Chapter 188: Flame in the Veins
The war table grew quieter as the plan settled like ash. Their focus was on Hollow Ridge, its many vaults and deadly sins. It emanated betrayal from its core.
Cassian could still taste the iron in his mouth. Not from blood, but from what he had swallowed; orders, lies and the ghost of a father who had led purges and locked away destinies. His Umbrazin blood curled inside him like something coiled and waiting. It pulsed now with unease.
He hadn’t thought about her scent in weeks because to think of her was to remember who he had once been and who she might lead him to become. Her scent had made its way to him through the forest, when he was tracking down Isla and Damian’s party. He wanted to know what they were up to. But he had been smacked by this sudden rise of heat, overwhelming and encompassing. That is when he realised, after he spent a few seconds getting over his dizziness, that he had found his mate. He couldn’t see her, and even though his body pulled him to find and possess her, he would restrain his deepest desires because that would mean putting her in peril. She was with them. He wasn’t with them anymore. He was an outcast.
The mere thought of her boiled in his veins all the way to his heart and further south. He leaned over the crumbling edge of the table, veins taut against his skin. Vesryn glanced at him sideways, but said nothing.
Then… the doors screamed open.
A gust of wind blew the scorched parchment into the air. Shadows flickered violently across the remnants of stained glass and every head turned.
All his attention suddenly froze because she stood there. Wrapped in red leathers that shimmered with heat, as if the flame had been stitched into them, her silhouette was lit from behind like a goddess or a warning. Cassian’s lungs forgot how to breathe.
Her long, dark curls were wind-swept, ash-dusted and her eyes… her eyes burned intensely, flameborn red and gold. They reflected a defiant ancient heritage that was also deeply wounded.
“Aryia,” Maedor said, voice like gravel dragged across steel.
Cassian tried to speak, but nothing came out. His throat was fire.
Aryia stepped into the room, the floor groaning beneath her. Her presence was wrong and right all at once. Maedor narrowed his eyes.
“You’re not expected.”
She smiled faintly, as if mocking him, or the situation that they were in. “That’s the only way I ever arrive.”
Vesryn reached for her blade. Serel flared with recognition. “She’s with the Flameborn Faction. One of the Pyrelan elites. They branded her.”
“No,” Cassian finally choked. “That’s impossible. She, she was with them. She…”
“She still is,” Aryia cut in sharply.
The temperature in the room shifted. She was a pure reflection of the legendary description of a flameborn. Cassian had thought of the bloodline as a myth. A fiery offshoot from Sombrosi and Umbrazin exiles, those who had survived the sealing by burning themselves alive and returning in rebirth.
Maedor stepped forward. “You walk into my war room bearing the legacy of my enemies and expect what, exactly? Hospitality?”
Aryia tilted her head, her eyes never leaving Cassian. “I expect that you listen because, as you are well aware of, the Elders don’t just want control anymore. They want annihilation. Those are your orders and since they have my family, those are mine too.”
Cassian stiffened.
“They’ve kept my mother alive for years in the Cinder Vaults under Hollow Ridge. Every mission I took… every lie I told… it was to keep her breathing.”
“Aryia,” he said hoarsely, her name slid off Cassian’s tongue like a promise. He had just learnt of her name but it felt as though they had known each other for centuries.
“I habe stayed away from you. All of you, because those were my orders. I couldn’t afford to fall in love, and I did anyway.” Her voice cracked, but her stance never did. “I never wanted to be the traitor. But I became the only version that might keep us alive.”
Maedor raised his hand, signaling for no weapons to be drawn, yet. “Go on.”
Aryia stepped closer. “The Elders are grooming a convergence weapon. Not Isla, but another. A failed twin, malformed by Veil interference. Something that shouldn’t have survived the womb. Isla found what she thought was her twin, but she is being tricked. They call her real failed twin, Ashborne. It’s alive and contained and it’s being fed Veyra empaths until it learns to tear through the Veil without rupture.”
Cassian’s stomach dropped.
“Why feed us this information, if we are both on the same side?” Maedor asked coldly.
“Because your map is wrong. The convergence won’t happen at Hollow Ridge. It will happen at Aethercleft, under the moonless sky, when the ash tides rise. That’s where they’re going to awaken it.”
Vesryn narrowed her eyes. “And how do you know?”
Aryia turned to Cassian.
“Because I helped build the chambers. I read the sealed books. I carried the infant that should never have lived, and heard it speak inside my mind. I know what they’ve done and I know what I am. A mistake and a weapon.”
Maedor’s silence was colder than death. Cassian was shaking now, barely perceptible but deep to the bone.
“You are mine,” he whispered. “You knew I was Umbrazin. You knew what they were doing to us. You watched them carve people open and still…”
“I never stopped loving you, I knew you were my mate since the moment you were born, I’ve been watching over you,” she said, voice cracking.
“That doesn’t fix what you’ve done.”
“No,” she said. “But it might save what comes next.”
A flare of fire surged briefly behind her, then dimmed. Not destruction, it was just grief burning.
Maedor finally spoke. “Then prove your loyalty to us, to the Elders. You come with Cassian. To Hollow Ridge. You help us unlock what your kind sealed and if you betray us and help Isla you will be instantly beheaded.”
“I won’t,” she said, unblinking. “Because my bloodline is fire, but my soul is torn and I choose him.”
Cassian couldn’t move. Every piece of himself felt shattered. She was here. She was real and everything they were… had it all been wrapped in strategy by the Elders or was it their destiny?
Maedor growled low. “You will not sleep inside this fortress. You will be watched. If I see even one flare I do not order…”
“I understand,” she replied.
Maedor turned to Cassian. “She is your burden now. Don’t fail again.”
Cassian stepped forward at last. The room quieted. He took Aryia’s hand. It fit into his just like he had envisioned over and over.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he said.
Her answer was a whisper only he could hear.
“I already do.”