Page 66 of Chasing the Flame

It sheltered my tormentor. It buried my truth. It watched me die again and again.

But now?

Now it’ll burn.

I lift a hand—still shaking—and ignite the front door with a flick of flame.

The fire catches instantly. The woodwantsto burn. The house groans as it’s swallowed whole. Flames race along the porch, up the eaves, into every secret crevice.

I watch it collapse, piece by piece, like the ghost of who I used to be.

This place… it tried to kill me. Tried to cage me. But fire doesn’t stay caged. It doesn’t kneel. Itconsumes.

And now I understand.

The flame isn’t just destruction. It’s transformation. It’s the hunger formore—for truth, for freedom, for becoming.

It’s what’s always lived inside me.

What lived in every woman before me who dared to defy the dark.

I’m not running from it anymore.

Iamthe flame.

Jettson stands beside me, smoke curling in his hair, blood on his skin, eyes fixed on mine like he’s never seen me more clearly. “What now?” He asks, his voice hoarse but steady.

I smile—not because it’s over. But because it’s just the beginning.

“We chase the flame.”

Darkness.

That’s the first thing I feel. Not pain. Not heat. Just… nothing.

Then a gasp tears from my throat—sharp and ragged.

Air floods my lungs like poison.

I jolt upright, coughing, my whole body screaming as sensation returns. Every nerve is raw. Every breath tastes like ash and rot. I drag myself out of a pile of shattered stone and soot, my skin screaming with every bit of movement.

I should be dead—was dead.

But something wouldn’t let me go.

My hands shake as I look down at them. The skin is scorched away in places, the bone exposed, the runes still burned into me—glowing. Faint, but steady. Like they never stopped pulsing. Like they remember.

“She should’ve killed me.” I mutter, my voice like broken glass.

The cavern is nearly gone, my covenant long gone, and the altar obliterated. But beneath the rubble, I feel it. The gate I opened—the thing I called—it’s still humming.

Not fully closed. Not fully done.

A chill brushes the back ofmy neck.

It isn’t wind.

I don’t turn around. I don’t have to. I feel it inside me now—coiled like smoke, ancient and patient.

The Ashbraith.

It doesn’t speak with words. It never has. But I hear it all the same.

Whispers behind my ribs. Heat curling through my veins. Promises, power, purpose.

She awakened you, it breathes. Now, you are mine.

I smile, even as my lip splits open. “Then, what are we waiting for? Let’s burn it all down.”