Kaelira blinked—and the ash chamber dissolved. She stood now in a living memory, fully immersed. She wasn't watching from afar. She was inside Anira's skin. Every heartbeat, every breath—her own. The sky above the ancient capital of Vel Tharyn was burning gold, laced with the smoke of torches.
Thousands gathered before a marble dais where a council of vampire Elders watched impassively. In front of them stood Anira—barefoot, robed in flame-stained silk, her hands bound. Behind her, a war loomed. A rebellion swelling beyond the hills. She had begged for peace. Begged her people not to strike. Not yet. But they wouldn't wait.
"You would marry a vampire?"
"He is not them," she whispered. "He's mine."
---
The memory cut back. Earlier that week, Anira met Dorian in secret beneath the moon-soaked ruins of the old forest temple. The trees there bowed like they remembered them.
He was already waiting, eyes lit with something too fragile to name.
"Anira," he said. "The Council knows. They want me to step back. From you. From—everything."
She laughed, bitter. "Because I tried to stop the war before it began?"
"Because they fear you'll finish it."
He stepped closer, resting his forehead against hers.
"I'll run with you," he whispered. "If you say the word."
She wanted to say yes. But she'd seen what happened to girls who ran with princes. They didn't survive the fall.
So she lied.
"Then run," she said, "and never look back."
But even as he turned away, her fire flickered with regret.
-—
In her real body, Kaelira's heart pounded. These were no dreams. They were memories etched into her bones. The fire was still inside her. She just didn't know whether it was meant to save her kingdom—or destroy it.