Touch of Power
904 Words
I dreamed in fire.
Flames chased me through a field of black roses. Ash fell like snow. Screams echoed, voices I didn’t recognize but somehow knew.
One word kept repeating—over and over, louder, harsher, until it split my skull open:
“Azelrah.”
I woke up screaming.
And everything around me… burned.
The sheets were smoking. The bed was scorched. My skin glowed faintly red under the moonlight. The walls pulsed like they were alive.
I stumbled out of bed, heart racing.
Not fear. Power.
It buzzed beneath my skin like static. My fingertips sparked. My eyes felt too wide, too sharp.
Something inside me had been unlocked—and it was hungry.
I turned toward the mirror—and flinched.
My reflection… shimmered.
Eyes gold. Skin marked with faint glowing lines, like ancient tattoos rising just beneath the surface. Symbols I’d seen before—in Kael’s forbidden library. On the scroll.
I wasn’t just changing.
I was remembering.
The knock came five seconds later.
Sharp. Measured.
I opened the door and found Kael there—shirtless, barefoot, like he’d come running.
“You felt that?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
Just looked at me like I was a wildfire he’d once loved and feared all over again.
“You called the old name,” he said. “Azelrah.”
“What is it?”
He stepped into the room. “It was your name. In your first life.”
The air trembled around us.
I backed up. “I don’t want to remember her. I don’t want her fire.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
I met his gaze.
“I never do when I’m around you.”
That hit him harder than I expected.
He looked away. “Your power is awakening faster than I thought.”
“Is that bad?”
“For the court? Yes.”
He turned back to me, voice low. “They already fear you. If they find out what you are—what you could become—”
He didn’t finish the thought.
Didn’t have to.
The fire in my chest told me everything.
I was the prophecy. The chainbreaker. The one born to either save or burn this place to the ground.
And right now?
Burning sounded real good.
⸻
Breakfast in Hell was… tense.
A long, obsidian table. Demons seated by status, not family. The smell of seared meat and something sweeter—maybe blood-wine—filled the room. I sat next to Kael, wearing a black gown that clung like smoke.
They stared.
Every last one of them.
Eyes flicking to my hands. My neck. My plate.
Some glared in open hatred. Others watched in something closer to awe.
But one?
One old noble two seats down was whispering into his goblet—chanting something low, rhythmic, in a language that scraped across my bones.
I felt it before I understood it.
A heaviness in my chest. A pull behind my eyes. A voice saying, sleep now, little flame.
No.
I gripped the edge of the table.
Kael turned—too late.
I stood slowly, swaying, every nerve on fire.
The noble’s eyes widened.
Kael rose—“Don’t—!”
But I’d already spoken.
One word.
One name.
The one from my dream.
“Azelrah.”
The room exploded in heat.
The noble screamed—engulfed in sudden, vicious flame that licked up his body like it had been waiting for centuries.
The table cracked. Plates shattered. The fire danced but didn’t spread.
Just consumed.
And then it was gone.
The noble lay on the floor—alive, barely, but scorched beyond recognition.
Silence.
Then—
Kael turned to me, voice deadly quiet.
“What did you just do?”
I blinked. “I don’t know.”
The court stood, stunned.
One demon muttered, “She is the flame reborn…”
Another hissed, “She shouldn’t have that power yet.”
Kael stepped forward, took my hand.
His palm trembled against mine.
“You spoke the ancient name,” he said. “You summoned Hellfire. Without a bond. Without a rite.”
“Cool. So I’m a walking war crime now?”
He didn’t laugh.
His eyes searched mine, frantic and afraid.
“You’re ascending,” he whispered. “Too fast.”
I jerked my hand away.
“Maybe you should’ve let me read the damn contract.”
He looked like he wanted to say something—maybe the truth. Maybe nothing at all.
But behind us, the court was already moving.
Scheming.
Plotting.
And I knew one thing for sure:
They wouldn’t stop until I was dead.
Or worse.
⸻
That night, I stood at the balcony again, alone.
The stars pulsed harder.
My heartbeat didn’t match the rhythm of this world anymore.
Kael found me there.
He said nothing at first. Just stood beside me.
“Do you still hate me?” he asked.
I thought for a long time.
“No,” I said. “But I don’t trust you.”
He nodded once. “That’s fair.”
I turned to him. “Tell me something true.”
He paused.
Then:
“I never stopped loving her. Even when she died cursing my name.”
My chest tightened.
“Do you love me? Or the memory of her?”
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to.
And somehow, that was worse than a lie.
- Writer
