Chapter 5, The Fire That Remembers
1327 Words
Maya’s Pov
(“If fate wanted me dead, it shouldn’t have made me burn.”)
The room smells like smoke and rain.
Adrian hasn’t moved since he said the words that turned my world inside out: “I don’t know.”
He really doesn’t know if I’ll survive the war that suddenly noticed I exist.
I slide down beside him on the cracked tile. Dark blood still leaks from his shoulder, thick and wrong. His shadows curl around the wound like they want to fight it themselves.
“You need to lie down,” I whisper.
He doesn’t respond.
His jaw’s clenched so tight, a muscle jumps beneath skin too sharp to be human. He’s trying to hide his pain. I don’t know why he bothers.
“You’re hurt,” I say, a little harder this time.
His eyes open, stormy, ancient, just tired. “I’ve survived worse.”
“That doesn’t make this okay.”
He studies me for a long moment, like he’s trying to memorize the fact I’m still alive. “You should sleep,” he says.
I almost laugh. Sleep? Now? Heaven wants me dead, Hell wants Adrian to kill me, and he thinks I can just close my eyes?
“Lie down,” he says again, gentler this time.
Before I can argue, a wave of heat rolls through me. It’s like my blood turns molten gold. My breath catches. My hands start to glow again.
The fire inside me swirls, brighter than before. It doesn’t burn. It remembers.
Adrian sees it instantly. His shadows tense. “Don’t be afraid of it.”
“It’s inside me,” I say, panicking. “How am I supposed to not be afraid of something that can burn angels?”
“It can burn a lot more than angels.”
Not exactly comforting.
He lets out a shaky breath. “Lightborn power changes with emotion. You lose control if you panic.”
“Well,” I snap, “panic seems pretty reasonable tonight.”
Something, almost humor, flickers in him. “Fair.”
He tries to stand. Nearly falls. I catch his arm just in time. He leans into me, heavier than I expected.
“You’re freezing,” I murmur.
“It’s nothing.” He’s lying. The shadows around him tremble like frayed nerves. “We need to move again by sunrise.”
“What happened to resting?”
“We rest when we’re safe.”
“And we’re not?”
His silence says it all.
A loud metallic groan shudders through the building, pipes, maybe. Or the structure. Or something pushing through reality again.
Adrian’s shadows coil tighter. “They’re tracking your energy signature. The fire.”
“So I’m just a walking beacon.”
“To Heaven and Hell both.”
Great.
He turns to the tiny window high on the wall. Dawn’s hours away, and he looks like he might not last five more minutes on his feet.
“No more running tonight,” I say.
He tries to move past me. I plant my hand on his chest. He stops. His heart’s pounding, way too fast.
“Sit,” I tell him.
His eyes flash, surprised. Not used to humans giving him orders. But he listens this time. Sinks slowly back to the floor.
I kneel, hands shaking, and peel his jacket open wider. Heat rolls off his shoulder, way too hot. The wound looks more like burned stone than flesh.
“This came from Heaven?” I ask.
He nods.
“Does it ever heal?”
“Not if I hesitate.”
That, more than the wound, scares me. He’s fighting what he is… for me.
I press the towel harder to the injury. Shadows push back, protective, possessive. But they let me through.
Adrian stares at my hands. “You shouldn’t care.”
“Stop telling me what I should feel,” I whisper.
He looks away, can’t hold my stare. Minutes drag by. He breathes slow, every inhale measured. My whole body starts to feel heavy. The anger in me cools, like it remembers he’s close, and that means I’m safe.
My eyelids get heavy. I try to fight off sleep, but it’s useless. I slip under.
Then, screaming. It yanks me awake.
I bolt upright. Adrian’s curled in on himself, shadows thrashing all around him. He’s not awake. Hands claw at the floor, like he thinks he’ll fall off the earth if he lets go.
“Adrian!”
Nothing. He doesn’t hear me.
His head jerks; his jaw clenches tight. The shadows twist around him, pure terror.
I grab his face. “Hey! Look at me!”
His eyes snap open, deep, black, endless.
He gasps like I’m the only air he’s got. The shadows slam back into him, all at once.
“What happened?” My voice is barely there.
“Memories,” he rasps. “Not mine anymore.”
His voice shakes. That shakes me more than anything angels ever did.
“You were dreaming,” I say, gentle.
“Demons don’t dream.”
“Maybe the part of you that does is finally waking up.”
His face changes, like that idea scares him worse than dying.
Footsteps thunder overhead. Heavy, too many.
Adrian goes rigid. “Mortals. Police. Or, ”
“Angels?”
Before he can answer, glass explodes upstairs. Screams everywhere. Normal people screaming.
“They followed the signature,” he mutters. “I shouldn’t have stopped. They’ll check every floor.”
My heart races. “What do we do?”
He stands, swaying on his feet, but his voice is steel: “I keep you alive.”
I grab his wrist. “Not if you drop dead first.”
He actually sees me, all of a sudden. “I won’t.”
Another scream, a kid.
I move before I think, bolting for the stairs.
Adrian yells my name, but chases after me anyway.
We break into the lobby. Chairs overturned, glass everywhere. People huddled in corners, crying. And there, in the centre,
Two angels.
Not the perfect, golden kind from before. These are hunters. More blade than beauty.
They spot me instantly.
Adrian steps in front of me, blood already running down his arm. “Leave them out of this.”
One angel c***s its head. “All vessels burn after contamination.”
I barely have time to process before a little girl screams; an angel lifts its blade.
And I explode. Gold fire, roaring, alive. It wraps the girl, shields her. The blade hits the fire and falls apart.
The angel looks at me like I’m the monster.
“Lightborn,” it whispers.
Everyone sees me now.
People stare, terrified, awestruck. Lights flicker. Fire curls around my fingers, like it belongs there.
The other angel backs away. “The Artifact has chosen.”
Adrian lunges, shadows tearing loose. He slams the angel so hard into the wall it cracks.
The first angel runs.
Adrian almost goes after, but stops. He’s staring at me. All of me.
The fire fades. People blink, like they’re waking up from a nightmare.
Adrian’s voice is soft: “They’ll write prophecies about that.”
I swallow, hard.
A little girl peeks out from behind her mom. “Are you an angel?”
My mouth goes dry. “No.”
Adrian moves closer, not touching, just close enough that gravity tilts toward him.
“She’s something much rarer.”
Sirens wail. Close, too many to count.
Adrian grabs my hand, yanks me toward the emergency stairs.
“We go now,” he says.
“Where?”
“To someone who can tell us what they woke in you.”
“Who?”
He looks down the stairwell, shadows bunching at his feet.
“My mother.”
It lands like a meteor.
I barely get a breath before the darkness sweeps us away, carrying us straight into a future that doesn’t care what Heaven wanted.
- Writer
