weapon. A leader."

"You don't have to be it all at once," he said. "You just have to survive long enough to figure it out."

They sat in silence for a while after that, the quiet no longer sharp, but steady. Kael reached into his cloak and drew out something small and wrapped in leather.

"What's that?" she asked.

He placed it between them. "A charm. From my mother."

Lyra blinked. "The Queen?"

He nodded. "Before she died, she gave it to me. Said I'd know when to give it away."

"And now's the time?"

Kael looked at her with eyes that held both fire and sorrow. "You're the reason she rebelled. She believed the phoenix line wasn't extinct. That you'd return. She died for that belief."

Lyra touched the charm. It was warm, humming faintly. Inside was a single silver thread woven into a knot she didn't recognize. When she brushed it, it shimmered with gold fire.

"This is from your bloodline," she whispered.

"And it recognizes yours."

Something inside Lyra cracked open. A pressure she hadn't known was building released like a breath held too long.

"What happens now?" she asked.

Kael stood and offered her a hand.

"Now," he said, "we prepare for the journey east. To the Ashen Spire. That's where the Sealed Flame lies. And where the truth about your bloodline is kept."

Lyra rose, her fingers wrapping around the charm. "And if the Ascended reach it first?"

Kael's smile was sharp. "Then we cut them down before they get the chance."