Chapter 75 Memories In Flames

Chapter 75 Memories In Flames


The dream always began with smoke.

Not the violent kind that choked and burned the lungs, but the slow, curling kind that slid beneath doors and wrapped itself around the ankles like a warning too soft to scream. Lyra stood in the middle of her childhood home, barefoot on the cold kitchen tiles. The air smelled of ash and something sweeter beneath it, vanilla and cinnamon. Her mother’s baking.

“Lyra,” her mother’s voice called gently from somewhere beyond the hallway.

Lyra turned toward it, heart pounding the way it always did in this dream. The hallway stretched longer than it should have, walls narrowing, the ceiling flickering with shadows that moved like living things.

“Mom?” she whispered.

The smoke thickened.

She started down the hallway anyway.

Because she always did.

Her mother stood at the far end, framed in the doorway of her bedroom. She looked exactly as Lyra remembered, long dark hair falling over her shoulders, soft brown eyes that held too much worry even when she smiled.

“You have to be brave,” her mother said.

“I am brave,” Lyra replied automatically, though her voice sounded small, like it belonged to a younger version of herself.

Her mother shook her head gently. “Not that kind.”

The flames grew higher.

They climbed the wallpaper, twisting into shapes that looked almost like hands reaching for her. The heat licked against Lyra’s skin, but it didn’t burn her. It never did.

“I tried to protect you,” her mother said. “But I was afraid.”

Lyra felt the old ache in her chest, the one she carried even in waking hours.

“You weren’t weak,” Lyra insisted. “They were stronger.”

Her mother’s expression softened with something like regret. “Strength isn’t only about fighting, my firelight.”

“You have to learn how to let yourself be held,” her mother whispered.

The flames surged suddenly, roaring up between them. Lyra lunged forward, reaching.

“Mom!”

But her mother’s figure dissolved into smoke but this time, Lyra wasn’t standing in the hallway.

She was standing alone in the ruins.

The little girl version of herself stood across the debris, staring at her with wide, accusing eyes.

“You left her,” the child said.

Lyra’s breath faltered. “No. I tried.”

“You survived.”

The word felt heavier than blame.

“I was just a child,” Lyra whispered.

“So was she.”

The fire flared again, but now it was inside her. Crawling under her skin, pressing against her ribs.

She sank to her knees.

“I didn’t know how to save her,” she choked.

The child version of herself tilted her head. “You still don’t know how to save yourself.”

The flames closed in.

Lyra gasped and bolted upright in bed.

The room was dark, except for the faint glow of city lights bleeding through the tall windows of her chamber. Her skin was slick with sweat, sheets tangled around her legs. Her heart hammered so violently she could hear it in her ears.

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

Then she realized she wasn’t alone.

Dante stood near the window, half-shadowed, watching her.

He didn’t move when she looked at him.

He had been there for a while.

He’d heard the soft whimpering first.

Then her breathing had turned uneven. Her hands had clenched the sheets like she was fighting something unseen. He’d stepped closer without meaning to, drawn by the raw vulnerability etched across her sleeping face.

When she’d whispered, “Mom,” it had twisted something deep in his chest.

Now she stared at him, disoriented.

“How long have you been there?” Her voice was rough.

“Long enough,” he answered quietly.

She wiped at her face, embarrassed to find tears still clinging to her lashes. “You shouldn’t just appear in my room.”

“I knocked.”

“I didn’t hear it.”

“You were dreaming.”

Silence stretched between them.

He didn’t comment on the tear tracks.

He didn’t ask if she was okay.

Instead, he crossed the room slowly and sat on the edge of the bed, careful to leave space between them.

“It was her again,” he said softly.

Lyra’s fingers stilled in the sheets. “You don’t know that.”

“I know the way you say her name.”

The admission felt intimate in a way that frightened her.

She swallowed. “I see the fire every time.”

Dante’s jaw tightened slightly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know that either.”

He turned to face her fully now. “You were a child.”

“That doesn’t make it easier,” she shot back, frustration breaking through the fragile quiet. “It doesn’t erase the fact that I walked out alive and she didn’t.”

“You were meant to.”

The words slipped out before he could soften them.

Lyra laughed bitterly. “Meant to? Is that what we’re calling survival now? Destiny?”

“I’m calling it strength.”

She looked at him sharply. “I’m tired of being strong.”

That startled him more than the tears.

“I don’t want to be the one who survives everything,” she continued, voice trembling. “I don’t want to carry everyone’s expectations. I don’t want to wake up every night smelling smoke that isn’t there.”

Dante’s hand twitched, like he wanted to reach for her but wasn’t sure he was allowed.

“You don’t have to carry it alone,” he said.

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“Is it?”

Her eyes flicked to his.

He rarely spoke of his own nightmares. Rarely admitted to fear at all.

But tonight, in the dim light, the shadows around him looked thinner. Less defensive.

“I watch you sleep,” he admitted quietly.

She blinked. “That’s not reassuring.”

A faint, humorless smile tugged at his mouth. “Not like that. I stay because I know what it’s like to wake up alone.”

Something in her expression softened.

“You don’t look afraid,” she said.

“I am,” he answered simply. “Just not of the dark.”

The honesty hung between them, fragile as glass.

Lyra exhaled slowly, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “In the dream,” she said hesitantly, “she tells me strength isn’t about fighting.”

Dante tilted his head. “Then what is it?”

“She says I have to learn how to let myself be held.”

He went very still.

“And do you believe her?” he asked.

Lyra’s gaze dropped to her hands. “I don’t know how.”

He shifted closer before he could overthink it.

Carefully. Slowly.

When he placed his hand over hers, it wasn’t possessive. It wasn’t commanding.

It was steady.

Warm.

She didn’t pull away.

Her breath hitched slightly, but she didn’t retreat.

“You start small,” he said. “You let someone sit with you when the smoke feels real.”

Her throat tightened again, but this time the tears didn’t feel like drowning.

For a long moment, they stayed like that, hands touching, shoulders nearly brushing, the world outside their chamber irrelevant.

Lyra’s eyes grew heavy.

The adrenaline of the nightmare faded, replaced by exhaustion.

“You can stay,” she murmured, barely audible.

Dante didn’t answer verbally.

He simply adjusted his position so he was leaning back against the headboard instead of hovering at the edge of the mattress. He didn’t pull her into his arms.

Dante remained awake.

He watched the tension leave her face. Watched the faint crease between her brows smooth out. Watched the powerful Underworld Queen become, once more, just a woman who had survived too much too young.

His chest ached with something dangerously close to devotion.

He brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead, careful not to wake her.

“You don’t have to burn alone,” he whispered.

Her fingers twitched slightly in her sleep, tightening uncons
ciously around his hand.

And when, hours later, her eyes fluttered open again.

The first thing she saw was Dante standing at her bedside, watching over her like a guardian who had chosen, finally, not to hide in the shadows.