Chapter 10 – Secrets in the Flame

The wind howled through the canyon like a voice with no mouth.

Seren sat with her back against a cold stone wall, her cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Her legs ached. Her ribs still stung from the fall into the ditch. And her pulse hadn't stopped racing since the fight with Lucan.

Cael hadn't spoken since they left the clearing. He moved quietly through the shadows, checking for threats, double-backing on their trail, reinforcing their hiding place like he'd done it a hundred times before.

They were holed up in what looked like the bones of an old temple.

The roof was half collapsed. Ivy crawled up the walls like veins. The floors were covered in fallen leaves and patches of glowing moss. But the walls… the walls were covered in symbols. Not words. Glyphs. Ancient. Older than any bloodline.

Seren could read some of them.

Not with her eyes.

With her blood.

She stood slowly, tracing her fingers along one of the symbols carved into the stone.

Cael's voice stopped her. "Don't touch them."

She turned.

His face was serious.

"They're wards," he said. "Old. Dangerous."

She lowered her hand. "Why would someone put wards here and then abandon it?"

Cael walked to the far wall. "Because it's not abandoned."

Seren blinked. "You brought us here on purpose."

He didn't answer.

She stepped closer. "You knew what this place was."

"I knew it was safer than out there," he said. "That's all that matters."

"No," she said quietly. "Not anymore. You need to stop hiding pieces of the truth from me."

He didn't move. Just stared at the carvings.

She walked closer. "You knew I'd react to these glyphs, didn't you?"

His jaw clenched. "I hoped you wouldn't."

"But I did."

Seren turned back to the wall, pressing her palm gently to the smooth, carved stone.

The second her skin made contact, something flared in her chest.

Warmth.

Light.

Vision.

She was standing in the same temple—but whole. Restored.

Torches burned in sconces on the walls. The glyphs glowed. And in the center of the room stood a woman in white robes, her face hidden behind a silver mask.

The woman turned to her.

"You carry the key," she said.

Seren opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

The woman stepped forward and touched her belly.

"The vessel must be protected. The line must return."

Seren gasped.

Then—blackness.

She staggered backward in the real world.

Cael caught her by the arms.

She looked up at him, breathless. "This isn't just old magic. This is a sanctum."

His eyes narrowed.

"It's seer-built," she said. "The glyphs—the way they react to me. It's like they know me."

"They do."

She froze. "What?"

"This place was made for people like you. Hybrids. Ones the world didn't want."

Her heart hammered. "You've been here before."

He looked away.

"Cael."

He nodded. Once. Tight. "My mother brought me here once. When I was a child. She was one of them."

"One of what?"

He hesitated.

Then: "A keeper. She protected bloodlines. Forbidden ones."

Seren stepped closer. "Like mine?"

"Yes."

They sat in silence for a long time.

The fire they built crackled softly in the center of the sanctum.

Seren stared into the flames, still shaking from the vision.

"She said I carry the key," she murmured.

Cael nodded slowly.

"I don't know what that means."

He stirred the fire with a stick. "It means the child inside you isn't just powerful."

"Then what is it?"

He looked at her.

And said, "It's chosen."

The words hung in the air like smoke.

"Chosen by whom?" she asked.

Cael dropped the stick into the fire. "No one alive."

She blinked. "That's not an answer."

He looked at her with something sharp in his eyes. "There's a reason your pregnancy isn't natural. A reason your power flares when the baby kicks. Why your bond broke and another one formed while you were still carrying it. It's rewriting magic as it grows."

She stared at him.

And then said the words she didn't want to believe.

"You think I was cursed."

"No," Cael said. "I think you were built."

Seren's chest tightened. "That's not possible."

"It is if someone old enough, powerful enough decided it needed to be."

She shook her head. "You're talking about magic lost for centuries. Not even the Council knows how to—"

"The Council killed the ones who remembered how," Cael interrupted.

She looked at the fire.

Then at her hands.

Then at her stomach.

The child moved.

Just once.

But she felt it.

And something else.

A ripple in the bond.

It wasn't just the baby.

It was her.

She was changing, too.

That night, she couldn't sleep.

She stood outside the sanctum, wrapped in her cloak, staring up at the stars through the broken roof. The sky felt too big. Too full. Like it was waiting for something to fall.

Cael stood behind her.

Quiet as always.

She didn't turn.

"I dreamed of a tower once," she said. "When I was small. It was made of glass and light. And inside was a heartbeat that wasn't mine."

Cael said nothing.

"I think it was this child."

He stepped closer. "Probably."

"I thought I'd be a mother one day," she said. "But not like this. Not... with fear wrapped around every breath. Not with two men trying to claim something that might burn the world down."

Cael's voice was soft. "Do you regret it?"

She turned then.

Faced him.

"I don't even know what it is."

He nodded.

They stood together under the stars, the space between them smaller than it used to be. But neither moved closer.

Not yet.

In the morning, Seren found something buried under the altar.

A box.

Locked.

Warded.

Cael helped her open it—carefully. Inside was a scroll sealed in wax. When she broke it, symbols bloomed across the parchment like ink swimming across water.

They formed a prophecy.

Short.

Brutal.

"When three lines burn into one,And the bond breaks twice,The child shall rise,Not from love—But from fire."

Seren read it three times before speaking.

"I've broken two bonds."

Cael nodded.

"And I'm carrying all three bloodlines."

He looked at her stomach.

"You're the flame."

The rest of the day passed in quiet panic.

They didn't say it out loud, but they both knew what it meant.

Seren wasn't just a mother.

She was a catalyst.

A matchstick.

And someone had lit her for a reason.