For days after the ritual, Ivy didn’t leave her room.
Not because she was weak—
But because she was changing.
The fire inside her no longer burned painfully. It hummed. Constant. Controlled. Connected.
Her bond with Kael had shifted. They no longer needed words to feel each other. He could be in the training field, and she’d sense his fury. She could be asleep, and he’d feel her dreams.
They were more than mates now.
They were mirrored.
Cassian returned on the fifth morning.
He brought a black case lined with silver flame runes.
“For you,” he said, laying it before her.
Ivy opened it slowly.
Inside was armor.
Not steel.
Not leather.
But dragonforged moonstone — etched with gold and obsidian flame, lightweight and near indestructible.
“The Flameborn Queen must look like one,”
