Ashes in Her Wake

Elara didn't sleep. Again.

She stared at the scroll.

All night, it sat on the edge of her cot wrapped in crimson silk, humming with quiet power. It hadn't moved. It hadn't unraveled. But it watched her, in the way old magic did like it was waiting for permission.

Or obedience.

"This was meant for the High Priestess," Seryth had said.

"Maybe you'll have better luck."

But luck was a luxury Elara no longer believed in.

She finally stood just after dawn, unwrapped the scroll, and unrolled it slowly with trembling hands.

Nine lines of text.

Written in black ink so fine it shimmered when tilted toward the light.

The blood will return.

The veil will thin.

The first flame will fall in silence.

The second will scream.

A soul who dies once becomes a shadow.

A soul who dies twice becomes fire.

And when the fire returns to the palace

One throne will burn.

One bloodline will vanish.

Elara reread the words three times.

They made no sense.

And yet, they did.

A soul who dies once… that was her. Or Thalia. Or both.

But what did it mean to die twice?

The scroll slipped from her fingers. It landed silently on the cot.

Her pulse beat behind her eyes.

Someone knew. Someone had known all along. And they'd tried to stop her not by killing her, but by burning her alive. As if that would contain it.

But she hadn't died cleanly.

She had come back wrong.

Elara wrapped the scroll again, tied it tightly, and shoved it into the false bottom of the washbasin beside her bed. Then she scrubbed her face, changed into her maid's dress, and stepped into the corridor.

The palace was already awake.

Lanterns flickered to life. Chamber pots clinked in silver bowls. Nobles barked orders to overworked stewards. Somewhere in the west wing, the ballroom was being dressed for the Equinox Gala.

Three days, Seryth had said.

Three days until something catastrophic would begin.

She passed no one as she moved through the lower halls. Just silence, the sharp scent of wax polish, and distant echoes of life above.

She hadn't gone twenty steps before she felt it.

Someone was following her.

She stopped at a mirror mounted on a marble column.

Pretended to check her hair.

Behind her: a man. Broad-shouldered. Too clean to be a servant. Too quiet to be a guard.

She didn't turn around. She kept walking.

Turned left. Then right. Then dipped into the linen room.

Waited.

The moment the door closed, the knob turned again.

He entered.

Elara grabbed the blade she'd hidden beneath the folded sheets two nights ago a broken letter opener, sharpened to a point.

She pressed it to his throat before he could speak.

But he didn't flinch.

"Still fast," he said calmly.

She blinked.

It was him.

Corven.

The green-eyed soldier from the corridor. The man from the archives. The one who had said she should never have awakened.

"Are you following me now?" she hissed.

"Not exactly," he said, voice low. "You're not the only one being hunted."

She didn't move the blade. "You knew I was back."

"I did."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

He looked at her not like a threat, but like a puzzle. "Because if you were back… then so were others. And I needed to know who you were first."

"I'm no one now," she said.

"That's a lie."

He stepped closer. Not threatening just sure.

"You're Elara Valeblume," he said softly. "Crown Princess. High Enchantress. The woman the Order tried to erase."

Her heart thundered.

"How long have you known?"

"I saw you die," Corven said. "But I also saw your flame linger. Most people don't understand what that means. I do."

She lowered the blade slowly.

"What are you?"

"A guardian," he said. "Of the prophecy. Of the line that should've lived. I failed last time. I won't fail again."

Elara stared at him.

He wasn't lying. She felt it. She had been lied to her whole life and she could taste truth when it was finally handed to her.

"You worked for my mother," she said.

He nodded once.

"She knew about the prophecy."

"She was the prophecy," Corven replied. "You were meant to be the flame that followed her. But something shifted. Someone tampered with fate. And now the timeline is rotting."

Elara backed up and sat down on the linen crate.

Everything in her chest felt too tight.

Seryth. Corven. The scroll. The second version of her trapped behind a sigil. The prophecy.

She wasn't just trying to survive anymore.

She was the spark of something no one could contain.

Corven watched her silently. Then stepped forward and placed a folded map on her knee.

"The High Priestess left this behind. It's encoded. But I think you can read it."

She opened it slowly.

It wasn't a map of the palace.

It was a map of the catacombs beneath it.

Hidden floors. Secret tunnels. Unmarked chambers.

"Half of these don't exist," she whispered.

"They do," Corven said. "And one of them is where your real body was buried."

She looked up.

He held her gaze.

"You've returned, Elara. But not completely. Your soul's here. Your power's fractured. If we don't find what's missing"

He paused.

"you'll burn out before the Gala. And this time, there won't be a second return."