There were three rules to surviving in the Royal Court:
Never speak first.
Never reveal your thoughts.
Never, ever bleed where they can see you.
Lucien Valmer had mastered all three by the time he was twelve.
Now, at eighteen, he stood like a statue on the obsidian steps of the Academy's south gate, frost-laced armor glinting faintly beneath the dying sun. His white-blond hair caught the evening wind like a banner of winter.
He didn't blink as the prison cart rolled through the gates.
He didn't need to blink.
He'd already seen her.
The Flameborn.
She didn't look dangerous. Didn't look like prophecy.
She looked… broken. Barefoot, bruised, her wrists red-raw from the blackstone cuffs. But her eyes—dark as burnt coal—met his without flinching.
Fire, he thought. Not the kind that raged. The kind that endured.
Velora had warned him. "She will either destroy the realm or save it," the High Priestess had whispered, hours earlier in the silent sanctum of the Flamekeeper's Hall. "Your job is to make sure she does neither."
Lucien didn't ask questions. He never did.
That was rule number four: Obedience over understanding.
As the cart stopped, a hush fell over the trainees gathered in the courtyard. Everyone knew what she was—rumors traveled faster than dragons in this place. She was the girl who burned half a village to ash. The untrained rider who summoned fire without glyphs. The cursed match to a prophecy best left buried.
Lucien stepped forward and ordered her chains removed.
The Flameguard hesitated. "Highness, she—"
"She's not a threat," Lucien said coolly, "until she's provoked."
He locked eyes with the prisoner.
Her chin was lifted, defiant even in chains. She was filthy, soot-streaked, and covered in the stench of smoke—but she didn't look away.
Lucien hated how much that impressed him.
"Your name?" he asked.
"Lyra," she said. "Lyra Ashwyn."
He reached down and touched her chin.
It was too warm. Not fevered—but like touching stone sunbaked all day. Her pulse was steady. Her stare… sharper than a blade.
"She doesn't look like a Flameborn," Lucien said to no one in particular. "She looks like a mistake."
She smiled without warmth. "Maybe I am."
He dropped his hand and turned away.
Weakness wasn't tolerated in the Academy. Sympathy was punishable. Even curiosity could be dangerous.
And Lyra Ashwyn was all three.
Later that evening, Lucien sat alone in the inner sanctum of the Dragon Archives, where cold torches flickered blue above ancient scrolls and statues of winged beasts lined the marble walls.
The candlelight danced across a blackened piece of parchment in his hand.
Prophecy Fragment #17:
"One born of fire shall awaken the Crown of Ash, and one bound to frost shall break it. Together, they will either burn the world to cinders… or remake it in shadow."
He clenched the scroll tighter.
Lyra had appeared exactly as Velora predicted. During the blood moon. In a village he'd been told was being watched. Right as the rebel activity began to surge in the outer provinces.
None of this was coincidence.
But what unsettled him most was that Velora had assigned him to her. Not a council rider. Not a priest. Not a spy.
Him.
Lucien Valmer, second son of a house that no longer existed. The Crown's reluctant heir. The "Icebound" boy who had lived when everyone else in his family had burned.
His breath misted in the cold air as he descended the archive tower.
Dragons roared somewhere in the distance—maybe in the night drills, maybe wild ones beyond the outer wall. It didn't matter. He had more pressing problems.
Like the vision that had come in his sleep last night.
He hadn't told Velora. He never told her his dreams.
But in that vision, he'd seen a girl standing in fire—not burning, but becoming it.
He'd seen his hand in hers.
And he'd seen the Crown — blackened, broken, and cast into the sea.
The next morning, Lucien stood at the training platform overlooking the southern cliffs. Dozens of students marched and sparred below under the barking command of Captain Rennic Stone, the grizzled war hero who trained the first years.
Lucien wasn't there to train.
He was there to observe the girl.
Lyra Ashwyn had been given a rider's uniform—though it fit her like a second skin stitched with doubt. She wore her curls pinned back messily, her eyes red from lack of sleep, but her posture was rigid.
She didn't flinch as the captain threw her into live-fire drills her first day. Didn't cry out when she missed glyph formations or scorched her own boots trying to stabilize her fire magic. She simply gritted her teeth and kept going.
She was reckless. Raw.
But she learned fast.
Too fast.
Velora had been right: she wasn't like the others. Her power wasn't taught. It was remembered—like something ancient waking up inside her.
Lucien watched in silence as Lyra faced off with Thalia Ravenshade in a mock duel.
It wasn't a fair fight.
Thalia was noble-born, trained since childhood, and had Vulkara—her golden dragon—roaring overhead in a show of dominance. The other trainees whispered bets. Most didn't bother betting. They already expected Lyra to fall.
She didn't.
Lyra dodged the first two firebolts. Took the third on the shoulder and still came swinging. Her stance was wild, but her instinct was flawless. When she caught Thalia off guard with a backhanded strike, even Rennic's stern mouth twitched upward.
Lucien's fingers curled around the railing.
He shouldn't care.
She was just a variable. A tool. A piece in a game the Crown had been playing since before he was born.
But the fire in her eyes reminded him of something he couldn't name.
Or maybe something he'd buried.
That night, Velora summoned him.
She always wore white.
Tonight, she wore mourning white — flame-silk robes trimmed in gold, her hair cascading down her back in black waves. Her eyes were ageless.
"She's already growing stronger," Velora said, standing before the massive stained-glass window shaped like a dragon's eye. "You've seen it."
"I have," Lucien said carefully.
"And?"
"She's dangerous. Undisciplined. Stubborn."
Velora smiled faintly. "You've just described the exact traits your father once praised you for."
Lucien's jaw tightened. "What do you want me to do with her?"
"Train her. Watch her. And when the time comes…" She turned to him, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Choose her fate."
Lucien stiffened. "And if I choose wrong?"
Velora's hand touched his cheek.
Her palm was warm—warmer than it should be.
"You won't," she said.
But as Lucien left her chambers, he knew something he couldn't explain:
Lyra Ashwyn wasn't just the prophecy's fire.
She was the spark at the center of everything.
And he was the frost that would either extinguish her…
Or shatter himself trying.