CLAIMED BY THE REBEL PRINCE

Magic is death in Zephyria. That's the first lesson every child in the slums learns before they learn to read. The second is, when you hear the black boots of the Chancellor's Guards, you run and you don't look back. I have lived by those two rules for eighteen years. Until today. My name is Ellara. I live in Row 9, the lowest, poorest, dirtiest row in the slums. From my window, you can see the whole joke of this city. Above us, the Upper Sector floats. Literally. A whole district of glass towers and golden bridges suspended in the sky by old magic-tech that only the Chancellor controls. They have clean air. Clean water. Light that never goes out. We have smoke. We have rust. We have factories that explode at least once a month because no one in the Upper Sector cares if we die. I was on my way home from the ration line. My hands were empty. Again. The line master said I was late. My neighbor, old Mara, tried to give me half her bread, but I refused. I was used to being hungry. That's when the factory blew. It wasn't a small explosion. The entire east wall of the processing plant on Row 9 burst outwards. Black smoke poured into the sky. People started screaming and running away from it. Mothers grabbing children. Workers covered in ash. I was running too. I swear I was. Then I heard him. "MOMMY! HELP!" I stopped. Everyone else kept running. I looked up. On the second floor, a window had shattered. A little boy, maybe five years old, was pinned under a fallen metal beam. His leg was trapped. The fire was getting closer to him. No Guard was coming to help. Guards never come to the slums unless it's to collect taxes or witches. My heart was beating so loud I couldn't breathe. Don't. Don't do it, Ellara. My mother's voice in my head. That was the last thing she said to me before they took her. Three years ago, my mother used her fire to heat our house in winter. Just a small flame. A drone saw the heat signature. They dragged her to the Plaza of Justice. They burned her while the Upper Sector watched and clapped. I watched too. I was fifteen and I couldn't do anything. I promised her I would never use my fire. That I would hide. That I would live. But the boy screamed again. And my body moved before my brain could stop it. I dropped my empty ration bag and ran towards the burning building. People grabbed at my arms. "Are you crazy?!" they yelled. I pushed through the broken doorway. The heat was insane. Metal was melting. Smoke was burning my lungs. The stairs were gone. So I did the stupidest thing. I put my hands on the wall. I closed my eyes and I let go. I let go of eighteen years of fear. "Come on," I whispered to the monster inside me. "Just this once." It answered. Heat exploded from my chest. It wasn't warm. It was burning cold and white-hot at the same time. Violet light cracked through my veins, up my neck, into my eyes. My silver hair — the hair I always dyed black, but the dye had washed out last week — lifted off my shoulders. Violet fire burst from my palms. It didn't burn like normal fire. It consumed. It ate the metal beam pinning the boy like it was paper. I reached in and pulled him out. He was light. He was shaking. I held him to my chest and jumped. The violet fire wrapped around us both, like wings. We landed on the ground outside. The fire vanished instantly. For one second, the boy was safe in my arms. He looked up at me. At my hands still glowing faintly violet. At my silver hair. Then the whole street went silent. You know how when everyone stops talking at once, the silence is louder than any noise? That's what happened. A hundred people staring at me. "W-Witch," someone whispered. Then someone screamed, "WITCH! SILVER WITCH!" The scanners on the Guard towers, which had been scanning for stolen food, all turned at once. A loud, piercing sound started — WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO. Magic detected. Rare class: Phoenix. Drones dropped from the sky like black birds. I tried to run. I shoved the boy towards Mara and ran into the alleys. I knew every hole, every shortcut in Row 9. I used to be the fastest kid here. But you can't outrun a drone. A net made of electric wire shot out and wrapped around my legs. I fell face-first into the mud. Electricity shot through my body and my fire sparked out of control, burning the net off. That just made the scanners scream louder. "Target is resisting! Magic is unstable!" More nets. More Guards. A boot on my back. They ripped my hood off. My silver hair fell out. Long, white-silver, down to my waist. The rarest hair in Zephyria. The hair of the old royal bloodline. The hair of Phoenix witches. The Guard captain lifted me up by my hair. I screamed. "Well, well," he laughed behind his black helmet. "Chancellor Malvek has been looking for a Phoenix for twenty years. He will burn you slowly." They dragged me. They dragged me through the slums while people watched and did nothing. Because if you help a witch, you burn with her. I saw Mara crying, holding the little boy I saved. The boy was crying too. They took me to the Plaza of Justice. The biggest plaza in the city, right between the slums and the Upper Sector, so both sides can watch. It was already sunset. The platform was ready. They had known I was coming before I did. On the huge screen above the platform, Malvek's face appeared. He looked like a kind grandfather. White hair. Soft eyes. That's how he fools the Upper Sector. "Citizens of Zephyria," he said, his voice sweet. "Today, we have found another rot in our city. A witch who hid among you. A girl who used forbidden magic. Twenty years ago, I banned magic to keep you safe. Magic is chaos. Magic is disease. And we must cut out the disease." The Upper Sector people cheered. The slum people kept their heads down. The executioner came out. He was a huge man with no face mask. He lifted his axe. It was made of dampener metal. It stops magic from healing you. They forced me to my knees. They chained my hands behind my back with dampener cuffs. My fire died inside me. I felt cold. So cold. This is how my mother died. Kneeling here. Watching the axe. I closed my eyes. I thought of my mother's hands. I thought, maybe I will see her soon. The executioner shouted, "Any last words, witch?" I had none. Then the sky exploded. BOOM! The huge screen with Malvek's face shattered into a million pieces. People screamed and ducked. A black hover-bike, smoking, flew straight through the explosion and crashed right into the execution platform. The executioner was thrown off the platform. The Guards raised their guns. Smoke cleared. A man stepped off the bike. He was tall. So tall I had to look up even when I was kneeling. He wore a long black coat that had seen too many fights. His black hair was messy. His chest was half open, and I could see a deep, old scar shaped like an X across his chest. It was still pink. He walked like he owned the plaza. Like he owned the city. Guards pointed their pulse-rifles at him and he didn't even blink. He just kept walking, straight towards me. His eyes were grey. Not normal grey. Storm grey. And they were locked on me. Cold. Furious. Like I had done something to offend him personally. "Who are you?!" the Guard captain shouted. "You are interfering with Chancellor justice! Identify yourself!" The man didn't look at him. He jumped onto the platform in one smooth move and stood over me. Up close, he was insanely handsome. The kind of handsome that makes you forget how to breathe. Sharp jaw. Full lips. But his face was ruthless. Like a king who has killed before and will kill again. He pulled a knife from his coat. The knife was made of black light. It cut through my dampener cuffs like they were butter. My fire came rushing back into my body with a gasp. Then he grabbed my chin. His fingers were rough and burning hot. He forced my face up. "Look at me, little witch," he said, his voice low, only for me. I tried to pull away. "Don't touch me! I don't know you!" His grey eyes dropped to my mouth, then lower. His thumb brushed my lower lip. Possessive. Like he was already deciding he owned me. He stood up and looked out at the whole plaza, at the cameras that were still filming from the drones. "I am Jax of the Lower Rebellion," he announced. His voice wasn't shouting. It was calm and it made everyone freeze. "And by the Old Law of Zephyria, the Law of Claiming, I claim this woman as my fated mate." The whole world stopped. The Old Law. A law from before Malvek. A law even Malvek couldn't delete because the priests said it was blessed by the Gods. If a man claims his fated mate before execution, her crime becomes his crime, and the execution is void. No one had used it in fifty years because no one was stupid enough to claim a witch. Gasps everywhere. The Upper Sector women stood up. The Guard captain's voice cracked. "You can't— she is a Phoenix witch! She is—" Jax cut him off. He looked down at me, his eyes blazing now with a strange, fierce light. "Her name is mine. Her fire is mine. Her life is mine," he said, loud enough for the whole city to hear. "Any law that wants her, comes through me. Any hand that touches her, I will cut off." He wasn't saving me. He was claiming me. In front of the whole city. I was shaking with anger and fear. "I don't want to be claimed! I don't know you! Let me go!" He smiled for the first time. It was a dark, dangerous smile. "Too late, little Phoenix," he whispered, bending down so his lips were right next to my ear. "I didn't save you. I took you. You're mine now. And I don't let go of what's mine." Then he picked me up — one arm under my knees, one behind my back — like I weighed nothing, like I was a bride, and jumped off the platform. He walked straight through the line of Guards. No one moved. No one shot. Because everyone in Zephyria knows two things. One, magic is death. Two, you never, ever get in the way of Jax — the rebel who the slums call the Lost King. And as he carried me to his bike, with my silver hair flying and his scar glowing faintly from my fire, I realized my execution hadn't ended. It had just changed.