Chapter 4 THE BOND OF FIRE AND BLOOD
The forest thinned as morning unfolded, trading shadowed pines for open marshland. Mist hung low, clinging to Eris’s cloak. Her steps left faint scorch marks in the wet earth something she tried not to think about.
Kael walked ahead, silent as ever, blade strapped across his back. Occasionally, he glanced at the sky as if expecting it to split open. Eris wished that was just paranoia.
But it wasn’t.
The moment the Queen touched her, the world felt… watched.
By whom, she didn’t know.
They moved for hours, the air heavy with damp and the metallic scent of distant stormfire. When Eris’s wrist pulsed again just once Kael immediately halted.
“You felt that too?” he asked.
She nodded. The mark, shaped like a curved ember, was glowing like banked coals beneath her skin.
“What does it mean?” she whispered.
Kael’s jaw tensed. “It means someone is searching.”
Eris stiffened. “The Council?”
“Or something worse.”
Before she could respond, the ground trembled.
A deep, resonant thrum shivered through the marsh so low she felt it in her bones. Birds erupted from the trees in frantic wings. The water at their feet rippled, darkening to pitch.
Eris drew her blade on instinct. Kael moved in front of her, posture rigid.
“Don’t move,” he murmured.
The marsh erupted.
A shape shot out of the black water massive, skeletal, wrapped in tattered shadows. A marsh-wraith. Its elongated limbs dripped tar-like ooze as it lunged.
Kael drew steel. Eris felt fire unfurl under her skin.
“Back!” Kael shouted, meeting the thing head-on.
The wraith screeched, a wet, hollow sound, swiping its limb across Kael’s armor. Sparks flew. He staggered just enough for the creature to dart toward Eris.
She reacted without thought.
Her hand blazed.
A burst of golden flame, bright and unnatural, roared from her palm and struck the wraith square in the chest. The creature convulsed, shrieking as fire ate through its shadowy form.
The marsh hissed, boiling where droplets fell.
Kael stared at her. “Eris”
“I didn’t mean to” She backed away, heart hammering.
The last of the wraith crumbled into ash that hissed into the water. Silence swallowed the marsh again.
Eris’s hands trembled. The fire retreating beneath her skin was not normal flame she felt the Queen in it. Her heartbeat, her rage, her memory.
Kael sheathed his blade slowly. “That wasn’t mortal fire.”
“I know,” Eris whispered.
“And you didn’t burn.” His gaze lowered to her wrist. “She’s waking in you faster than we thought.”
The words struck like a blade.
Eris turned away. “We need to keep moving.”
“Eris”
“Just walk.”
He hesitated, then followed.
They reached higher ground by midday. A cracked stone road cut through the wild old, weathered, leading toward the distant cliffs of the Vyreth desert.
Kael stopped where the road began. “We’ll follow this until dusk. Then turn west.”
Eris didn’t respond. Her mind replayed the flames she summoned, the heat she didn’t fear, the voice whispering beneath her heartbeat.
Remember who you were.
But who had she been before the Queen’s fire chose her? Before Kael’s army destroyed everything?
She didn’t ask. She didn’t trust the answer.
Kael walked beside her now, closer than before. His presence was steady, practiced. The prince raised to command armies. The man raised under prophecy.
Still, something in him had shifted.
“Back in the ruins,” Kael said quietly, “when I pulled you out of the vision you were calling a name.”
Eris stiffened. “What name?”
“Aelen.”
She stopped walking.
A cold, hollow ache spread through her ribs. The name felt like a blade against memory familiar, but unreachable. Like something she had once loved or once destroyed.
“I don’t know who that is,” she said.
Kael watched her with an unreadable expression. “The Queen called you child. She said you had forgotten.”
Eris bristled. “Are you implying I’m what? The reincarnation of a goddess?”
“No.” He paused. “I’m saying maybe you’re the key to her memory. Not the vessel.”
Eris looked away. “I don’t want to be anything.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
She glared at him. “I didn’t ask for this bond.”
Neither did I almost slipped from his mouth but he swallowed it.
“For now,” he said, “we survive.”
By late afternoon, the cliffs of Vyreth rose in the distance sheer stone walls glowing orange under the setting sun. Wind whipped across the plateau, hot and dry, carrying dust that tasted like iron.
They reached the base of the cliffs as the sky deepened to purple. Eris leaned against a rock, exhaustion catching up. Kael set down his pack, scanning the horizon.
“We’ll rest here,” he said. “The climb’s too dangerous at night.”
Eris didn’t argue. Her muscles trembled not from fatigue, but from heat simmering beneath her skin.
Kael noticed.
“You’re burning again.”
“It’s fine,” she lied.
He knelt in front of her. “Eris. Look at me.”
She didn’t want to, but she did.
“Tell me what you’re feeling,” he demanded.
“Like someone else is breathing through me,” she whispered. “Like my blood isn’t mine.”
Kael exhaled slowly. “The Queen’s awakening. The Seer might slow it.”
“And if she can’t?”
His jaw tightened. “Then we find another way.”
“You mean kill me,” she said softly.
His eyes flickered pain, guilt, something else. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”
She didn’t know if that was meant to comfort her.
Before she could respond, the bond pulsed.
Not softly.
Hard.
Like a warning.
Kael jerked to his feet. “They’re close.”
“Council trackers?” Eris asked.
“No.” His expression darkened. “Worse.”
The wind fell still.
The cliff shadows deepened.
And from the darkness above them, dozens of glowing sigils appeared descending slowly, like falling stars.
Eris’s breath caught. “What are those?”
“Spectral Hunters,” Kael said. “They’re sent only for one purpose.”
“To retrieve something stolen.”
His gaze snapped to hers. “Or someone awakening.”
The sigils burned brighter, forming shapes hooded forms of light and ash, eyes hollow and white.
Eris stood, fire shivering beneath her skin.
Kael drew his blade.
The first Hunter stepped forward, hovering above the ground.
“Eris Vale,” it intoned. “Bearer of the Ember Heart. You will come with us.”
She lifted her chin. “Try me.”
The Hunter’s eyes flared.
“Very well.”
The desert wind ignited into fire.
And the real hunt began.
