The moon sat low, veiled behind clouds like a secret unspoken. Elira stood at the highest balcony of the Duskwatch Tower, overlooking the sleeping capital. Below, the marble domes and crumbling statues gleamed silver — a kingdom beautiful in ruin.
Behind her, the room glowed with flickers of candlelight. Scrolls, relics, and the fragmented remnants of ancient sigils covered the stone desk. The flame that danced in her palm now obeyed her — finally — but it was not warm.
It was cold fire. The fire of remembrance.
"Elira," Lucien's voice came from behind her. Soft. Weighted. "You haven't slept."
She didn't turn. "Do you think memory is a kindness?"
"I think it's a weapon. And sometimes a wound."
She finally looked at him. "The Council will declare me rogue. They think I tampered with royal blood rites. That I've stirred something I do not understand."
Lucien stepped forward. His hands cradled hers — the one that held the cold flame.
"You didn't stir it," he said. "You are it."
Hours later, in the Vault of Ancestry beneath the old palace, the pair stood before the Obsidian Sigil — a fractured monolith that held the memory of her bloodline. It pulsed faintly, as if sensing her.
The priestess, old and frail, barely lifted her eyes. "If you unlock this, girl, there's no going back."
"I have no back," Elira said. "Only forward."
The moment she laid her palm on the monolith, the flame in her chest exploded.
A vision seized her.
She was not herself.
She was a girl again — a child of fire — watching her ancestors bow before a woman with serpent eyes and silver hair.
"We seal it now," said the ancient queen."So our descendants shall choose love… not be ruled by it."
A sword of living flame pierced the ground. A crown shattered. A sigil bled light into the earth. Elira screamed as memory coursed through her.
The Virelle Curse wasn't created to punish.It was meant to test the one who bore the blood of the original queen.
And Elira was the last.
She woke gasping, Lucien cradling her. "Elira—"
"I saw it. I saw them. My ancestors."
"And?"
"They made the curse so no heir would ever be ruled by love again. They made it so we would choose, not be claimed."
Lucien's expression darkened. "And Cael?"
"He was bound to me by their failure. I was meant to break that chain. I didn't… not in time."
The door burst open.
It was Cael.
His chest heaved, hair soaked in rain, cloak torn at the hem. "You unlocked it?"
Elira rose. "Yes."
"Then you need to hear what they're planning. The Council wants to sacrifice you — use your blood to reseal the curse."
Lucien stepped between them. "You shouldn't be here."
"I'm not here for her," Cael said. "I'm here to fix what I helped ruin."
His voice cracked. "I remember everything now. What they did to me. To her. And… I also remember letting her go."
He turned to Elira, and this time his gaze was soft. "I loved you when we were children. And then I loved you again when I remembered."
"But now?" Elira asked.
"I honor you," Cael said. "But I no longer hold you. Not in heart."
Elira's lips trembled. She stepped forward, brushing her hand gently against his shoulder — one last goodbye. "Thank you. For being the piece of me that still believed in softness."
Lucien watched silently.
Then Cael turned, placed a sealed scroll on the table, and left without another word.
Later that night, Elira and Lucien sat in the Tower again.
"He let you go," Lucien said.
"No," Elira replied. "I let him go long ago. I just didn't have the courage to admit it."
Lucien touched her hand. "Then what happens now?"
She held up the scroll Cael left.
"It's a map," she whispered. "To the Hall of Names."
Lucien's eyes widened. "Where the curse can be broken."
Elira nodded. "Yes. But I must give up something to do it."
Lucien's voice was hoarse. "And what will you give?"
Elira looked at him then — really looked — and smiled, tears brimming.
"Not you."