Chapter 3 Ember

They say no one ever hears her arrive, but I did. I heard the hush of the wind change, the way the shadows twisted unnaturally along the stone path.

I kept my eyes on the road where the procession always came. No horses, no carriages, just shadows.

And then she came. Sariyah. Cloaked in starlight and silk. Shadows clung to her following her like a cape. Her face was ageless and beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. Her eyes were empty, black as ink, and her mouth curved into a smile that had a thousand screams.

"The tenth offering," she said, her voice laced with honey and leather. "I have come for him."

Bastion stepped forward before I could grab him. "You will not have me."

The world went silent. Even the flames of the torches stilled.

"You would deny me?" she questioned, tilting her head.

"I love Ember and I will not leave her." He said. "I choose her, not you."

I should have felt relief, I should have clung to him. But all I felt was dread. Sariyah didn't scream, she didn't argue. She only smiled wider.

"Then I suppose I must take you, willing or not." I didn't see her move. I only felt the way the world shifted, as if a door closed that never should have been opened.

Bastion vanished in a swirl of wind and shadow. In the silence he left behind a new shadow stepped out of the dark. He looked at me with silver eyes that burned like molten metal, his brown skin shimmering in the moonlight.

"Well," the stranger said. "That was dramatic."

The moment Bastion vanished, I felt something in me crack. Not snap, not shatter. Just... crack. A fine, jagged fault through the center of everything I had ever let myself believe was safe. A fault that felt ready to errupt at any moment.

One breathe, he was at my side, defiant, trembling, mine. The next he was gone. Swallowed by her shadows.

Sariyah didn't gloat. She didn't grin or whisper threats as she vanished into the mist. She just looked at me with those blank eyes like she had left a mark on my soul and didn't need to say a word to make it permanent.

Then she disappeared. In the echo of that silence I was left standing in the square, surrounded by stunned faces and unspoken horror, clutching a hollow in my chest where Bastion used to be.

My knees buckled, but I didnt fall. I couldn't, not in front of them. The priests dispersed quickly after the offering. Cowards in crimson robes, whispering prayers to the dark queen as if their hands weren't soaked in blood. No one looked at me. No one dared. I was the girl left behind. The one who couldn't save him.

I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could, trying to will this moment to be an awful dream. The next time I opened them I was no longer alone. A shadow stepped forward from the edge of the courtyard, boots silent on the stone. The torches flared, flickered, and then died. One by one.

He came out fo the dark like he belonged to it. His hair was ink black and cropped short to his scalp. His eyes glinting like polished steel. His coat was long black leather, fastened with obsidian clasps that pulsed with a sick kind of magic.

His presence was... wrong. Not like Sariyah's. Hers was cold and ancient seeming inevitable. His felt like a trap. One that was drawing me closer with every heartbeat.

"You really thought you could defy her and live?' His low voice purred. "Cute."

"Who the hell are you?" I asked my voice raw and barely able to sound more than a whisper.

He gave a mocking bow. "Orion St.James, at your service."

I looked past him, the entire square was empty now except for the ashes she left behind in the shape of sigils on the ground.

"I didn't ask for company." I snapped.

"Good, I'm not offering it."

I turned my back on him, but he didn't leave. He let the silence stretch like something sharp between us.

"So you must be Ember Morrigan the girl bastion was willing to risk it all for? That worked out well for him didn't it?"

I didn't answer.

"You know, She will break him first. Mentally and physically. Then once he is completely broken, she will devour him."

"You dont know him," I snapped. "He will fight."

"Oh, I hope he does. It will be more entertaining that way."

I whirled back around, fire boiling in my stomach, rising into my throat. "Why are you here?"

He took a slow step toward me, head tilted like he was studying something behind my eyes. "Because I felt the ripple. Something cracked when she took him and youwere at the center of it."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fire you are trying to swallow." He said. "The kind that doesn't belog to mortals. Not really."

"I'm not-" I stopped, because something was rising. Something wrong.

The sigils Sariyah had made were left on the ground, drawn in ash. I stepped back into one without thinking. The wind shifted. A strange pressure wrapped around my ribs like a second heartbeat pulsing under my skin.

"Don't go in the-" Orion started, but it was too late. My foot crossed the line of the sigil. A sharp heat lanced through my body. I gasped, falling to my knees. The ground blazed with light, white and violet, and it burned.

Orion lunged forward, trying to pull me out. His hand closed around my wrist. The fire inside me exploded. There was no sound, just light and heat and shadow surging together in a violent dance. The sigil ignited. Runes etched in stone flared beneath us, and the energy between us cracked like thunder.

A tether of gold and black wound together, fire and shadow, latching from my chest to his. I screamed, he did too.

Then everything wnet still. The runes were gone. The sigil burned out. I collapsed into the ash, panting, my fingers scorched with glowing threads.

Orion staggered back, staring at his hand. "You idiot. Do you have any idea what you just did?"

"I didn't do anything." I coughed, the taste of ion in my mouth. "What- what was that?"

He looked at me as if I had just set the world on fire. "Binding magic. Ancient. Blood-forged and unbreakable. You and I just got tethered."

My heat stopped, but I could feel a steady beating. I knew instantly it wasn't my own. I could feel his heart beating. Not hear it, but feel it, like it lived inside of me now.

"Do you know what happens when a shadow-marked creature like me gets bound to a flame-born girl who doesn't know what the hell she is? Chaos. Lots of it."

I shook my head fear rising. "I don't have magic. I'm not-"

He stepped closer, eyes narrowed. "You have no idea what you have done. If you think you escaped the monster, you are wrong. You just bound yourself to one."