The arena breathed fire. Of course it did. Because what I really needed tonight—after being told I might one day torch the entire godsdamn world—was more flames and more eyes watching me like I’m some prophecy-shaped bonfire.

Obsidian sand. Columns coughing out fire in slow beats like the world’s worst metronome. Smoke curling into wards overhead, twisting into dragons eating their own tails. Suns exploding, collapsing, exploding again. Cute little reminder: destroyer, savior, repeat until the crowd’s drunk on it.

The noise was a problem too. Too sharp, too loud. Nobles humming with perfume and judgment, Small Folk glowing from chandeliers like a thousand fireflies chanting my name, mortals leaning so far over the rails you’d think the wards would snap their necks.

“The Infernal Rites,” the announcer boomed, voice polished so clean it cut right into my skull. “Three trials: the Firewalk. The Blade-Dance. The Last Stand. Those who endure are crowned in flame.”

Right. The Rites. Tradition. Seventeen-year-olds proving they’re ready to be “adults.” Fail, and you’re a child for another year. Win, and you get to act like setting yourself on fire makes you wise.

Guess who turns eighteen in a month and a half? Guess whose mark still throbs like it’s already picked out a coffin? Yeah. Hi. Me.

And then Cassie stepped forward.

Her gown was gone—replaced by Summer armor that gleamed like a bribe. Gold plates tailored to her body, sun-chain braided through her hair so she glittered every time she breathed. She looked like she belonged here.

And I hated it.

“No.” My fingers latched onto her wrist like I could stop her with sheer panic. The sand under my ankles was hot enough to sting, but not me. Never me. “This is for Fae. Not—” My mouth snapped shut before I said not mortals. Not her.

Cassie’s crystalline eyes cut into mine, all sharp angles and zero mercy. “Then stop me, Firefly.”

Her smirk should’ve been illegal. Saints, I wanted to shake her. Saints, I wanted to kiss her. Saints, I wanted to drag her off this stage and lock her in a broom closet until she forgot the word “trial” existed.

The crowd rippled like sharks catching blood. Nobles whispering behind jeweled fans. Mortals leaning in, grinning like a Consort in the Rites was better than theater tickets. Even the Small Folk buzzed brighter, like they wanted to see me combust.

And of course, venom had to join the party.

“Half-blood queens,” Daevan Nightvine purred from the dais, violet eyes glowing like bruises. He lounged against a pillar in black silk, his scent sliding oily-sweet across the firelit air. “Two of you to play one role. How efficient.”

Beside him, Zyrella laughed—sugar over broken glass. Flame-thorn jewelry gleamed cruel along her perfect braids. “It’s adorable, Mira. Pretending your mortal can play Fae. Maybe she’ll come in handy when your little human school has its next… tragedy.”

My stomach iced over. My fire flared.

Zyrella’s gold eyes pinned me like she’d been waiting for this exact wound to poke. “So many children vanishing. Ravenrest Heights must be cursed. Careful when classes begin again, cousin.”

Cassie moved first. Always. Half-step forward, squared shoulders, citrus scent slicing through the smoke like a blade. “Say that again.”

Daevan smiled wider, and I wanted to melt his teeth out of his skull. “Oh, don’t worry, Lady Consort. We wouldn’t touch your precious school. Unless…” His eyes flicked to me, deliberate. “Unless the shadows keep finding their way in.”

The sand under my feet rippled with heat. I could’ve burned them both down. Would’ve felt good.

“Enough.” Selene’s voice cracked like a bell, calm but sharp. She glided down the stairs with her braids catching every damn torchlight, perfect as always. “The Infernal Rites are not your stage for petty threats.”

Roran shifted closer, his heat shield flaring, warping the microphones until they coughed static. His molten gaze pinned Daevan, all silent threat.

Kael appeared at Cassie’s other side like she’d been carved from the shadows, amber eyes cutting every exit, cedarwood-and-stone scent locking her in place. Professional. Steady. Exactly the kind of guard Cassie needed.

And still Cassie slid her hand into mine. Fingers threading tight.

“Let them watch,” she whispered, soft enough it was just for me. “We’ll show them why they should be afraid.”

And saints help me, I believed her.

The announcer’s voice boomed again, all pomp and ceremony. “First trial: the Firewalk.”

The crowd roared back, heat pressing in from every angle. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears, but that would’ve looked weak, and weak was blood in the water. My sleeve seam was already twisted halfway to ruin between my fingers.

Obsidian sand shifted, hissing, as a glowing river of coals was raked across its surface. Ember by ember, the line unfurled—red bleeding into orange, into white-hot where the wards pushed them, until the whole arena looked like someone had slit open the earth’s belly. Smoke rose in ribbons, curling up into the wards where it warped into suns. Birth. Death. Birth again. Always reminding me. Always the same question: destroyer, savior, both?

Cassie moved before I could stop her.

Bare feet, straight shoulders, crystalline eyes locked dead ahead. She didn’t even glance back at me. Just stepped straight into the coals like she’d been waiting her whole life for this.

I choked on my own heartbeat.

Flame licked her skin. I expected it to blister, to bite, to prove me right for once about how stupid she can be—

But it didn’t. It curled back. Bowed. Like the fire knew she was mine and decided to treat her like borrowed royalty.

The crowd gasped, then screamed. A mortal—no, worse, my Consort—walking the fire unburned. Cassie’s hair caught the light of it, sparks scattering like she was made of sun-chain and arrogance.

Relief punched me in the gut so hard I wanted to throw up. Except relief was suspicious. Fire doesn’t bow for mortals. It barely bows for half-bloods. So what the hell was it doing? Was it her? Was it me bleeding into her? Was it the bond twisting rules until they didn’t make sense anymore?

By the time I got my breath back, she was halfway across. Unflinching. Unshaken. Like she belonged here more than I did.

And then it was my turn.

I stepped onto the coals and the world broke open.

Not gentle. Not obedient. Not the tidy bow Cassie got. Fire surged like it had been waiting for me to touch down so it could finally breathe. My first step cracked the path wide, heat bursting waist-high in sheets that clawed and curled at my skin. The coals didn’t hiss around me—they sang. Sparks jumped, flared, scattered into constellations I didn’t ask for.

The crowd screamed again, this time louder, hungrier. The Small Folk pulsed like lanterns about to burst, chanting my name like it was the only word they knew. Prophecy. Proof. Weapon. Queen. Destroyer. Their voices hammered into my ribs until my lungs forgot how to work.

Every step I took, the fire climbed higher. Not a path anymore, a storm. My storm.

I hated it.

Hated that they were watching me unravel, hated that the prophecy was playing out under their jeweled noses like theater, hated that even the fire refused to let me pretend I was ordinary. My hands shook as I walked, not from heat—never heat, fire is mine—but from the sheer weight of all those eyes carving me open.

Cassie was waiting at the far end, crystalline stare steady as the fire crowned around me. She didn’t flinch, didn’t step back. She just looked at me like she’d expected the world to bow and was smug I’d proven her right.

Her mouth curved sharp. “Show-off.”

“Jealous,” I shot back, though my voice was rough, my hands still trembling.

She smirked wider, sparks catching in her sun-chain hair. The fire died back around us, but my pulse didn’t.

“The Blade-Dance!”

The announcer’s voice cut through the roar, and the sand hissed like it had been waiting for the command.

Two blades slammed into the ground at our feet. Long, curved, white-hot along the edge, handles etched in glyphs that pulsed like veins. I felt their hum in my teeth.

Cassie reached for hers first. Always first. She lifted it clean, tested the weight with a flick that sang bright and sure. She looked steady. Too steady. Like she was born for this. Like she could shield me.

Heat curled sharp in my throat.

I snatched mine up, spun it twice, felt the fire kiss my palms like it remembered me. The glyphs bit down to my bones, pulling on veins already burning. This wasn’t a weapon—it was a dare.

We circled. Sand shifted under bare feet, the crowd holding its breath for the first strike. Cassie’s crystalline stare locked to mine, too sharp, too protective. She wanted to shield me. She wanted to fight for me.

I didn’t need shielding.

The first clash cracked like a bell. Sparks burst between us, hanging too long in the air like they didn’t want to fall. Cassie pressed forward, blade angled to keep me behind her shoulder.

Rage spiked. My fire surged instinctive, spilling illusions across the air—suns blooming overhead, fireflies wheeling wild.

“Stop trying to guard me,” I snarled, slamming her blade aside.

“Then stop needing it,” she snapped back, spinning quick, cutting another strike toward me.

Every clash lit the air brighter. Sparks showered, constellations sparking midair. My chaos flared wild—solar flares, bursts too big for the circle. Cassie cut through them with surgical precision, shaping edges I refused to hold. The crowd roared with every clash, every scream of fire between us.

And then the sparks changed.

The illusions didn’t fade—they twisted. Claws uncurled from the embers. Wings flared wide from smoke. A wolf’s jaw snapped out of the fire and lunged.

The crowd screamed again, this time real fear.

Cassie’s blade slid free of mine. She didn’t hesitate. Her grin was wicked and sharp. “Together?”

“Always,” I said, and my fire flared like it had been waiting for the word.

We spun outward. Her blade cut clean arcs, precise, surgical, splitting wolves back into embers. Mine exploded serpents mid-lunge, scattering sparks across the sky like constellations breaking apart. A hawk dove—Cassie’s blade clipped its wing, and I shattered it into a storm of embers with a flare from my palm.

We moved like a duet: her precision trimming the chaos I couldn’t contain, my fire feeding her strikes until every cut burned hotter than it should have. Rival edges bent into partnership, sparks painting the wards above with every kill.

The crowd roared louder, not for me, not for her, but for us. Chanting. Frenzied. Lanterns of Small Folk pulsed in rhythm, shaking the air like thunder.

By the time the last beast cracked apart into falling sparks, the arena was wild with it. Screaming. Stomping. Demanding more.

Cassie’s grin flashed sharp as her blade. My hands still shook.

The Last Stand.

The words landed like iron shackles. The arena changed with them.

The pillars reared higher, flames clawing up until they curved overhead. Then they snapped inward, locking together into a wall that sealed us inside a ring of fire. The heat warped the obsidian sand, waves rising like liquid glass. The roar of the crowd pressed in on all sides—too loud, too many voices, a thousand different scents layered until my head spun. Salt sweat. Perfume too sweet. Ash. Gold dust. Blood.

I dug my nails into my palm until the soot-firefly scar throbbed back. My ribs heaved but the air was still too thick, fire everywhere and not enough to breathe. I am fire. I should feel safe in it. Instead it felt like being buried alive.

Then the creatures shifted.

Flame bled black-veined, eyes lighting with violet glow. Their shapes warped—wolves with too many jaws, serpents splitting down the spine, hawks with smoke trailing like rot. The smell hit next. Jasmine gone syrup-thick. Violets crushed into sour pulp. Poison.

My stomach flipped. My knees wobbled. The Shroud had their hands in this. Daevan. Zyrella. Their stench was painted on the trial like a signature scrawled in filth.

The crowd gasped, then leaned in. Nobles with jeweled fans. Lesser fae with hungry eyes. Even mortals straining forward. Waiting to see if the bastard princess would break.

Cassie didn’t wait.

Her blade was already up, her whole body angling in front of mine. She looked carved of glass and flame—armor catching every spark, sun-chain sparking in her hair, crystalline eyes narrowed and sharp. The bond bent toward her. The fire bent toward her. Every lash of heat curled back like it wanted her alive.

And saints, that terrified me more than anything.

Because I don’t burn.

But she does.

“Cass,” I rasped. My throat scraped raw, too full of smoke. “Don’t—”

She didn’t look back. She never does. She lunged at the nearest wolf-thing, her blade clean, precise. Fire curled off her in sheets, wrapping her body like borrowed grace.

My pulse spiked too high. Every step she took was a blade sawing under my skin. She wasn’t trained for this. She was vow-bound, stubborn, reckless. She was fighting to protect me.

And I didn’t need protecting.

Another wolf slid out of smoke. Cassie turned, sharp and fast, but not fast enough. Her boot slipped in the sand, her arm lagged half a beat. My breath caught hard.

I surged to her side, fire spilling from my hands in a panic-burst. It ripped the creature apart mid-strike. Ash rained across her shoulders. She stumbled through it, hair glowing like lit wire, chest heaving. She looked back at me finally—just for a second—and there was fire in her eyes that had nothing to do with the bond.

“I’ve got you,” she said.

The words cracked me open.

She believed it. She believed she was shielding me. Citrus and camellia cut sharp through the corrupted smoke, her scent steady, grounding. My knees nearly buckled under it.

“Cassie, stop,” I begged, but the sound drowned in the roar of the arena.

More creatures came—serpents with violet mouths, hawks of flame-black smoke diving low. Cassie stepped in front of me again, blade arcing in perfect defense. She didn’t see the serpent sliding out of shadow behind her.

I did.

And that was it.

Fear detonated.

The fire in me didn’t flare. It erupted.

The soot-firefly mark on my wrist blazed white-gold, the pulse so bright it split the wards overhead. Sparks sheeted like meteors. Heat slammed outward, devouring the serpent mid-strike, incinerating wolves, hawks, every corrupted thing. My power poured out like the world had split its ribs just to let it through.

The crowd gasped. Nobles staggered back. Small Folk blazed brighter, chanting my name like lanterns set alight all at once.

And through it all, not one lick of fire touched Cassie. She stood at the eye of my storm—hair plastered to her cheek, armor smoking, pulse wild—but untouched. Always untouched.

I was shaking, trembling with the force ripping through me, but my eyes locked on Daevan anyway. He lounged against his balcony rail, violet eyes fixed on me, smug tilt to his mouth like he’d orchestrated this. Zyrella at his side, fan flicking, cursed ivy glinting sharp as barbs.

They thought this proved something. That prophecy made me theirs to taunt. That I’d broken control.

My teeth bared. My fire roared.

“She. Is. MINE.”

It tore out of me guttural, feral, carried on flames that licked the walls and bent the wards. A vow too raw for courts, too sharp for politics. A vow everyone in the arena heard.

Mine. My Consort. My bond. My reason.

The crowd reeled. Some in awe. Some in terror. Whispers snapped like banners in the heat: Princess. Consort. Prophecy. Dangerous. Unstoppable. Unthinkable.

Cassie staggered upright, eyes blazing. She didn’t bow. She didn’t break. She only stepped closer until her shoulder brushed mine, until her hand found mine and held fast, her armor still smoking against my skin. She didn’t need to say it. Her whole stance screamed it back at me: And you are mine.

The last creature shrieked, collapsed into ash, and the wall of fire buckled. It fell outward with a bow, like even flame had chosen sides.

Silence hit first.

Then thunder.

They had seen it. The prophecy. The storm. The claim.

And no one—not Daevan, not Zyrella, not even my mother—could unsee it now.

“Enough.”

Mother’s voice cut through the heat like a bell dropped into water. Not loud. Not rushed. Just absolute.

From the dais she descended, every step a blade of purpose. Her braids glittered with emberstones, gown trailing smoke, Selene a half-step behind her like sunlight given shape. Roran and Kael moved with her but slower, hesitant—as if even they weren’t sure approaching me was safe.

The flames around my feet hissed, then fell inward, bowing toward her. Not gone. Never gone. But caged again, pressing against my ribs until I could barely breathe.

“Mira Quinveil Firebrand. Cassandra Firebrand.” Mother’s gaze swept the circle, daring anyone to speak. “You have endured the Rites.”

The scribe approached, holding the iron brand like a priest holds a relic. Its glyphs pulsed ember-bright. The hiss filled my ears again, sharp as a struck serpent. My stomach lurched. My sleeve seam shredded under my nails.

Mother took the tongs from the scribe herself. No proxy. No attendant. Her hand was steady, her face unreadable.

Cassie stepped forward first. Of course she did. Always first. Always fearless.

Her crystalline eyes locked on Mother’s, her chin high even as she bared her collarbone. The whole Court leaned in.

Mother pressed the iron to Cassie’s skin.

The hiss cut through the arena. The smell was wrong—burnt flesh where flesh shouldn’t burn. I tasted copper, ozone, my own pulse. Cassie didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Her fingers stayed curled around mine until the last second, then tightened as the glyphs seared into her.

When the iron lifted, the ember-mark blazed against her skin, glowing as if it had always been there. The crowd erupted—shock, awe, disbelief. My Consort, marked in Summer’s flame.

“Princess Consort,” Mother intoned, smoke and steel. “You carry flame.”

Cassie turned her head just enough to catch my eyes. And saints help me, she smiled—small, fierce, like she’d just won something no one else had realized was a contest.

Then Mother turned to me.

I stepped forward on legs that didn’t feel like mine. My heart was still a forge hammer. My fire pressed under my skin, begging to be let out, but I kept it leashed.

Mother pressed the iron to my shoulder.

It burned—but not like pain. Fire knows its own. The heat soaked into me, curling into my veins like recognition instead of punishment. Glyphs sank ember-bright down the inside of my arm, living there now, pulsing in time with my racing heart. I felt the whole arena lean closer. Prophecy wasn’t a whisper anymore. It was carved into me in front of everyone.

Mother lifted the brand. Her eyes—amber and gold, molten and terrible—locked on mine.

“Princess of the Land of Eternal Summer,” she declared. “Upon your age of majority, your titles and holdings will be granted, commensurate to your station.”

The word Princess hit like a fist. I felt the crowd lurch with it—nobles leaning, mortals craning, Small Folk glowing brighter as if they’d been waiting for it.

“And Cassandra Firebrand,” Mother continued, her tone blade-perfect, “Princess Consort of this Court. By vow, by courage, by flame. Upon your age of majority, you will be granted full citizenship of the Land of Eternal Summer. You will be recognized as Firebrand in perpetuity. A Princess of this House. Respected as such. But with no claim to succession.”

The arena cracked with sound. Gasps. Cheers. Hisses.

“She’s human—”

“A Consort made Princess?”

“Half-breed, human—what’s next?”

“At last, change.”

“Two princesses. Dangerous.”

“Unstoppable.”

“Together? Unthinkable.”

The words fell like ash, sweet and sour, sticking to my skin. My sleeve seam was gone under my thumb. My scent burned sharp—wildfire citrus and scorched bloom—until even the nobles closest to the ring shifted back.

Cassie’s hand found mine, her new ember-mark still hot when our shoulders brushed. She didn’t look away from the crowd. Neither did I.

Above the roar, a whisper threaded cold and slick through the heat, not theirs, not ours—something older, darker.

Let them burn brighter. They’ll be easier to snuff when the time comes.

I turned my face toward Cassie. She still smelled of citrus and camellia under the smoke, steady as a pulse. Slowly, deliberately, she tilted her head, exposing the pale line of her throat. Vulnerable. Ancient as the Courts. Trust offered in front of everyone.

My fangs ached. My fire curled around us but didn’t touch her, never her. I stepped closer, brushed my lips against her skin, let my teeth graze just enough to break the surface. Her pulse leapt, then steadied as my fire flared outward—a cage of heat around us, a promise the whole Court could see.

Cassie’s fingers tightened on mine, ember-mark glowing against her collarbone, my brand pulsing down my arm, the two of us lit together. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to.

The crowd erupted again—cheers, fury, fear. But none of them could look away.

And above it all, the whisper slid through the fire, cold and slick:

Let them burn brighter. They’ll be easier to snuff when the time comes.

I bared my teeth, not in fear but in promise.

Let them try.