“Elena, please…” His voice cracked, and I could feel the weight of his anguish in every word. “You don’t have to do this. Don’t… don’t leave me alone in the dark.”
The words broke me, but I knew that I had to go through with this. I had to end this, for him, for the children, for everyone who had suffered under Rindais’s twisted magic.
“I’m not leaving you, Dario,” I whispered. “I’mfreeingyou.”
My own words echoed back at me, as if the chamber itselfhad borne witness to my vow. For the briefest moment, the fear eating at my chest loosened its hold. I could see him—Dario, my Dario—on his knees, his shadows unraveling into smoke, his body wracked with pain, yet his eyes fixed only on me.
He shook his head violently, his jaw clenched, desperation radiating from every line of his body. “No. No, Elena—you don’t mean this. Don’t say it like that, as if it’s already over.” His voice was hoarse, torn raw by agony. “There must be another way. There always has to be another way.”
“There isn’t,” I whispered, though my voice trembled.
He tried to reach for me again, his fingers stretching past the glowing runes of Rindais’s spell. I saw the strain in him, the way his body flickered with each attempt to move toward me, as though his very existence were dissolving under the mage’s curse.
“Don’t,” he rasped, his dark eyes wide, wild with terror. “Elena, you’re—gods, you’re the only good thing that’s left in this cursed world. Don’t take that from me now. Please.”
I stepped closer, though the heat of my own power was already coiling inside me, threatening to consume me. “If I had a thousand lives, Dario, I’d spend every one of them finding you. Choosing you. Loving you.” My voice quivered, but I held steady. “Even if it has to be like this. Even if it has to end here.”
“No!” His cry tore through the chamber, raw enough to shatter stone. He fought the binding spell, his shadows writhing in open rebellion, but Rindais’s circle held him. Every attempt to break free ripped a guttural sound from his throat, until blood stained his lips. “Elena, you don’t understand—if you do this, you’ll burn yourself out. You’ll be gone. Don’t you see? I’ll lose you.”
The terror in his voice nearly undid me. Nearly.
I closed my eyes as tears slid down my cheeks, steam rising where they met the growing blaze of heat beneath my skin.“Remember me,” I whispered. “That’s all I ask.”
Whispering a prayer to the Sun God under my breath, I unleashed the full extent of my powers.
The fire roared to life in my veins, not gentle and guiding as it had always been, but feral—hungry—an inferno that surged outward in waves that shook the stone beneath my feet. Every bone, every nerve in my body was ablaze, and I was the tinder.
My skin tingled with the intensity of it, my body thrumming with the power that surged through me, growing stronger, brighter, until I felt as if I might burst.
And then the fire inside me erupted, and the chamber was drenched in light.
I could feel Rindais’s power pressing against mine, dark and suffocating, but I pushed back, pouring every ounce of strength, every shred of love I had into the light, letting it grow, letting it expand until it filled the entire chamber.
I raised my arms, and the flames obeyed, spiraling upward in golden arcs that clashed against the oppressive green of Rindais’s magic. His eyes widened, just slightly, but enough. I had startled him.
“You can’t hold this forever,” he spat, his voice edged with panic. “Even a phoenix burns to ash.”
“Then I’ll burn,” I said, my voice carrying across the chamber, a vow that resounded in the marrow of the stone. “But you will never claim me.”
The light poured from me, brighter, harsher, until even the Elders, crouched in their fear, raised their arms to shield their faces. It wasn’t only heat—it was memory, hope, love itself, distilled into fire.
Every prayer I had ever whispered, every sacrifice I had ever made for Solaris, every stolen smile I had shared with Dario—it all spilled out in one unstoppable torrent.
The flames consumed the binding circle. Dario’s bondsshattered with a crack like breaking glass, and I felt his shadows rush back to him, wild and alive once more. His gasp was lost in the blinding light, but I knew. He was free.
Rindais staggered back, his mismatched eyes blazing with rage as he hurled bolts of green light into the blaze. Each strike fizzled, swallowed whole. My flames wrapped around him, clinging, gnawing at the edges of his form as though the fire itself had judged him unworthy.
“No!” His scream tore through the chamber, his arrogance cracking into something far uglier—fear. “You can’t! I was promised—”
The fire struck him full in the chest. His cloak ignited, his skin blistering under the sheer force of my light. He clawed at the air, at the ground, at anything that might save him, but the fire followed.
“Get out,” I commanded, my voice echoing with a resonance that was no longer only mine, but the phoenix’s as well.
He vanished in a crack of displaced air, his teleportation spell dragging him away at the last possible moment, leaving behind only the stench of scorched magic and his echoing scream.
Silence fell.
The light still poured from me, uncontrollable, searing every corner of the chamber. Dust burned away. Shadows shrank back to nothing.
