Chapter Fourty five– The Binding Flame

The light from the council hall hadn't faded from Raina's skin when dawn bled over the ruins.

The Keep still held its breath. Every stone, every banner, every blade waited listening for the first crack of war.

Raina tightened the last strap of her bracer, the leather biting into her forearm. The silvered mark coiled up her throat like a living crown, warm beneath her skin. Beneath that warmth deeper, quieter another pulse answered.

The child.

Elias's words still rang like a tolling bell: The child is the key.

Now, the key burned inside her.

Footsteps padded behind her. Lucien didn't speak at first. He stepped to her shoulder, gaze fixed on the horizon beyond the balcony arches, where the forest rippled with unnatural movement.

"The blood moon shifted," he said at last. "We've lost the time we thought we had."

Raina exhaled, slow and sharp. "Then we take it back."

He turned to her, silver eyes catching the faint light. "We can't hold this ground forever. Not with the Veil King leading what's left of the Coven."

"He's real," she murmured. "And he's not alone."

The image from the scouts antlers of charred bone, a mask stitched with shifting faces etched itself into her skull. But beneath that horror, beneath the void she had felt it: something that tugged at her blood, clawed at her lineage.

A piece of her past.

"What are you thinking?" Lucien asked.

"That we've been reacting," she said, voice low. "Moving where the Veil King pushes. Let's stop letting him write the script."

"Raina…"

She faced him fully. "We go to the source."

His jaw flexed. "Selvaren."

Her pulse kicked. He knew.

"You've felt it too," she whispered.

"I felt the mark shift the second Elias spoke." He lifted his hand. "It's unfinished. The contract, the curse, the Huntress line it all threads through something deeper. Older. The Eternal Flame. We seal it on our terms or we burn with it."

Raina nodded once. "Then we go—tonight."

Lucien arched a brow. "And the army outside our door?"

"Maeva holds the wall. Elias seals the northern ward. We take a small strike team to the Flame. If this bond completes, if the mark settles if I can control it rather than let it control me we fight from strength, not fear."

Silence stretched. Then he grinned wolf-slow, dangerous. "Beside you."

"Always," she breathed.

He kissed her quick, grounding, like a promise swung like a blade.

They left at twilight.

Raina, Lucien, Elias, Maeva, and two of the strongest moonblood warriors left standing Auron, whose scars told stories in languages no one spoke anymore, and Nyla, whose arrows never missed what her heart chose.

They rode hard through the ash fields, past the shattered pylons that once held the southern wards, into the ravine where the old river had died. The world changed there.

The air hardened. The wind stopped. Even the stars seemed to hold back.

Raina slid from her saddle at the cliff's edge. Beneath the cracked ledge, a pulse rose from the earth slow, steady, like breathing.

"There," she said.

Elias shifted beside her. "The stories said Selvaren was swallowed by the first rebellion. If the Flame survived…"

"It didn't survive," Maeva muttered. "It slept."

"And now," Lucien said, "we wake it."

They descended through a fissure in the rock, torches flaring gold against runes carved into the stone old Huntress script, older than the Order books, older than any council memory. The passageway narrowed until Raina had to turn sideways to pass; her hand grazed the wall and heat chased her fingers.

When they broke into open space, even Lucien stopped breathing.

Selvaren's heart was a cathedral of glass and fire.

Pillars spiraled upward into darkness. Runes drifted like birds. And at the center floating, rotating slowly burned the Eternal Flame. White and silver, shaped like a flower in mid-bloom. Around it, nine circles of sigils rotated in opposite directions, humming with ancient magic.

Raina's mark flared so hot she staggered.

Lucien caught her. "Easy."

She pulled free, jaw set. "It's calling me."

Maeva's eyes narrowed. "No. It's testing you."

Elias stepped in front of the outer circle, palms up. "These aren't wards. They're trials. The Flame doesn't bind to the unworthy."

"What does it want?" Auron asked.

"Blood," Nyla whispered. "Truth. Surrender."

Raina stepped forward. "Then let it take mine."

"Raina " Lucien's warning fell flat as the first sigil ignited.

White fire leapt from the circle, wrapping around her like serpents of light. Her vision blinked then shattered.

She wasn't in the chamber anymore.

She was in a field of bones, under a sky split with lightning. She stood in armor that wasn't hers, her blade soaked in blood that pulsed with moonlight. She looked down and Abraxas Lucien's former name lay at her feet, dying. You did this, a voice hissed. You always do this.

She dropped to her knees, screaming but no sound left her mouth.

Then the vision burned away.

She gasped into smoke, and she was eight years old again, hiding beneath a table as men with sigils carved on their wrists dragged her parents by their hair. She screamed, but no one heard. Blood dripped onto her knuckles.

"Raina," a voice murmured herself, older. "You didn't fail them. They failed you."

She stood. The scene melted.

Now she was holding a baby. A small, fragile weight. Warm. Alive. The baby opened eyes of molten silver and smiled. "Mama," it whispered.

And then it burned in her arms, turning to ash.

Raina fell, hands clawing at smoke, throat raw with grief. "NO NO NO"

"Do you choose fear?" the Flame thundered.

She lifted her head, tears blazing. "No."

"Do you choose guilt?"

"No."

"What do you choose?"

Her voice cracked but did not break. "Love. Even if it breaks me. Especially if it breaks me."

The Flame paused.

Then it opened.

Raina's body convulsed. Lucien lunged forward Maeva yanked him back.

"She has to finish it!" Maeva snapped.

"She's dying!" he roared.

Elias shouted over the rising whine of magic, "If you interfere, the Flame will reject her and burn her out!"

Lucien snarled but didn't move.

The second ring ignited. More visions. More pain. Each test peeled her open down to bone, to memory, to soul. Each time, she did not choose vengeance. She did not choose fear.

She chose love. And truth. And herself.

When the final ring exploded, the shockwave knocked everyone but Raina and Lucien to the ground.

She hung in the air weightless, surrounded by runes that traced her skin like inked constellations. The mark on her throat flared then melted into her chest.

Lucien stepped forward, hands outstretched, eyes wild with awe and terror. "Raina…"

Her eyes snapped open.

Not gold.

Not brown.

Not glowing.

Human and fire.

She fell.

He caught her.

The Flame dimmed.

And the mark… was gone.

Outside, the world felt it.

A pillar of white fire speared into the sky, visible from every shattered tower, every ruined village. The battle lines faltered as both armies paused, heads tilted, instincts screaming.

At the Coven's camp, the Veil King turned his mask to the light.

"So," he rasped. "The Flame bends."

Beside him, a figure cloaked in shadow smaller, softer laughed quietly. "She thinks that makes her untouchable."

The Veil King's fingers flexed. The shadows around his hands shrieked.

"It makes her mine."

They emerged from the temple hollow-eyed and shaking, but alive. Whole. Different.

Raina's steps were shaky. Lucien didn't let go.

Elias stared at her throat. "The rune"

"Settled," she said softly. "The contract is done. It's not binding me anymore. I'm binding it."

Nyla whistled under her breath. "So… what now?"

Raina looked toward the distant ridge where clouds blackened. "We go home."

Maeva squinted. "You feel that?"

Raina's blood ran cold.

The ground trembled beneath her feet.

She heard the horn.

War.

The Keep was under attack when they returned.

The western wall burned, screams rising from the courtyard like smoke. The sky twisted, storm-black, with flashes of something wrong tearing through the clouds. Wings. Shadows. Things without names.

Raina didn't think.

She ran.

Lucien shifted mid-stride, fur exploding over skin, claws tearing into stone as he vaulted into battle, eyes a storm of rage.

Raina's blade sang, silver and bright. She cut through shadowbeasts that hissed with venom and soul-fire, every strike clean, controlled, stronger than before. Power answered her now it didn't try to swallow her.

Maeva rallied warriors to the eastern gate, her crescent blade catching the light like a second moon. Elias raised wards with bloody palms, runes shimmering at his fingertips.

"Push them back!" Raina yelled, voice cracking through chaos. "Hold the line!"

A roar shook the air.

The Veil King landed in the courtyard like a falling star.

Antlers scraped the tower. Masks shifted across his face sobbing woman, snarling wolf, laughing child before settling on a blank, smooth void.

He moved without moving gliding, sliding through space. Shadows obeyed him like hounds.

Raina stepped forward, sword raised.

"You finally crawled from your veil," she said coldly.

He tilted his head. "I did not crawl, Flameborn. I waited. For you."

Lucien snarled behind her, massive and trembling.

The Veil King's head turned. "Ah. The wolf. Still leashed by light."

Lucien lunged.

The Veil King flicked his wrist.

Lucien hit the wall, claws tearing stone, breath exploding from his lungs. He skidded to the ground, shifting back with a gasp.

"LUCIEN!" Raina screamed.

She ran

but a wall of shadow split the courtyard, dividing her from him. She pounded her fist against it solid, cold, alive.

The Veil King chuckled. "I want to see your choices, Huntress. Will you cut your bond to save the world? Or let it burn to keep him?"

Her blade tightened in her grip. "I choose both."

She slashed. Silver fire burned through the shadow wall bit shrieked, melted. She dove through.

Lucien was on his knees, blood on his lips, eyes blazing. "Go," he rasped. "End him."

She shook her head. "We end him."

Together, they lunged.

The Veil King moved like smoke, but Raina had changed. She anticipated his vanishing steps, his tricks with space, his tricks with light she'd seen enough illusions that they no longer fooled her.

Her blade caught his shoulder he hissed. The shadows recoiled like singed creatures.

He threw a spear of darkness Lucien intercepted, catching it mid-flight, snapping it in half with a roar.

"ENOUGH!" Raina screamed.

Her mark silent until now ignited.

Not on her skin.

Inside her.

A sphere of moon-gold fire burst from her chest, swallowing the courtyard in light. Shadows evaporated. The Veil King recoiled, cloak smoking.

He laughed low, hollow. "Ah. Now I see it. The child. The key. You're already bleeding the future."

Raina froze.

Maeva's voice cut in from behind, urgent. "Raina NOW!"

Raina drove her blade forward not at the Veil King's heart.

At his mask.

It shattered.

For the first time, she saw his face.

Her own.

Her past life.

The first Huntress.

But wrong. Corrupted. Twisted. Eyes like pits.

She gasped.

He smiled with her mouth. "We never really left each other."

The ground split.

The sky screamed.

Raina staggered back, Lucien's hand gripping her arm, anchoring her.

The Veil King dissolved into smoke but not before a whisper threaded into her ear:

Find me in the Ash Spire if you dare finish what you started.

Then he was gone.

The courtyard stilled.

Only fire crackled. Only breath remained.

Raina swayed.

Lucien caught her.

She looked up at him, trembling, skin hot with lingering flame. "He wears me."

Lucien's eyes were wet wild. "He won't."

Raina swallowed hard. "This doesn't end at the Keep."

"No," he said softly, forehead pressing to hers. "It ends where it began."

She closed her eyes.

Ash Spire.

The last battlefield.

The final choice.