Chapter 26 - Burn Before You Break
1088 Words
The table was old, scarred with cigarette burns and blade marks, but Ravyn stood at its head like it was a throne.
Ash Blades flanked her — Onyx, Nyra, Wren, Blaze, and the others. Some leaned against cracked walls. Others sat with arms crossed and eyes shadowed. All silent.
She dropped the folded paper Lucien had given her onto the table. It unfolded slowly, like a wound reopening.
Names.
Too many names.
A red circle around one.
Already dead.
"No more hiding," she said, voice flat. "We stay in the dark, we rot in the dark. They want us erased — one by one. And we let it happen... we lose more than our lives. We lose each other."
The silence thickened like smoke.
Blaze cleared his throat. “We don’t even know where they’re striking from. This could be suicide.”
Ravyn’s eyes snapped to him. “So was surviving. But here we are.”
He looked down.
A moment passed. Then Wren leaned forward, her voice low. “What do you want us to do?”
Ravyn pulled a black marker from her coat and circled two more names on the paper.
“We start with the ones we can reach. We bleed them out before they bleed us. This is Operation Black Vow.”
A murmur rippled through the room. Someone cursed under their breath.
Onyx tilted his head. “And if we lose more people?”
“Then we keep fighting until there’s nothing left of them to bury.”
She didn’t blink.
And no one challenged her again.
But one question remained in the air like static:
At what cost?
---
He caught her in the hallway just as the Ash Blades began to file out, whispering and nodding among themselves.
Lucien Vale. Always in black. Always watching. Always too close to the fire.
Ravyn didn’t slow down. Neither did her heartbeat.
“You’re making a mistake,” he said.
She didn’t stop walking. “Not your business.”
“One of your lieutenants is compromised.”
That stopped her.
She turned slowly. Eyes cold. “You spying on my people now?”
Lucien stepped forward. “Protecting your people. There’s a difference.”
“Protecting or controlling?” she snapped. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re just a jobless CEO billionaire pretending to play warlord in the shadows. This isn’t your fight, Lucien.”
Something flickered in his jaw. Hurt or rage. Maybe both.
"You say that like it hasn’t been my fight since the day I pulled you from that conspiracy."
"That day was a debt, Lucien. I paid it in blood and bones. We're even."
"Are we?" he asked. "Because every time I try to protect you, you treat me like the enemy."
She stepped closer. Voice low. Dangerous.
“Maybe because I’ve learned enemies don’t always wear masks. Sometimes, they wear suits. Sometimes, they kiss your hand while holding a leash.”
He stared at her for a long second, then shook his head.
"You want a war? Fine. Burn it all. But don’t come crawling back when the fire turns on you."
She flinched — barely.
He didn’t wait for a reply. Just walked away.
---
Lucien couldn’t sleep.
His bedroom was dark. Too quiet. The city hummed beyond the glass, but inside, all he heard was her voice.
“This isn’t your fight.”
He poured himself a drink. Didn’t taste it.
She was right.
But it didn’t stop the ache.
He’d offered her shields.
She chose her sword instead.
And somehow, that choice hurt more than any wound.
---
Ravyn slammed her door shut and leaned back against it.
The apartment was silent. Cold. A reflection of her.
She walked to the mirror. The one in her bedroom she never looked into. Not really.
Her eyes were dark. Her mouth a hard line. Her face still bore the ghost of Miranda Ayelara — but the soul behind it? Different. Sharper. Sadder. Scarred.
“What have I become?” she whispered.
And then the memory came.
---
FLASHBACK
Fluorescent lights. Cold tiles. Girls lined up like dolls with broken strings.
She was fifteen.
She didn’t remember when they stripped her.
Only the sound of laughter.
And the voice. That voice.
"She’ll sell well."
She stood naked, humiliated, while eyes raked over her like vultures picking clean a corpse.
No one looked at her face. Just her body. Just her price.
She bit her tongue until it bled.
She told herself not to cry. Not to scream. Not to beg.
And still, they looked.
"Pretty thing," someone said. "How much for this one?"
A camera clicked.
A collar was fastened.
And the girl she used to be — the real Zaria — shattered.
---
BACK TO PRESENT
Ravyn collapsed to her knees in front of the mirror.
She wasn’t crying.
She was shaking.
“You’re not that girl anymore,” she whispered. “You’re not. You’re not.”
But the mirror didn’t lie.
And tonight, the nightmares wouldn’t either.
---
Somewhere else. In another world of steel and secrets.
Selene stood in front of a massive screen. A voice crackled through a secure line.
Masked. Distorted.
"You failed."
She didn’t flinch. “She had help.”
"We gave you power. You let a girl with a vendetta undo years of order.”
Behind her, Orella lay hooked to machines. Her face burned. Barely alive.
A shell of the tyrant she once was.
The voice continued, colder now. “Finish it. Quickly. Or someone else will.”
Selene’s lips curled. “We’ll clip her wings.”
Her eyes never left the map.
A red dot blinked where Ravyn last moved.
---
Cyrus poured himself a drink.
Saphina kicked the glass off the table.
“She’s back,” she hissed. “Her name’s in every whisper. Every alley. They’re calling her the Shadow Queen now.”
“Then let them,” Cyrus said flatly.
“She stole everything!”
“No,” he snapped. “Your mother did. You just smiled through it.”
The slap echoed through the room.
But Cyrus didn’t move.
Saphina’s hands trembled.
Because deep down, she knew.
She’d always known.
And for the first time in years, fear settled in her spine like frost.
---
Somewhere in the dark, Ravyn curled under her blanket, shaking.
The city breathed around her.
And in the silence before sleep, she whispered to the night:
“I survived once.
I’ll survive again.
Even if it kills me.”
- Writer
