The flame crown vanished as suddenly as it had appeared and Eden collapsed. Not with grace. Not like the heroines in stories. She fell forward, gasping, cold sweat soaking her skin as if she'd just been dragged from another world.
Kade caught her before she hit the ground.
"She's burning up," he growled, gathering her in his arms. "Get back, don't touch her."
The branded man stepped forward again. "She's not the same. The one inside her stirred. We all saw it."
"She is the same," Kade snapped. "She's fighting it."
Lira's expression was unreadable, but her voice came low and sharp: "You don't fight the Flamebound. You contain them or they consume everything."
Eden's dreams were fire and teeth. She stood in the woods, barefoot, bloody, and not alone. A girl who looked like her stood across the clearing. Hair tangled, skin pale, a thin silver chain dragging from her wrist like a shackle.
"Why are you in me?" Eden asked.
The girl tilted her head. "I am you."
"No. You're what they buried."
"And you're what they made. But the blood is the same. The soul is cracked. We are two halves of one ruin."
"What do you want?"
"Freedom."
The trees burst into flame. When Eden woke, the sheets were scorched. She sat bolt upright in Kade's bed, breath ragged, chest heaving. He was already there, crouched by the doorway, watching her.
"You were screaming," he said softly.
She looked down. The sheets bore charred handprints.
"I saw her again. The other me."
"Did she say anything new?"
"She said she was me. And that we're broken halves of the same ruin." She looked at him, voice unsteady. "Kade… is that true?"
He ran a hand through his hair. "You don't want the answer I have."
"I want the truth."
He sighed. Sat beside her, hands folded. "You were born under a cursed moon. On the night the Flame Gate cracked for the first time. Your blood carries twin marks-wolf and witch. Mortal and bound. When your aunt took you from Silverthorn, it was to protect both you and the town."
"She said I was never meant to come back."
"You weren't. But fate doesn't care about intentions. It cares about balance."
"And the girl in the coffin?"
"She's the half they couldn't destroy. So they sealed her. In ice and spell and silver. But now that you're here… now that you've woken, the seal's breaking."
Eden didn't leave the cabin for days. The town shifted. People who once offered her smiles now crossed the street when they saw her. The diner closed early. Children were kept indoors.
Clara brought supplies once, and then stopped coming altogether.
Only Kade remained. He didn't speak often, but when he did, it was with purpose.
"You have to choose," he said one night as the fire crackled low. "To run. Or to rule."
"I didn't ask for any of this."
"No one does. But blood chooses its heir and your blood... is demanding a throne."
That night, Eden went to the river.
The moon was a perfect red disk in the sky-a Blood Moon.
She didn't know what drew her there until she saw the figure standing at the bank.
Lira.
Waiting.
"You've felt it," the older woman said without turning. "The awakening."
Eden said nothing.
Lira continued, voice thin as frost. "The town doesn't hate you, Eden. It fears you. Because you are prophecy made flesh. The last Flamebound. The one meant to either reign over the ruins… or burn before the rise."
"You think I'll destroy Silverthorn."
"I think you already are. Without meaning to. Your presence weakens the seals. Things that have slumbered are stirring. The woods are changing. The Hollow Ones are hunting again."
"The Hollow Ones?"
Lira turned then, her eyes darker than night.
"Creatures born of failed bindings. Wolves stripped of their names. Witches exiled from the Circle. They dwell in the space between realms. And now, they want you."
"Why?"
"Because if they get to you before the eclipse… they can wear your body. Use your soul to open the final Gate. And once that Gate opens…" She looked toward the mountain. "Not even death will stop what's coming."
Eden returned to Kade shaken.
"We need to leave," she told him. "Now. We can't fight this alone."
But Kade didn't move. Instead, he looked her dead in the eye and said, "There's something you need to see first."
He led her deep into the woods. Past the boundary markers. Past the standing stones to a hollow carved into the base of the mountain inside, the walls glowed with carved symbols.
But it was what sat in the center that made Eden's blood freeze.
A mirror.
Blackened. Framed in bone. And humming with heat.
"What is it?" she whispered.
"A glimpse," Kade said. "Of what you'll become if you don't choose."
She stepped forward, and the mirror shifted.
And what she saw made her stagger back.
Herself. But not her.
Eyes molten. Hands clawed. Flames licking her skin like a lover. Behind her, Silverthorn burned.
The people she loved, Clara, even Kade on their knees in chains.
Her own voice rose from the mirror, low and cruel:
"Let them kneel. Let them bleed. I was mercy once. Now I am fire."
Eden turned away, shaking.
"That's not me," she whispered.
Kade didn't argue but he didn't deny it either.
"Every path leads somewhere," he said. "You just have to choose which one you're willing to burn."
As the Blood Moon reached its peak, the forest howled but Eden Vale didn't run.
She stood in the clearing behind the cabin, head high, flame flickering at her fingertips and whispered a vow into the wind.
"I won't be their puppet. I won't be their queen. I'll carve a new path… even if it kills me."
From the trees, something moved.
Eyes watching.
Waiting.
And from deep below the town beneath the soil, beneath the seal, the girl in the glass coffin opened her eyes.