"You danced with him," Isla hissed the next morning, her voice sharp enough to echo off the marble walls of the palace solarium.
Elara didn't glance up from the scroll in her hands. "And you counted every step."
Isla's lip curled. "Don't get comfortable. He only humored you because you're a novelty."
Elara calmly rolled the scroll shut. "That's still more attention than he gave you."
The slap came fast. Not hard, but sharp, loud enough to echo.
Elara didn't flinch.
"The stone chose wrong," Isla spat. Her voice trembled with fury. "You're not even royal. You're a stain they can't scrub out."
Elara met her gaze, unflinching. "And yet here I stand. Still glowing. Still not burned."
Isla stormed off, her silk gown hissing behind her like smoke.
Prince Kael didn't waste time.
By mid-morning, he was in the training yard, sword in hand, facing the palace's best warriors. The clanging of steel echoed through the warm air.
Elara watched from the shaded gallery, arms folded.
M appeared beside her, silent as always.
"He fights like someone who knows exactly what people whisper behind his back," M said.
"Let them whisper," Elara murmured, eyes on Kael. "I want to see what he does when the whole world is watching."
Below, Kael disarmed his opponent with a clean, calculated move. The court applauded politely but his gaze didn't search for approval.
It found Elara.
He smiled.
She didn't.
Later, in the Hall of Maps, the Empress and King met privately with Kael.
Elara wasn't invited.
But that didn't mean she didn't listen.
M handed her a parchment neat, crisp, written in a sharp, familiar script.
A transcript.
Kael hadn't come for Isla.
He had come with a proposal a new kind of alliance.
"Let the Flamebearer choose where her loyalty burns," he had said.
"You keep her locked behind silk and ceremony. I'd put her on the battlefield."
The King had gone still.
But the Empress?
"She is an untested myth."
"And myths move armies," Kael replied.
Elara read it twice.
Then held the parchment over her candle and watched it burn silently, to ash.
That night, in the outer gardens, dew kissed her bare feet as she stood beneath the stars.
Kael found her there silent, still, alight with tension.
"You listened," he said softly.
"Did you expect me not to?"
He smiled. "You don't belong in their cage. You burn too hot for it."
"And you think your leash is any better?" she replied.
"I don't want to leash you," Kael said. "I want to see what you do when no one's holding the chain."
She said nothing.
But a flame flickered to life in her palm. Small. Controlled. Alive.
Not a threat.
A promise.
"Then don't stand too close, Prince," she whispered. "Some fires bite."
Inside the palace, the Empress stood before her mirror.
Her expression, for once, fragile.
"She makes him curious," she murmured.
Behind her, the King's reflection appeared.
"She makes the world curious."
And for the first time in years, the Empress's silence wasn't strength.
It was fear.