I couldn’t breathe.
Not really.
Too much had happened, too fast. The bond snapping into place with Daxos. The magic. The dungeon. The truth about the Council.
And now this stillness inside me. This absence.
I told them I was fine. That I just needed air.
But truth was?
I didn’t even know who I was right now.
My flame was gone, the Emberborn fire that had always pulsed beneath my skin like a heartbeat. The one thing that tied me to my mother, my bloodline. Silenced.
So I slipped out.
No guards. No mates. No Nyra. Just me, barefoot in the palace courtyard under a bleeding sunset sky that looked far too peaceful for how fractured I felt inside.
The air was warm, heavy with the scent of roses and iron. Magic threaded through the stone walkways like forgotten ghosts, whispering memori
