Chapter 175 THE QUEEN'S ACCEPTANCE

Chapter 175 THE QUEEN'S ACCEPTANCE
CHAPTER 175

THE QUEEN'S ACCEPTANCE

EMBER

That night I lay on the bed with Rowan on one side and Lance on the other. I had told them I wanted to be alone. They ignored me and climbed in anyway.

Rowan’s arm rested across my waist. Lance’s shoulder pressed against mine. Their combined warmth should have been comforting, but my mind kept turning over the choice Michal and Mordecai had given me. Eventually exhaustion pulled me under.



I opened my eyes in a wide open space that felt neither inside nor outside. Soft gray light hung in the air without a clear source. The ground under my feet was smooth stone.

In front of me stood a group of women. Every one of them had full red hair and amber eyes the same shade as mine. Their faces were similar enough that they could have been sisters, but the ages varied.

Some looked barely older than me. Others had lines around their eyes and mouths. A few stood with the posture of women who had lived a very long time. I counted ten before I stopped.

I opened my mouth to ask where I was. The youngest-looking woman stepped forward before I could speak. She looked almost exactly like me, only a little older and calmer.

"Ember," she said softly. "The one we have waited generations to meet."

She stopped only a few steps away. For a long moment, she simply looked at me. Not at the Fire Queen. Not at the prophecy. Just... me. Her amber eyes searched my face as though she were trying to memorize every feature she'd never had the chance to watch grow.

Her hand lifted slowly and brushed a loose strand of silver-streaked hair behind my ear. Her fingers trembled. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

I frowned. "...For what?"

A sad smile touched her lips. "For never seeing your first smile." She swallowed. "For never hearing your first word." Her thumb brushed my cheek. "For never being there when you were frightened."

She laughed quietly, though it sounded close to breaking. "I don't even know your favourite colour."

Something tightened painfully in my chest. She looked away for a second before meeting my eyes again.

"I missed every birthday." Her voice dropped to almost nothing. “Every scraped knee, every victory, every tear. I wasn't there for any of it."

Silence settled between us. I didn't know what to say.

I wanted to ask why. Why did she leave?

Why did she never come back?

Why did I spend years believing no one wanted men?

Instead I asked, "...Who are you?"

Her eyes filled with sadness. She smiled anyway. "I'm your mother."

The words stole the air from my lungs. Everything inside me stopped.

I stared at her. "No..."

"I am."

I looked at her properly. She was beautiful in a clean, elegant way. Her red hair fell wild down her back. Her amber eyes were deep. Her face was round and smooth. She stood tall, taller than me. Standing this close made my chest ache.

I wanted to throw myself into her arms. I wanted to ask why she left. never came back. Why I had spent years believing I was unwanted.

Instead, all I managed was one word. "Mother?”

She stepped closer until there was barely any space between us. "I wanted to watch you grow. I wanted to braid your hair. I wanted to teach you how to control your fire."

"I wanted to embarrass you in front of the boys you liked."

A tiny laugh escaped her. "I wanted all the ordinary things."

Her smile faded. "But ordinary was never something fate allowed us."

She cupped my face with both hands."I hid you because I wanted you to live."

"I left... because I loved you."

"Enough." The older queen folded her arms. .“Stop saying those things to her. "We did not cross the veil so you could spend the little time we have apologising."

Ember's mother sighed. "I know. I've waited eighteen years to say those words.”

She stepped back a little and let her hands fall. “We did not come for this. Every woman you see here was a Fire Queen before you. You are different from all of us.”

An older queen with streaks of white in her red hair cleared her throat. “There was no other way to reach you. We had to enter your dream to give the advice and the warning you need.”

“What warning?” I asked. My voice sounded small in the open space. “What advice?”

The white-streaked queen answered softly. “The fourth element is the hardest to awaken. It demands true understanding of balance.”

My mother spoke again, her tone serious now. “Fire is passion and destruction. Air is freedom and change. Earth is stability and growth. Water is emotion and adaptation. To wield all four, you must understand yourself completely. You must accept every part of who you are—the scared farm girl and the powerful mage, the student and the Queen, the human and the legend.”

One of the queens, a middle-aged woman with a long scar across her jaw, stepped forward. Her red hair hung heavy past her shoulders.

“Power without self-knowledge turns into a weapon that cuts the person holding it,” she said. Her voice was calm and even, low enough that it did not echo. “I learned that too late. Do not make the same mistake.”

Another queen, older, with white mixed heavily into her red hair, spoke next and moved closer. The gray light in the space made the white streaks in her hair stand out sharply.

“The choices you make from this point forward will matter more than the strength of your magic,” Her tone stayed steady, almost flat. “Strength alone never saved any of us. Decisions did.”

A third queen added her voice. She was taller than the others, and when she shifted her weight I heard the quiet rustle of her long dress against the stone floor.

“Accept the parts of yourself you still want to hide. The fear. The anger. The doubt. If you leave them buried, they will surface when you can least afford it.”

They continued for a while longer. Each voice remained controlled and direct. No one raised their volume. I stood in the middle of the circle and listened without interrupting. The gray light never brightened or dimmed. My hands stayed clenched at my sides the entire time.

Eventually their forms began to thin. The edges of their bodies grew faint. My mother stepped close one last time. She rested her hands on my shoulders.

“I will not leave you permanently,” she promised. “I will be with you at every step. The most important thing we came to tell you is this: accept who you are. Once you do, the rest will become easier.”

She paused, her gaze fixed on me, “I never watched you take your first steps. I never heard your first laugh. I never got to tell you how proud I am of the woman you've become. So let me say it now.”

Her face was the last one I saw clearly. Then the entire group faded into the gray light, and the dream ended.



I woke up covered in sweat. My shirt stuck to my back. Rowan’s arm was draped heavily around my waist. Lance had pressed himself against my chest, one hand resting low on my hip.

For a second I wanted to smack both of them for ignoring my request to be left alone. Instead I only sighed and carefully lifted their arms away. Rowan’s skin was cool. Lance’s was warmer. I slid out from between them as quietly as I could.

I had almost reached the bathroom door when Rowan’s voice came from the bed, low and clear.

“Where are you going?”

I turned and gave him a flat look, then pointed at the bathroom door.

He glanced at it, then back at me. “Want me to come with you?”

I glared at him. “Don’t you dare.”

From the other side of the bed Lance muttered, still mostly asleep, “Hurry up and come back.”

I scoffed under my breath and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. The tiles were cold under my feet.

I turned on the tap and cupped water in both hands, then splashed it over my face. The cold shock helped clear the last of the dream. I braced my hands on the edge of the sink and looked up at the mirror.

The girl staring back at me barely looked like the one who had arrived at Velmora months ago. Silver streaks now ran fully through my red hair. My eyes shifted color with my mood—the amber darker than usual this morning. Thin scars marked my arms and collarbone from fights I had survived. Under my skin the power sat restless, like something waiting for permission to move.

The farm girl from Eldwyre was gone. Someone else stood in her place. Someone shaped by fire, loss, and choices that had no clean answers. For the first time I did not look away from that fact.

I spoke to the reflection. My voice came out steady.

“I don’t know what I am. I don’t know why the shadows want me. But I will find out. And if I was born to burn, then let the whole world catch fire.”

The words felt solid in the small bathroom. I was done running from what I carried. I was done being afraid of my own power. I would take the fire as it was and use it.

I dried my face, left the bathroom, and climbed back into bed between the two of them. Neither asked questions.
Rowan simply pulled me closer. Lance shifted until his forehead rested against my shoulder.

I stared at the ceiling until morning light started to push around the edges of the curtains.



The next day I walked straight to Michal’s office after the first class bell. I did not give myself time to second-guess the decision. I knocked once and entered when he called.

Michal sat behind his desk. Mordecai stood near the window. Both of them looked up.

I stopped in front of the desk and kept my shoulders straight.

“I’m ready,” I said. “Ready for the awakening trials. Ready for whatever comes with them. Ready to become the Fire Queen fully. And when they're over..."

I paused and turned my head toward the tall windows. Outside, students moved across the courtyard in the late morning light.

I watched them for a second, then looked back at the two men.

She lifted her chin. “I’ll be ready for war!”

TO BE CONTINUED