The flames had vanished, but their memory lingered.
Adeline could still feel the heat beneath her skin — not burning now, but waiting, like something alive had curled itself inside her chest and decided to stay.
The chamber was quiet again.
Too quiet.
Lucien stood several steps away, his back to her, shoulders tense as though he were holding the world in place through sheer will. The sigils carved into the stone walls had dimmed, but not completely. They pulsed faintly, responding to something neither of them dared name aloud.
"You shouldn't have seen that," he said at last.
His voice was low. Controlled. But there was a fracture beneath it — a crack Adeline had learned to recognize. It was the sound he made when he was afraid of what he might become.
"I didn't just see it," she replied, surprising herself with how steady her voice was. "I felt it."
Lucien turned.
His gaze locked onto her like a blade finding its sheath. For a moment, she thought he might deny it, might retreat behind command and authority the way he always did.
Instead, he asked quietly, "What did you feel?"
Adeline swallowed.
"Like something ancient was looking back at me," she said. "Like it knew my name before I did."
The air shifted.
Lucien crossed the distance between them in three measured steps. He stopped close — not touching — but near enough that she could feel the heat of him, the gravity he carried without effort.
"That power doesn't awaken without reason," he said. "And it doesn't choose lightly."
Her pulse quickened. "Then why me?"
For the first time since she had met him, Lucien hesitated.
That alone frightened her more than the flames.
"There are stories," he said finally. "Old ones. Stories we were taught to forget."
Adeline's breath caught. "About what?"
"About someone who could burn without being consumed," Lucien said. "Someone whose fire wasn't destruction — but judgment."
The word echoed inside her.
Judgment.
She took a step back, heart racing. "You're saying that thing… that power… it's not just magic."
"No," Lucien said. "It's a verdict."
Silence stretched between them, heavy and charged.
Adeline's thoughts raced. All her life, she had been told she was ordinary. Clever, yes. Observant. Resilient. But never chosen.
And now—
"There's more," she said softly. "I can feel it. You're not telling me everything."
Lucien's jaw tightened.
"Because if I do," he said, "you won't look at me the same way again."
She lifted her chin. "Try me."
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then his hand rose — slow, deliberate — stopping inches from her face. He didn't touch her, but the restraint in the gesture was almost unbearable.
"That fire responded to you," he said. "But it recognized me."
Her heart skipped.
"What does that mean?"
"It means," Lucien said quietly, "that if the legends are true… then you and I were never meant to meet by chance."
A low sound rippled through the chamber — stone grinding against stone.
Adeline spun toward the noise just as a hidden seal along the far wall cracked open, releasing a breath of cold air that smelled of ash and something far older.
Lucien cursed under his breath.
"They know," he said.
"Who knows?" she asked.
He met her eyes, all command stripped away, replaced by something raw and urgent.
"The ones who buried the truth," he said.
"And the ones who will kill to keep it buried."
The chamber trembled again.
And somewhere in the darkness beyond the opening, something answered.