HER NAME WAS FIRE
"She wasn't supposed to love me," Kain said, voice rough as coal smoke.
"But she did."
He stood beside the hearth, shadows licking up the wall behind him like silent witnesses. Zina didn't move. She stayed rooted to the other side of the room, arms crossed, pretending she could still pretend.
But that was getting harder.
Much harder.
The sigil beneath her collarbone wouldn't stop pulsing.
The mirror shard hidden beneath her pillow whispered names in the night.
And her dreams—
Her dreams no longer belonged to her.
> "Eronna," she said at last, the name strange and heavy on her tongue.
Kain nodded slowly, like it hurt to say it out loud.
> "She came through the mirror, like all of you."
> "But she wasn't like the others."
Zina's voice was brittle. "What made her different?"
He met her gaze.
His eyes were no longer cold.
They were grieving.
> "She remembered first."
Zina turned away, pacing toward the fireplace.
Her breath fogged in the air, though the flames still danced.
"Remembered what?"
Kain hesitated.
Then: "The truth. The house. The price."
Zina's pulse kicked harder.
> "And me."
She didn't sleep that night, not really.
She hovered in that strange limbo between wakefulness and dream.
But the visions came anyway.
They always did now.
And this time, they brought fire.
Real fire.
A grand hall with walls made of obsidian, burning from the inside out. Chandeliers crashing down like dying stars. Curtains of royal purple curling in flame. And in the center of it all—
Zina.
But not Zina.
A woman with her face.
Her voice.
Her rage.
Standing barefoot on the scorched stone floor, clad in a gown the color of night, gold and blood smeared on her arms.
Around her, seven women in white.
Every single one of them bore her face.
And they were chanting.
Low.
Rhythmic.
Ancient.
> "Rise. Return. Reclaim."
> "Rise. Return. Reclaim."
> "Rise—"
Zina jolted upright in her bed.
Sweat slicked her skin.
Her sheets were twisted, her hands trembling.
But the air… still smelled faintly of smoke.
The next day, Kain waited for her in the courtyard.
No guards. No ceremony. Just a shadow of a king sitting on the edge of a crumbling fountain.
"I saw it," she said as soon as she approached. "The fire. The throne. The chanting."
Kain didn't look surprised.
> "It's starting."
> "What is?"
> "Your remembering. Your returning."
Zina sat beside him, the stone cold beneath her.
> "I don't want to return," she said. "I want to understand."
Kain looked at her then.
Really looked.
> "Then let me explain what the others wouldn't."
> "This place—this house—was built on balance. Every king had a queen. Every curse had a key. Every mirror a keeper."
> "Eronna wasn't just the queen. She was the key. The balance."
Zina frowned. "And you broke it?"
His expression didn't change.
> "I fell in love with her. She wasn't supposed to love me back. But she did."
> "And she chose to stay."
> "But the house didn't forgive her for that."
Zina swallowed hard. "So what happened?"
Kain's voice was low. Barely a breath.
> "She burned it."
That night, Zina lit no candles.
She sat in the dark before the covered mirror in her room.
Her fingertips traced the silk shroud.
It was warm beneath her hand.
Humming.
She didn't uncover it.
Not yet.
But she whispered something to it.
Just one word.
> "Eronna."
The mirror hissed.
And the sigil beneath her skin flared so bright it stung.
The dream that followed was sharper than before.
Clearer.
Zina stood on a throne made of stone and scorched bone.
Her gown was slick with ash. Her hair braided with embers. Her hands gloved in flame.
And at her feet—
Kain.
Bleeding.
Eyes bright.
Smiling.
> "You remembered," he said.
> "I told you. She was never just a bride."
> "She was a weapon."
Zina stepped down from the throne.
Her voice echoed like thunder.
> "Then it's time I finish what I started."
She awoke with her hands clenched into fists.
The mirror hummed louder.
Outside, thunder rolled across the black sky.
And the house exhaled.
As if it had been waiting for this moment.