Chapter 6: Dreams of Fire and Blood
The Keep lay silent, but Aria's mind was aflame.
Sleep would not come easily.
Every time she closed her eyes, fire consumed her. Not the cleansing fire she had summoned in battle but a dark, ancient blaze. One that reeked of old blood and gods long buried.
In her dream, the walls bled.
Crimson ran through the stone corridors, and voices whispered from behind every door some pleading, some screaming, others laughing in a language she almost understood.
She walked barefoot through the carnage, dressed in a gown of ash. Her hands glowed gold with power, but her chest burned with a gaping wound where her heart should've been.
At the end of the hall stood a throne of bone.
And on it, a woman wore her face.
Aria woke with a scream.
Lucian was already beside her, sword drawn, body tense.
"It's the dream again," she gasped, clutching the sheets. "Worse this time."
He eased the weapon aside and climbed into the bed, pulling her into his arms.
"Tell me everything."
As she spoke, he listened intently. The throne. The doppelgänger. The bone and fire. The crown of serpents the woman wore.
"She called herself" Aria swallowed, "The First Flame."
Lucian went still. "That's impossible."
"Do you know the name?"
He hesitated. "Only from myth. The First Flame was the goddess of rebirth and war. The moon's equal. She was said to wield fire strong enough to burn time itself. But she was... devoured. By the Blood God. Burned and forgotten."
Aria's skin tingled. "Then why is she wearing my face?"
Lucian looked her in the eyes. "Because you are her echo. Or her vessel."
Aria pressed trembling fingers to her lips. "Or her weapon."
Later that morning, she descended into the Keep's oldest levels what remained of the original fortress before Crimson Fang took it.
Guided only by instinct, Aria walked until stone gave way to bone.
The air thickened.
Her fire flickered to life on her fingertips unbidden.
And then
A crypt.
A circular chamber filled with murals of fire and moons, women crowned in gold, wolves kneeling before them.
In the center, a sarcophagus.
She touched the lid, and it burned her. Not painfully. Reverently. As if recognizing her.
And then it opened without her lifting it.
Inside lay a skeleton wrapped in flame-colored silk. Its hands were crossed over its chest. A glowing crystal heart pulsed beneath its ribcage.
When Aria leaned closer, a voice entered her mind.
"You are not the first. But you may be the last."
The chamber spun.
Images assaulted her.
A goddess burned at a stake. Wolves turning against her. Betrayal by her lover an alpha of unmatched strength.
And then rebirth. A child born from flame. A curse sealed by moonlight.
A war unfinished.
Aria collapsed to the floor.
When she woke again, Lucian stood over her, fury in his eyes.
"You went alone."
"I had to." She stood shakily. "I needed answers."
He caught her before she fell.
"Next time, I go with you. You're not facing this alone again."
Their lips met this time, desperate. Needing. Anchoring.
They didn't make it back to their chambers.
In the crypt, surrounded by ghosts, Lucian claimed her again rough, urgent, reverent. The fire between them burned brighter than the torches lining the walls.
He pressed her against the mural of the flame goddess, worshipping her mouth, her breasts, her hips. She moaned into his neck, fingernails raking down his back.
When he took her, it was with a growl that shook the dead.
Their bond flared again, not just as lovers but as something ancient reborn.
As prophecy made flesh.
Hours later, Lucian paced the war room, fingers pressed to his temples.
"What does this mean?" he asked Cassian, his second.
Cassian looked toward Aria. "It means she is the key. And the lock."
"To what?"
"Everything."
That night, the Keep came under siege.
Shadows moved beyond the outer wall, cloaked in blood-slick armor. Not soldiers. Not even wolves.
But revenants.
Creatures born of blood magic souls twisted into monstrous forms. Their howls were not of hunger but hatred.
Aria stood on the parapet, her fire dancing like a banner behind her.
Lucian shifted into his massive alpha wolf form, howling his challenge.
The revenants charged.
Aria met them head-on.
Fire spiraled from her hands, forming blades, whips, rings of protection. Where her flame touched, monsters burned to ash.
Lucian ripped through them like a storm of fang and fury.
Still, they came.
Cassian fell back with a dozen wounded. The Keep's gate groaned.
Aria stepped forward.
"Get back!" she shouted.
And unleashed the inferno.
The sky split with light.
Everything bathed in crimson.
When the blaze cleared, a hundred revenants lay in cinders.
Aria's hands bled flame.
Lucian knelt beside her. "What are you?" he whispered.
She looked into the fire still smoldering in her veins.
"I'm what they made me. What they feared. What they buried."
She took his hand, pressed it to her chest where the fire beat like a second heart.
"I'm the reborn curse. And I choose to burn for the right side this time."