The fire came too fast.
That's what Dravik remembers most.
Not the scream.
Not the faces.
Not even the pain.
Just the speed.
One breath too many.
One heartbeat too many.
And suddenly, the world had no time left to choose.
The city had not been a battlefield.
There had been no clear enemy.
Just walls that were too close.
Roofs that were too dry.
Bodies that were too slow.
He remembers the heat spreading like an idea.
Not violent.
Logical.
Protect.
Push away.
Prevent.
The fire had obeyed.
It still obeys.
When he regained consciousness, there were no more screams.
No more resistance.
No more movement.
Only blackened silhouettes, frozen in unfinished gestures.
A raised hand.
A leaning body.
A threshold never crossed.
He remembers thinking:
They are safe now.
And that thought...
is the one that still haunts him.
Dravik opens his eyes again.
The forest is still.
Too quiet.
As if it knows what he contains.
Lunaya walks a few steps ahead of him.
He feels her thread.
Present.
Stable.
Alive.
And yet.
He also feels something else.
A memory coming back.
An ancient fire that recognizes a familiar situation.
The world watches.
The world encircles.
The world begins to decide.
It's exactly like before.
He clenches his fists.
The heat responds immediately.
A reflex.
A danger.
No.
This time, it's not a city.
Nor an enemy.
Nor a quick choice.
It's about her.
He understands then, with brutal clarity,
what he had never wanted to see:
protecting by burning
is sometimes just another way of destroying.
He never repaired what he left behind.
He learned to live with it.
To wear the guilt like armor.
To tell himself that some sacrifices were necessary.
But Lunaya is not a sacrifice.
And fire...
fire doesn't differentiate.
He stops abruptly.
Sahr notices immediately.
Kael too.
"What?" growls the wolf.
Dravik doesn't answer right away.
He looks at Lunaya.
She turns around, questioning.
"If the world forces us," he finally says, his voice low and controlled,
"I won't be the one to decide for you."
Silence falls.
Not heavy.
But charged.
Lunaya holds his gaze.
She doesn't ask for an explanation.
She understands.
And that's worse.
"I would never ask you to hold back for me," she says softly.
That sentence...
it's almost too much.
Dravik looks away.
Not out of weakness.
Out of fear.
Because he knows exactly what would happen
if he stopped holding back.
And for the first time in a very long time,
the fire inside him isn't burning to get out.
It's burning to never come back.