Page 125 of Thunder's Reckoning

And discipline could consume the world.

I stood before it, my hands clasped behind my back, the ceremonial robe draped across my shoulders in layered linen and scripture. It was heavy, but not burden. It was legacy. The weight of prophets and martyrs pressed into the weave, every thread a vow, every hem a warning. I did not wear it for myself. I wore it for her.

This was not punishment.

This was restoration.

She would be returned to me whole, even if I had to burn away every trace of the world that had touched her.

Footsteps broke the chamber’s hush. Mateo entered with reverence in every line of his body, his head bowed, his lips sealed until I gave permission.

At the smallest nod of my chin, he spoke. “It is time.”

I did not look at him. Not yet. My gaze lingered on the flame. “She has been prepared?”

“She is clothed, veiled, and compliant,” he said with careful precision. “No words. No resistance. She has not wept, not screamed. Only silence.”

“As is fitting,” I murmured. “The flame speaks loudest when the soul surrenders.”

There was hesitation in the air. I caught it immediately.

“There is another matter,” Mateo said at last, his voice pitched low, as though speaking too loud might offend the flame. “The children.”

I breathed deep, slow, steady.

“They complicate her attachment,” he continued. “The girl watches everything. She is old enough to remember, to question, to speak. And the boy, he stands between her and fear. Even now. He would fight for her if given the chance.”

“Children are not threats,” I said calmly.

“Not yet,” Mateo allowed. “But bonds… bonds distort obedience. If she still sees herself as mother, protector, outsider… she will never see herself as pure Flame.”

He drew closer, lowering his tone to a near whisper. “There is a way. The tonic we used in the early years. Before we refined the rituals. It severs the tether—memory, emotion, all of it. She would awaken unbound. No children. No biker. No past beyond what you give her.”

Before Zeke.

I considered it. Erasing her would be efficient. Clean. She would open her eyes and see only me. Her soul would stretch toward the flame because there would be nowhere else for it to turn.

But efficiency was not divinity.

Her past was what made her sacred. The wounds. The breaking. The proof that even in blood and shame, she returned to me. She was not holy because she obeyed. She was holy because she was mine from the beginning.

“I agree,” I said at last, turning toward him, voice deliberate, unwavering. “But not all. Everything before Zara must remain intact. From the moment of her conception onward, burn it clean.”

Mateo bowed his head. “And the boy?”

“Malik will not be returned to her,” I said, voice calm as carved stone. “He will remain here. He will be trained as Shepherd. His path is not hers. He is mine now.”

I adjusted the robes over my shoulders, feeling the weight settle like judgment itself. “Zeke and his rabble will come. They always do. They mistake loyalty for strength. But they have never seen what fire-born loyalty looks like. Once the ceremony ends we head back to my estate, I want every man there armed, every passage, every road watched. When they arrive, they will be broken.”

Mateo dipped his head, then hesitated once more. “There is a complication. The gang… they are not alone. They’ve been tied to a name we did not expect. Samuel Flavio. The Samuel Flavio. Mafia.”

For the first time in years, something stirred in me—surprise, sharp and bitter. “That is… not possible.”

“I’ve confirmed it,” Mateo said. “Through channels we trust.”

I turned back to the flame, letting its glow bleed into my eyes, heat pressing against my skin until it was almost pain. “Then we will burn them all. Gang. Mafia. Any who stand between me and what is mine.”

The words were steady, reverent when I spoke of her. Venom when I spoke of them.