The Pale Flame

Darkness pressed in from all sides.

Heavy. Slow. Suffocating.

Solene tried to move, but her limbs were heavy. Her skin was burning cold and burning hot all at once. Her breath came in shallow gasps. Somewhere deep inside, a voice whispered: don't sleep again.

But her body had already made the decision.

The last thing she remembered was the cobbled alley floor, slick with blood and rain, her vision flickering like a dying flame.

Then—

Nothing.

---

She awoke to warmth.

Soft, slow, unfamiliar.

Her first instinct was to move. Her second was to fight.

Pain lanced through her ribs.

A quiet voice stopped her.

"Don't move too much," the woman said gently. "You'll tear the stitches."

Solene's eyes opened slowly.

The room was dim, lit by soft candlelight. Stone walls. A basin in the corner. A thick fur blanket covered her from collarbone to thighs—bare skin beneath.

She blinked, sluggish and wary.

Then she saw her.

The voice belonged to a woman sitting in a carved wooden chair near the bedside. She was tall, graceful even in stillness. Her long white hair shimmered like snow under moonlight. Pale blue scales marked her forearms in elegant patterns that curled along her skin like frost-kissed vines. A long, lithe tail rested curled near the floor, the same pale blue as her horns—two smooth, antler-like curves that glowed faintly in the dark.

Her eyes were cool silver, but not cold.

Just... watchful.

Solene tried to sit up. Grit her teeth. Failed.

The woman didn't move from her seat. She simply tilted her head.

"You pushed yourself past your limit," she said. "You froze your own blood. Forced your body to keep fighting when it was barely holding together."

"...Where am I?" Solene rasped.

"Safe," the woman said. "For now."

"Who are you?"

The woman gave a faint smile. "That depends. Do you want the name I was born with, or the one I earned?"

Solene blinked at her, confused, still dizzy.

"Call me Nyxara for now," she said. "And before you ask—I'm not with House Cael. I don't serve anyone."

Solene narrowed her eyes. "Then... why help me?"

Nyxara leaned forward, resting her chin on one scaled hand. Her gaze lingered on Solene—not invasive, but curious.

"Because I've seen someone try to die like that before," she said softly. "And I didn't stop her."

She let the words sit between them.

Solene exhaled slowly. Her body throbbed, her mind trying to put puzzle pieces together with too few edges.

Nyxara stood, graceful and calm. "Rest. Eat, if you can. There's broth on the table. When you're ready to talk—I'll be here."

Solene watched as the strange woman disappeared into the next room, tail swaying like smoke behind her.

She stared at the ceiling for a long time.

Not sure if she was safe.

Not sure if she was scared.

But alive.

And for the first time in hours—

Not alone.

—Part II—

Alden Cael—

The corpse was still smoking.

Chunks of frozen blood lay scattered across the alley—jagged red-black crystals glinting beneath the moonlight. One half of the Bladeling's chest was shattered from the inside out, his armor peeled open like a broken jaw. His face, once feral and grinning, now slack. Empty.

Alden stood over it, staring down with tight fists and a sick twist in his stomach.

"Pathetic," he hissed.

The dead man didn't answer.

He kicked the body hard.

Once. Twice.

The third time, his boot crunched bone and splintered armor.

"You had one job," he growled, pacing in circles around the wreckage like a lion with no cage. "One. You saw her. You had her. And you still lost."

He stopped, breathing hard, shadows clinging to the edges of the alley.

Then he crouched.

Grabbed the corpse by the ruined jaw.

"Did she beg?" he whispered. "Did she scream? Or did she just laugh while she ripped you open?"

He let the head drop.

Stood again.

And drew his blade.

In one swing, he cleaved the corpse's arm from its socket. It landed with a wet slap against the stone.

A deep breath. In.

Out.

He calmed.

The red mist in his mind thinned, leaving only ice and purpose behind.

That's when the other Bladelings arrived.

Four of them. All armored. Faces hidden. Each one dragging their silence behind them like a funeral veil.

He turned to them slowly.

"Well?" he said.

The lead soldier stepped forward.

"We swept sectors seven through nine. No sign. No trails. No witnesses."

"No one?"

"No one living," the Bladeling said carefully.

Alden's jaw clenched.

He stepped forward. The others instinctively stepped back.

"No leads," he repeated. "After she left one of us like this?"

No one answered.

The silence stung worse than the failure.

Alden's voice dropped to a low, deadly hush.

"Find her. Find the demon. Find my sister. I don't care if you have to tear the flesh from the city's bones. Burn Tartarus to the stone if you have to."

The Bladelings saluted silently and disappeared back into the night like black ghosts.

Alden stayed behind for a moment longer.

He stared at the shattered blood. At the frost still clinging to the walls.

And he smiled.

It wasn't a pleasant smile.

"She's still bleeding," he whispered. "She'll have to come up for air eventually."

And when she did—

He'd be waiting.

—Part III—

Nerys—

The hideout was nothing more than an old stable tucked into the edge of the eastern ruins—half-buried under stone, shielded by time and disuse. Cold crept in from the corners. The wood groaned in the wind. But it was hidden.

It was safe.

They'd made it.

Nerys, Seraphyne, and Lira all collapsed into the quiet, chests heaving, adrenaline fading into aching silence.

For the first hour, no one spoke much.

Seraphyne paced.

Nerys cleaned her blades out of habit, even though her arms still shook.

Lira dozed in a corner near the dying fire.

But as the minutes bled into an hour—

Then two—

Then three—

The silence grew sharper.

Solene still wasn't back.

Seraphyne stood suddenly.

Nerys looked up just in time to see her heading for the door.

"Wait," she said, standing to block the exit.

Seraphyne froze.

"I have to go," Seraphyne said. "It's been hours. She could be dead in a gutter or bleeding out behind a wall—"

"You don't know that."

"I do!" Seraphyne snapped. "Because I left her! I let her fight alone—"

"She told us to go," Nerys interrupted.

Seraphyne's hands curled into fists. "I don't care."

Nerys narrowed her eyes. "You think running blind into Tartarus with guards crawling over every rooftop is going to help her?"

"I'm not letting her die alone!"

"Then say what you really mean," Nerys said sharply, stepping closer. "Say it."

Seraphyne's lips parted, fury rising in her chest—

And then something broke.

Something gave.

"I'm in love with her!" Seraphyne shouted.

The words hung in the room like a thunderclap.

Nerys didn't flinch.

Seraphyne's chest heaved. "I didn't mean to be. I didn't even want to be. But I am. I think I have been since she let me see how broken she was and didn't apologize for it."

Nerys stared at her for a long, still moment.

Then, quietly: "So am I."

Seraphyne blinked.

Nerys stepped forward. "I've loved her longer. Maybe deeper. I don't know. But I know her. And I know that if you go out there now and die trying to reach her, she'll never forgive herself."

Seraphyne's voice cracked. "But what if she doesn't come back?"

Nerys placed a hand over Seraphyne's heart.

"She will," she said. "Because we're still here. And she's fighting to get back to us."

Seraphyne didn't answer.

She just nodded once.

And stepped back.

They didn't say anything else.

They just sat near the fire, waiting.

Together.

For her.

Chapter Eighteen: The Pale Flame

—Nyxara—

Far above Tartarus, hidden in a veil of frost-thickened clouds, the winds whispered secrets across a stretch of sky no mortal dared to climb.

There, nestled among a field of glowing iceblossoms—icelilies, delicate and luminescent under starlight—Nyxara lay across a bed of crystal grass, her silver eyes fixed on the world below.

She saw everything.

And no one saw her.

Not the Cael guards. Not the demon-hunters. Not even the stars knew her name anymore.

But Solene Cael had caught her eye long before tonight.

For years, Nyxara had watched from her perch. She'd seen the way the girl was hated, forgotten, bruised beneath words sharper than any blade. And she'd cried, alone, wrapped in ancient silence, because Solene never cried for herself.

But back then… it had not been time.

The threads of fate hadn't woven tight enough.

Until now.

Until tonight.

Nyxara sat upright as the vision unfolded—Solene, wounded and limping, still fighting, still fierce. Magic bleeding from her veins, heart clinging to the memory of love.

The fight in the alley.

The frost.

The blood.

And finally—

Collapse.

Solene crumpled against the cobblestone, her breath shallow, her blue blood soaking into the street like royal ink.

That was when Nyxara moved.

Not with a roar.

Not with fire.

But with grace.

One moment she was in the clouds.

The next—

She was beside her.

Kneeling on the street, unnoticed by the world, the wind curling around her antlered horns like a bow of mourning.

Nyxara gathered Solene into her arms, cradled her like something precious, something rare. Her tail coiled protectively. Her wings, for a moment, unfurled behind her—wide, glacial, glittering with power older than cities.

"Not yet," she whispered.

And with a beat of her wings that did not stir a single breeze—

She vanished.

---

The icelilies rustled as Nyxara landed lightly on her garden of clouds. She laid Solene down upon a bed of soft fur and frostwoven silk.

She cleaned the blood gently, fingers glowing with pale energy.

Sutured the wounds. Stitched the skin. Whispered in an ancient tongue long lost to dragonkin and gods alike.

Solene murmured once in her sleep, her brow twitching.

Nyxara smiled through the mist in her eyes.

"She fought for them," she said to the quiet night. "Even broken. Even afraid."

Her hand hovered just above Solene's heart.

"She doesn't know it yet," she whispered, voice soft and reverent. "But she reminds me of her."

A tear fell.

Not hot.

But cold.

A memory frozen in her chest—of another girl, long gone, who once bled blue and burned bright.

Nyxara brushed a hand across Solene's cheek and pulled the blankets higher around her.

Then she sat at the edge of the bed.

And watched.

And waited.

Because now, it was time.