Tame The Flame

The First Flame – Part I: The Waiting Hours

The days stretched long beneath spring’s warming light. After the silence, life had begun moving again. Slowly, as if the land itself still mourned the dead yet dared to hope. The air in the stronghold felt gentler somehow. Its stones, which once echoed only with the sound of clashing steel, now carried laughter—soft, uncertain, but real.

Within the heart of the stronghold, the women had been moved to the inner chambers, lined with silk and spell wards, each designed to protect the life that stirred within them. Not from assassins or blades, but from the strain of war's echo. Healers moved through the corridors like phantoms of mercy, whispering incantations, laying protective sigils under pillows and along thresholds.

Each mother-to-be—Ava, Lima, and Seraphina—carried differently.

Ava remained stoic, pushing herself to the edge of her strength even in pregnancy. But when alone, she would sit near the courtyard arch and hum the songs her mother once sang. Her hands never strayed far from her blade, but now they rested more often on her growing belly.

Lima became more analytical than ever, charting her symptoms, counting hours, reading tomes that measured Ether influence on infants in the womb. But sometimes, she would pause mid-sentence, her hand lingering over her stomach, and her gaze would turn dreamy—like she’d already met the child she carried.

Seraphina glowed with power. Her connection to the flame deepened daily, and her pregnancy seemed to intensify it. The fire spirits followed her like curious shadows. Her moods were vivid—joyful, then solemn, then fierce. “She kicks to the rhythm of my heart,” she once whispered to Keal, and he believed her.

Keal visited each chamber every day, rarely speaking much. He simply was—a presence, a watcher, a guardian of their peace. But inside, he churned. He’d faced monsters that devoured light and shattered skies. But this—this waiting—this was what undid him.

Because love was not a battlefield he knew how to win.

He stood one morning outside Seraphina’s chamber, listening. Her voice flowed like a song inside, murmuring to the child. He leaned his head against the stone, and closed his eyes.

“You’re afraid.”

The voice behind him was soft, unjudging. Ava.

He turned slowly. “Yes.”

She didn’t ask what of. She understood. Instead, she stepped forward, took his hand, and placed it gently over her stomach.

“Then be afraid. But don’t run.”

He nodded.

The first signs came two nights later. A ripple through the Etherstream. Lima felt it first—a pressure behind her eyes, a rhythm in her pulse.

“The veil is thinning,” she told the others.

By dawn, Ava had gone into labor.

They moved her into the blessed chamber—the one beneath the tower, carved from living stone. The old magic there hummed like a cradle song. Keal remained at the threshold. He wanted to go to her, but Ava had said, “Not until it’s done. Then you’ll see her first.”

Hours passed. The storm outside grew. Rain, rare in this region, fell in a hush. Fire spirits lined the windows. The tree in the courtyard bloomed all at once.

And then—

A cry.

The sharp, undeniable, miraculous cry of life.

A healer emerged, eyes wet, smiling wide.

“She’s strong. She’s beautiful. She’s here.”

Ava followed moments later, pale but proud, cradling a child wrapped in cloth stitched with protective runes.

“Her name is Nyra,” Ava said. “She sees everything.”

Keal wept for the first time since the Fold War.

Three days later, Lima's time came.

Unlike Ava’s firestorm, Lima’s labor came in silence. She labored through the night without complaint, barely a cry escaping her lips. But the Ether around her pulsed. Lights flickered. Glyphs shimmered across walls in patterns no one recognized.

Then—

Light.

The chamber burst with a column of golden radiance. Healers shielded their eyes. When the light dimmed, Lima held her son.

“Kaelen,” she whispered. “He already dreams the shape of the stars.”

Keal touched the child’s brow, and saw glimpses—constellations, runes, the language of futures.

Seraphina’s labor came as thunder.

The flames across the fortress surged. Rain evaporated mid-air. Even the fire spirits fled.

She refused to lie still. She stood during most of her labor, roaring her pain and love into the world.

When the time came, lightning struck the central tower.

And in its wake, Siora was born.

Eyes open. Glistening gold.

“She chose fire,” Seraphina said, exhausted but alight. “And the world chose to obey.”

Keal stood in the sacred garden days later.

Three children. Three mothers. Three futures.

The stronghold was no longer a fortress. It was a cradle.

He looked to the stars.

“We are not ready,” he whispered.

But as he turned, Nyra stared at him from Ava’s arms. Kaelen cooed from Lima’s. Siora held a flicker of flame in her tiny palm.

And Keal knew:

Neither were the stars.