Chapter 20 After The Smoke

Chapter 20 After The Smoke
The night after the battle tasted like ash.

I was standing in a place that was once called Ash Vale but now a graveyard of embers and shadows. The atmosphere was full of smoke, going up to the blood-red sky that was ystill shining. My hands began to shake, not from fear, but from the exhaustion and everything I had burned.

The bodies of Crescent warriors and rogues who had died were scattered on the ground and the smell of everything that had burnt cling onto my senses. Every time the wind changed, I thought I heard voices calling my name. Maybe ghosts stayed around those who refuse to forget them, I thought.

Rae was a few feet away, kneeling beside a fallen Crescent soldier. He was calm as usual but broken with the grief of the lost soldier. As he placed the warrior’s weapon on their chest and bowed his head, he whispered something into their ear.

“Gather the wounded! Anyone still breathing and bring them to the healers’ tent now!” Theron commanded with his voice like iron but his eyes looked old, tired and broken.

The words Kael said echoed in my ears as i turned to the area where he varnished.

You are her echo, Aria and the other half of your soul already serves me.

The other half? It couldn’t mean what I thought it did… could it?

I clenched my fists, feeling the golden embers pulse beneath my skin, the same light that had consumed Kael’s soldiers. My flames had saved us… but it had also taken too much. Every flicker felt like a piece of who I was had been burnt.

Mira approached quietly, limping. Her arm was bandaged, but her gaze was steady. “We won, Aria. You did what no one thought possible.”

I didn’t feel victorious. “We lost too many.”

“It’s a war and that is bound to happen,” she said, her voice trembling despite her attempt to sound strong. “But your fire… it gave them hope. Without you, none of us would be standing.”

I wanted to believe Mira and that all this destruction meant something. I wanted to believe that the blood we spilled was worth the lives we protected. But as I looked around, all I could see was ruin.

Theron joined us as his armor cracked and scorched. He glanced at me, then at the fires still burning across the Vale. “Put them out,” he ordered the guards nearby. “Let the land rest.”

Then he came to me, “Walk with me.”

We moved through the wreckage in silence as the ground still radiated heat and remnants of my own unleashed anger. When we reached the edge overlooking the battlefield, Theron finally spoke.

“You fought well. Recklessly,… but well.”

I almost smiled. “That’s not a compliment.”

“It’s the only kind I give.” His expression softened, though only for a second. “You need to understand what comes next may be greater, Aria. This battle was never a war. It was a test and a warning.”

“From Kael?” I asked.

He shook his head. “From fate and from whatever force wrote that prophecy before any of us were born.”

I frowned. “You mean the one about the Ember Queen’s bloodline?”

“Yes, It speaks of two flames. One that will cleanse and one that will consume. You’ve proven which one you are… for now.” His eyes met mine. “But the second flame still burns somewhere. And if Kael finds her first…”

My heart stopped for a second. “Her.”

The word twisted through me, cold but sharp.

Theron didn’t notice my reaction, or maybe he did and chose not to show it. He just continued with his voice low. “The prophecy’s test isn’t survival, It’s unity. When the two flames meet, the world either heals… or burns.”

“So are you saying i’m supposed to find someone I don’t even know exists,” I muttered. “And I hope she doesn’t even want me dead.”

“That’s the path of fire,” he said simply. “It never gives answers… It only gives trials.”

Rae approached us then, his presence grounding and quiet as always. “The wounded are being tended to,” he reported. “But we’ll need to move before dawn. Moonshade will gather again.”

Theron nodded, then looked at me one last time. “Rest while you can, Aria. The next storm won’t give you the chance to.” He turned and left leaving Rae and me alone under the flickering red sky.

I let out a shaky breath. “Do you think he’s right? That this isn’t over?”

Rae tilted his head slightly as his eyes reflected the dying embers. “Battles end but Wars don’t.”

The simplicity of his words sank deep. I lowered myself to the ground, watching the flames dim one by one. The silence that followed was heavy. It was the kind that stays in your bones.

“I killed so many,” I whispered. “Even the ones who surrendered. I could still feel the fire inside me that doesn’t want to stop.”

Rae bent beside me, his voice soft but unwavering. “Fire doesn’t understand mercy and that’s your burden not its fault.”

I looked up at him. “What if I become like them? What if the Hollow Flame takes me too?”

He looked at me steadily as the flicker of gold in his eyes was catching the last light of the burning sky. “Then I’ll pull you back. Even if it burns me.”

Something in my chest ached. Not from fear but from the quiet promise in his voice. Rae never swore anything lightly.

Mira’s distant call broke the moment. “Aria! We found something!”

We hurried to her as she stood near the remains of a fallen rogue that was identical to the kind that had attacked us before. In his hand was a medallion, black but intact and was filled with twin flame symbols circling a blood-red moon.

I reached for it but the moment my fingers touched the metal, heat flared under my skin not painful, but alive. The same golden fire that marked me surged faintly, as if answering.

Mira stepped back. “That thing reeks of dark enchantment. Don’t touch it too long.”

But I couldn’t let go. The medallion pulsed once… twice… and then I heard it.

It was a soft, feminine, echoing whisper from somewhere far away inside the fire.

“Find me.”

It was as if the world around me turned for a second. My vision blurred out and for another second, I saw her. A figure covered in blue flames, standing in a forest of ash. Her eyes were faint but were mirrors of mine.

When I blinked, she was gone.

“Aria?” Rae’s hand was on my shoulder. “What did you see?”

I swallowed hard. “No! The question is who did I see?”

The medallion’s heat faded, leaving only the cold trace of connection behind. I looked at them both, my voice barely above a whisper.

“She’s real.”

Mira frowned. “Who?”

“The other flame,” I said slowly. “The one Kael spoke of.”

Rae’s became furious. “Aria, are you certain?”

I nodded in affirmation as my heart was pounding. “She called me through the fire. She’s out there… and she’s not with us.”

Mira glanced at the burning horizon. “Then where is she?”

I turned toward the distant mountains where the smoke seemed to stretch like a bridge between worlds. The air around us shivered, as if the flames themselves were listening.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, “but I’m going to find her before they do.”

The last of the embers died out, leaving only the faint glow of my golden fire on the ground. Somewhere far away, another flame burned blue and cold, waiting.

And I knew… whenever our paths cross, the world would never be the same.

As I tried to sleep, the memory of the frost-shadow, my other half, flashed and didn't leave my thoughts. Every time I closed my eyes, I only saw a blue fire watching me.

Suddenly, a sound dropped and I sat up

I saw someone standing outside my window.

It was a silhouette feminine shadow that stood like a statue.

I froze as the air turned frigid.

Then the silhouette shadow lifted a hand.

“Not yet,” a voice whispered through the glass — soft, cold, unmistakably mine and the image vanished.

I stumbled back from the window as my heart was thundering.

Rae burst into the room seconds later with his blade drawn.
“Aria? I felt your fire spike, what happened?”

I couldn’t speak. All I could do was stretch forth my hands pointing at the frost direction.

Rae’s expression changed instantly.

The frost-twin wasn’t a dream anymore.
She was here.

And she had found Crescent.