CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The grand ballroom of Solkaris Castle was a cathedral of fire.
Vaulted ceilings arched high above, painted with constellations of living flame that flickered and shifted as though the gods themselves breathed across the stone.
Chandeliers of molten glass dripped light from golden chains, casting the entire hall in a glow that turned jewels, goblets, and skin into liquid embers.
Music swelled through the vast space—low drums and haunting strings that thrummed like the heartbeat of a dying star.
Nobles filled the marble floor in waves of jewel-toned silks and sharp laughter, masks of gold and flame glittering across carefully controlled expressions.
Power moved here. Power watched. Power judged.
My pulse thundered in my ears as I stepped across the threshold.
Silence followed me. It spread like wildfire—conversation dying mid-sentence, laughter choking into stillness. Heads turned. Fans stilled. Goblets froze halfway to lips.
Every eye in Solkaris landed on me.
My gown caught the light as if it had been sewn from living coals—t deep crimson silk fitted close before spilling into twin slits that revealed long, bare lengths of leg with every step.
The bodice plunged in a sharp V of intricate lace, dipping scandalously toward my navel and exposing skin dusted in fine gold shimmer that glowed beneath the torches like sacred ash.
My hair was unbound, a wild, burning halo cascading down my back. If they expected a grieving, broken princess… they were getting something far more dangerous.
Aether stalked beside me, sleek as sin and twice as dangerous.
His obsidian coat rippled beneath the chandelier light, muscles rolling with quiet, predatory menace.
His golden eyes mirrored mine—twin suns that promised ruin to anyone who didn't look away.
His paws moved silently across the marble, his presence warning enough for anyone foolish enough to mistake me for prey.
Beside me, Ember was storm incarnate. Amber silk wrapped her like a temptation, sculpting every lethal curve as though the dress had been forged around her bones.
Her auburn curls spilled over her olive skin, her green eyes glittering like shattered glass as she surveyed the ballroom with predatory calm.
If I was the fire… she was the spark that burned kingdoms to ash.
Gods, Ezra looked just as dangerous.
His black suit fit him like shadow given form, the crisp white shirt stark against his sun-warmed skin.
His auburn hair had been swept back, though a few rebellious strands still fell across his brow, though a few rebellious strands still fell across his brow, softening nothing about the intensity of his gaze.
Ember’s hand was hooked through his arm.
A declaration. A challenge. A claim.
My chest tightened, a sharp pang of longing hitting me so hard I nearly faltered.
I wished—gods, I wished—my hand was wrapped around Asher’s instead. I wanted to show him off to my court.
I wanted them to see the male who had unraveled me.
The one who had ruined me and then left me standing here to face this alone.
But he wasn't here.
So I lifted my chin higher, letting the gold shimmer on my skin catch the light, and stepped fully into the fire.
As we walked past tables filled with nobles and royals from across the kingdoms glittering beneath glowing chandeliers—I swiped a champagne flute straight off a passing waiter’s tray.
Ember and Ezra followed suit, their movements as fluid and practiced as my own.
Aether and the rest of the boundlings peeled away toward the outer gardens, where a massive designated space had been cleared for them to feast.
I didn’t question where Aether disappeared to when he claimed his "personal space." He was likely hunting, terrorizing a nobleman's prize hound, or both.
I watched them go.
Ruin and Havoc immediately bounded after him, both of their heads snapping playfully at his obsidian tail.
Aether whipped around with a vicious, low-throated hiss, his ears flattening against his skull.
“Ava, please get these mutts away from me,” he seethed through the bond. “Their enthusiasm is offensive.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, sharp and genuine.
“Ava, darling.”
My father’s voice cut through the music like a blade of flame. I turned instinctively.
King Solren stood at the center of the ballroom like he had been forged from the sun itself.
Tall, broad, and impossible to ignore His golden-brown eyes locked onto mine, achingly similar to my own—bright beneath a crown of sun-pale hair now streaked faintly with silver.
A beard framed his jaw, sharpening the brutal handsomeness that had made entire courts fear him long before he ever sat on the throne. Power rolled off him in waves, thick enough to make the air shimmer.
He was a true fire wielder.
Not only the King of Zymarra, but the King of Lyr’n’dell. The whole fucking continent.
The Fire Kingdom had claimed that throne for centuries. And one day, that same damn throne would be mine.
A king who had burned kingdoms to keep ours standing.
He opened his arms, and I went. Smoke. Ash. Heat.
He smelled like war, victory, and home.
“My darling daughter,” my mother said softly.
The world tilted. She was glowing, her auburn-blonde hair cascading like spun silk and her green eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
Her fairy-silk gown flowed gracefully around the gentle swell of her belly.
Gods… she smelled like home. And heartbreak. I folded into her arms, grounding myself in the familiar scent of jasmine and warm rain. When I finally pulled back, her cheeks were wet.
“Mother,” I breathed, my own voice wavering.
“Daughter.” She smiled through the tears, brushing a loose strand of hair from my face just as she had when I was small.
Then my father pulled me back into his embrace. “We missed you,” he said, pressing a firm kiss to my cheek.
When I stepped back, he didn’t let go completely. His hands stayed heavy on my shoulders, studying me.
His gaze moved over my face, my stance, and the way I held my chin.
He was measuring me. He was searching.
Searching for Jax.
The realization hit like a punch to the ribs. He wanted to see his son in me. He wanted me to be the ghost of the perfect heir, the warrior prince who had burned brighter than any of us.
His throne was waiting for me—once I finished at the Academy, once I proved myself worthy.
His eyes softened with pride, but beneath the surface, there was something sharper.
Expectation. Always the crushing weight of expectation.
Ezra and Ember stepped forward beside me, their movements effortless and refined from years of surviving the razor-sharp scrutiny of court.
Together, they dipped into smooth, practiced bows—shadow and flame moving in perfect, lethal unison.
“Your Majesties,” they said, their voices steady.
My father acknowledged Ezra with a sharp, curt nod.
It was a look of approval, the kind he reserved for warriors he respected but did not yet fully trust. His fire-bright gaze lingered on the Umbra male only briefly before shifting, softening in a way that felt almost sacred.
Because my mother was already moving toward them.
“Oh, Ember,” she breathed. Her voice alone was enough to fracture the rigid tension of the hall.
Ember straightened slowly, and for a heartbeat, I forgot how lethal she could be.
I forgot the way she moved in battle like wildfire made flesh.
Under the chandelier light, she looked painfully, achingly familiar.
Gods, she was the spitting image of my mother.
The same auburn fire lived in her waves.
She had the same sharp green eyes, capable of cutting a man open with a single glance, and the same proud lift of the chin that refused to bow—not even to kings.
House Ember blood did not run quietly; it roared.
My mother and her sister, Jasmine, had once been legends of court beauty and destruction.
They were twins who danced through festival flames without being burned, laughing as sparks clung to their gowns like living stars.
The older nobles still whispered stories of how those two turned celebrations into riots of magic and reckless joy, wielding their power like a challenge to the gods themselves.
My father had fallen for my mother the moment he saw her.
Fated mates—a bond blessed by divine fire.
But Ember had never been given a story like that.
Her mother had died screaming.
I was young when it happened—too young to understand political strategy or the quiet terror that lived beneath royal smiles.
I only remembered smoke swallowing the sky and the taste of ash on my tongue.
I remembered the sound of people running through corridors that burned like funeral pyres.
Now, I understood the truth. Jasmine Varrow had been killed during an attack most courts preferred to pretend had never happened—an uprising that history tried to bury.
The Ravagers.
They were not a kingdom or a noble house.
Fae and humans alike choose to become Ravagers, abandoning divine order for wild, lawless freedom.
They rejected the monoliths and the Ring system that chained elemental magic into hierarchy and control.
They rejected the belief that gods had the right to decide a soul's destiny.
They believed magic should be untamed. Free. Dangerous.
They lived in tribal clans beyond the protection of the monoliths, in the outer forests where ancient roots twisted into the sea cliffs.
They were a warrior people, wild-born and ocean-hardened, forging weapons beneath open skies and stormlight.
And they hunted noble blood. Systematically. Brutally.
The massacre of House Ember had been one of their bloodiest.
I still remembered Ember standing beside her mother’s funeral pyre—silent, unmoving, and dry-eyed while the world collapsed around her.
My father had answered that slaughter with fire.
Real fire. He had led a campaign into the wildlands himself, burning Ravager strongholds and breaking clan after clan until the rebellion fractured. Court songs glorified it as victory—as divine justice.
Ember stiffened slightly when my mother finally pulled her into an embrace, the amber silk of her dress rustling.