Aria's POV
I wake up screaming.
Hands grab my shoulders—too many hands, all at once. Voices shout over each other. The golden light from my chest is fading, but I can still feel the fire inside me, burning under my skin like I swallowed the sun.
"Get back! Everyone back!" Seraphine's voice cuts through the chaos. "Guards, contain her!"
Arms wrap around me from behind, dragging me away from the altar. The sacred flames are still roaring, twice as high as before, gold and red and wild. The phoenixes behind the altar are free—their broken chains smoking on the ground. They're spreading their wings, testing their freedom, and the whole sanctum shakes with their power.
"What did you do?" Seraphine appears in front of me, her perfect face twisted with fury. "What are you?"
"I didn't—I don't—" My voice won't work properly. The mark on my chest throbs like a living thing.
"She corrupted the sacred fire!" someone screams from the crowd.
"The phoenixes broke free because of her!"
"She's cursed!"
The guards tighten their grip, their fingers digging into my arms. I try to pull away, but I'm so weak. The fire took something from me when it chose me. Or gave me something. I can't tell which.
Seraphine leans close, her eyes cold and calculating. "You just made a terrible mistake, girl."
Before she can say more, a ripple of shocked gasps runs through the crowd. People near the entrance stumble backward, pointing at something behind me.
I turn my head.
Dorian and Lyanna are walking toward the altar, hand in hand.
My heart, already broken, shatters into smaller pieces.
Dorian is wearing his finest clothes—the dark blue coat with silver buttons he said he was saving for "something special." Lyanna glows beside him in her pink gown, her golden hair cascading down her back. They look perfect together. Like they were always meant to be a pair.
Like I was always meant to be nothing.
"Let her go," Dorian calls out to the guards. His voice is kind, concerned. The voice he used with me for five years. "She's confused. Frightened. She didn't mean to disrupt the ceremony."
The guards release me, and I stumble forward. Dorian catches my arm, steadying me. For a moment—one stupid, hopeful moment—I think maybe this is all a misunderstanding. Maybe he'll explain. Maybe—
"Aria," he says gently, loud enough for everyone to hear. "You need to tell the truth now. Did someone put you up to this? Did someone tell you to touch the sacred flames?"
"What? No, I fell—"
"It's okay to be honest." His grip on my arm tightens, just a little. A warning. "We all know you were desperate for attention. For status. But pretending the fire chose you? That's going too far."
The crowd murmurs in agreement.
My mouth opens, but no words come out. What is he doing?
Lyanna steps forward, her face painted with fake sympathy. "Poor Aria. We took you in, fed you, clothed you. And this is how you repay us? By making a scene at the most sacred ceremony in the kingdom?"
"I didn't—I wasn't—"
"You were always so jealous," Lyanna continues, her voice dripping with false sadness. "Jealous of my life. My family. My... relationships." She holds up her left hand.
A betrothal ring glitters on her finger.
The same ring Dorian described to me six months ago. The one with three small diamonds. The one he said he was saving to give me after the Selection.
The world tilts sideways.
"Dorian and I have been engaged for over a year," Lyanna announces to the crowd. "We were waiting for the right moment to share our joy. But Aria..." She looks at me with pity that cuts deeper than any knife. "She became obsessed with him. Following him. Writing him letters. It was sad, really."
"That's not true," I whisper. "Dorian, tell them that's not true."
He won't meet my eyes. "Aria, I tried to be kind to you. You're Lyanna's foster sister, after all. But you misunderstood my kindness for... something else."
"You said you loved me." My voice breaks. "Five years. Five years you—"
"I was being polite." His eyes finally meet mine, and they're cold. Stranger's eyes. "Did you really think I'd marry a laundress's bastard? Someone with no family, no name, no value to anyone?"
The crowd gasps, then titters with laughter.
Heat floods my face. Not the phoenix fire—this is pure shame, pure humiliation burning through every part of me.
"You used me," I breathe.
"I was kind to you," he corrects smoothly. "There's a difference. I helped you with errands. Let you walk with me sometimes. But Aria... you were never going to be more than that. You had to know that."
Lyanna links her arm through his, smiling triumphantly. "You were useful for carrying my shopping. For delivering messages. For..." She pauses dramatically. "For making me look charitable. Rich people love seeing nobles be kind to the poor. It's good for our reputation."
The crowd laughs louder now. Full, cruel laughter that echoes off the golden walls.
I'm going to be sick. I'm going to fall apart right here in front of everyone.
"But crashing the Selection ceremony?" Dorian shakes his head sadly. "Touching the sacred flames to pretend you were chosen? That's not just desperate, Aria. That's criminal."
"I FELL!" I scream, and my voice cracks. "I was crying because you—because you—"
"Because you couldn't handle reality," Lyanna finishes. "The reality that you're nobody. You'll always be nobody. And touching sacred fire doesn't change that."
Celeste pushes through the crowd, her face a mask of horror. But I see the satisfaction in her eyes. She's enjoying this.
"I am so deeply sorry, High Priestess," Celeste says, bowing to Seraphine. "We took this girl in as an infant out of pure charity. Fed her. Clothed her. Loved her like our own." Her voice catches perfectly. "And this is how she repays us? By disrupting sacred ceremonies and pretending divine favor?"
"We should have left you in the gutter where you belonged," Celeste adds, quieter now, but everyone can still hear. "At least then you wouldn't have embarrassed yourself—and us—so publicly."
Something inside me crumbles completely.
They're right. They must be right. I'm nothing. Nobody. A girl who thought she mattered but never did.
The mark on my chest burns suddenly, angrily, like it's disagreeing.
But before I can process that, the temperature in the sanctum drops twenty degrees in an instant.
The phoenixes behind the altar scream—a sound like reality tearing.
Every candle in the room goes out at once, plunging us into darkness lit only by the sacred flames.
And then the flames themselves turn black.
Not dark red or shadow-touched. Pure, absolute black fire that consumes light instead of creating it.
"No," Seraphine whispers, and for the first time, she sounds terrified. "No, no, it's too soon—"
The ceiling cracks.
Not breaking. Cracking like an eggshell from something trying to break through from the other side.
Thunder rolls through the sanctum even though we're indoors. The floor trembles. Stones begin to fall.
"EVERYONE OUT!" Seraphine screams. "NOW!"
The crowd panics, stampeding toward the exits. Dorian and Lyanna run without a backward glance at me. Celeste disappears into the chaos.
I stand frozen at the altar, watching the black flames dance.
The mark on my chest pulses in rhythm with them—pulse, pulse, pulse, like a heartbeat. Like my heart is beating in time with something far away.
Something coming closer.
The ceiling explodes inward in a shower of crystal and stone.
A pillar of black fire tears through the opening, so massive it makes the sacred flames look like candle flickers. The heat hits me like a physical force, driving me to my knees.
The fire condenses, taking shape.
Wings of shadow and starlight. Eyes like burning suns. A presence so powerful it makes my bones ache.
A phoenix made of darkness and rage descends into the sanctum.
And then the flames shift again, pulling inward, condensing into something smaller.
Into someone.
When the fire clears, a man stands in the ruins of the altar.
He's beautiful in a way that hurts to look at—sharp features, black hair, golden eyes that glow with their own light. Dark marks cover his neck and arms like living tattoos. Massive wings arch from his back, but they're wrong somehow. Scarred. Broken in places.
His eyes lock on mine.
The mark on my chest flares with light, and I feel him—his emotions, his thoughts, his pain so overwhelming I can't breathe.
"Finally," he says, his voice like thunder wrapped in silk. "After three hundred years of agony, someone breaks my chains."
He takes a step toward me, and I see the matching mark over his heart—the same symbol branded on mine.
"What are you?" I gasp.
His smile is sharp and deadly and completely without mercy.
"Your death sentence, little bride. We're bound now. Your life is mine. And when you burn out—and you will, because humans always do—I'll finally be free of this cursed existence."
He reaches for me.
I try to run, but my legs won't work.
His hand closes around my wrist.
The world explodes into black fire.