Chapter 21. Secrets of the Flame

The world tilted the moment she opened her eyes.

Neriah sat bolt upright, lungs locked as if she’d surfaced from drowning. Her breath rasped, her heart thudded too fast. Sweat clung to her neck. Heat radiated off her skin in waves. Her wrist—her mark—burned like a coal pressed to flesh.

She shoved back the sleeve.

The scar had changed again. The spiral had unraveled into a long glyph, curling up her forearm like a living script. It pulsed with emberlight, no longer faint. Words she didn’t know but somehow recognized.

The pendant around her neck grew hotter by the second. She tried to unhook it. Her fingers wouldn’t listen.

Then the whisper began.

A voice, ancient and threaded through her blood.

“Elaris rieth… Neriah rieth…”

She stumbled to her feet. The room groaned around her, as though the stone and wood had softened under heat. Her cot burst into flame without catching fire. Her reflection in the window shimmered with orange light,