Chapter 40

Chapter 40
Lyra’s POV

The council chamber roared like a cage of wolves.

I had barely set foot back in the keep before the accusations began. Stone walls echoed with voices that layered over each other, sharp and unrelenting. Elders pounded the table, advisors hissed behind their palms, and in the center of it all, they stared at me like I was a spark dropped into dry grass.

“She brought the rogues down upon us!” Elder Varik thundered, his silver hair bristling with fury. “Wherever she walks, fire follows. You cannot deny it, Alpha.”

“I didn’t—” My voice cracked, raw from smoke and ash. “I didn’t lead them here.”

But they weren’t listening. They never listened.

Another elder, Marrow, leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with suspicion. “And yet Thorne is gone. Mira too. Do you not see the pattern? First she comes. Then the Flame stirs. Then our own betray us. It reeks of corruption.”

The word struck harder than claws. Corruption. As if I were a disease rotting them from the inside.

I straightened my spine, refusing to curl in on myself like I used to. I had faced rogues. I had faced my own fire. I wouldn’t let their voices drown me now.

“You blame me because it’s easier than blaming yourselves,” I said, the words shaking but true. “You call me danger, but it wasn’t me who let rogues inside our borders. It wasn’t me who turned my back on the pack.”

Gasps rippled. Elder Varik slammed his fist against the table. “How dare you—”

“She dares because she has the right.”

Draven’s voice cut through the chamber like a blade.

Every head turned. He stood beside me, shoulders squared, eyes blazing gold in the torchlight. He hadn’t spoken since we entered, hadn’t looked at anyone but me. But now, his presence filled the hall like a storm breaking.

“You forget yourselves,” he snarled, his voice thick with the growl of his wolf. “You speak of her as if she is prey. She is not. She is under my protection. That makes her untouchable.”

Shock rippled across the chamber. Elders shifted in their seats, muttering, glaring, but none of them dared meet his eyes for long.

“Alpha,” Marrow said, carefully measured. “You risk all of us for an outsider. For a girl who bears the scent of Seraphina, who drips with prophecy. Can you not see? The Flame is stirring again—and she is the cause.”

Draven stepped forward, his presence radiating heat. “The Flame stirs because of traitors like Thorne, not because of her.” His gaze swept the chamber, pinning each elder in turn. “If you wish to challenge my judgment, then speak it plainly. But do not cower behind her name like cowards.”

The chamber went still. The weight of his words pressed on every stone.

I swallowed hard. His defense should have comforted me, but instead it twisted inside my chest. Because every word he spoke tied me tighter to him. To his claim. And part of me…part I was afraid to name, wanted that.

Still, the whispers didn’t stop.

I heard them behind me, hissed from advisor to advisor: She bewitched him. She brought ruin. Mira’s gone. Mira took something from the healer’s vault. A charm? A weapon?

My blood went cold. Mira. Always Mira. Her face hovered in my mind, the way she had steadied my flames, then let rogues circle me, then vanished into the trees. What had she taken? What was she planning?

The meeting dragged, claws hidden behind words. In the end, no answers came. Only suspicion, only more eyes watching me as though waiting for me to slip.

When it was finally over, I lingered by the chamber doors, the whispers buzzing in my ears like flies. Draven touched my shoulder, grounding me. His hand was steady, but his jaw was tight, carved from stone.

“They will not stop,” I said softly, not looking at him. “No matter what I do, they’ll keep blaming me.”

“Let them,” he growled. “They’ll learn soon enough who you are. And if they don’t—” He broke off, but I felt the wolf in him finish the sentence anyway. I’ll make them.

We walked the corridor in silence, our shadows stretching long in the torchlight. My body ached, my palms still sore from fire, but sleep didn’t come easily. Not when Mira was missing. Not when Thorne was out there chasing something called the Flameborn. Not when the council wanted me gone.

And when sleep finally did claim me, it wasn’t peace that found me.

It was her.

Seraphina.

The dream was sharper this time, more than a haze of whispers and light. She stood before me in the dark, silver hair flowing, her eyes like liquid fire. She looked almost alive.

“Why?” My voice trembled. “Why do they see you in me? Why won’t you leave me alone?”

Her lips curved, not in kindness, not in cruelty, but in something like sorrow. “Because the bond is more than blood. The fire chose you, as it once chose me.”

My chest tightened. “The Flameborn. What is it? They said Thorne went to summon it.”

Her gaze sharpened. “Not summon. Awaken.”

I shivered. “Awaken what?”

Seraphina stepped closer, and though she was only a dream, heat bled from her like sunfire. Her voice was a whisper and a warning.

“The Flameborn isn’t a weapon, Lyra. It is alive. And once it rises… it does not serve. It devours.”

I jolted awake, sweat dripping down my skin, my throat raw from a scream I didn’t remember making.

But the echo of her words burned hotter than any flame.

The Flameborn isn’t a weapon. It’s alive.

And somewhere beyond the keep’s walls, Thorne was already searching for it.