The market incident followed them back like a shadow. It wasn't spoken aloud, but it was there—heavy and suffocating.
Ember hadn't said much since they returned. Her steps were sharper, her movements clipped, her internal fire kept tightly leashed beneath her skin.
She stood on the balcony overlooking the city, arms crossed, her eyes fixed on the horizon as if daring the sky itself to challenge her.
Melissa watched her from the doorway, the silence between them stretching thin.
"You're angry," Melissa said softly, her voice barely a ripple in the quiet room.
Ember didn't turn. "I'm focused."
"That's not the same thing, Ember."
Ember exhaled sharply through her nose, a tiny puff of smoke curling from her lips. "You shouldn't have encouraged him today, Melissa."
The words landed harder than Melissa expected. Confusion flickered across her face. "I didn't," she replied. "I just… I noticed something. A spark of who he's meant to be."
"That's the problem!" Ember snapped, finally spinning around. Her eyes burned—
not with a simple rage, but with a frantic, tight intensity. "You always notice. You see potential, you nurture it like a dying flame, and then you forget what happens when that flame grows too big and burns everyone in its path."
Melissa stiffened, her posture becoming defensive. "I haven't forgotten what failure looks like, Ember."
"You talk like he's ready!" Ember's voice rose, vibrating with a desperate kind of fear.
"Like this is some gentle awakening. He's unstable, Melissa. He's a walking catastrophe. If something goes wrong—if he loses control for even a second—"
"—then you'll be the one who has to take responsibility," Melissa finished softly, her eyes searching Ember's.
That made Ember falter. Her breath hitched.
Melissa stepped forward, her hands clenched at her sides. "That's what this is really about, isn't it? You don't trust my instincts. You think I'm being careless with his life—and ours."
"I think you're being hopeful," Ember shot back, her voice low and dangerous. "And in my experience, hope is just a slower way to get people hurt."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Melissa swallowed hard, her eyes shimmering. "Hope is the only reason some of us survived the Academy, Ember. It's the only reason I'm still standing here."
Ember's jaw tightened until it ached. "And some of us survived because we didn't have it," she said sharply. "Because we learned control. Precision. Cold, hard reality. Not… whatever this is." She gestured vaguely at Melissa, as if pointing at her kindness itself as a flaw.
The hurt flashed across Melissa's face, raw and visible, before she could mask it.
"I didn't realize my faith in people offended you so much," Melissa said, her voice trembling despite her best efforts.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
"But it's what you said." Melissa took a step back, the distance between them feeling like a canyon.
"I thought," she murmured, "that after everything we've been through on this mission, you finally trusted my judgment."
Ember opened her mouth to argue, to explain the fear that was clawing at her chest—but she closed it.
That hesitation was answer enough.
Melissa bowed her head slightly, a gesture of habit that felt like a goodbye. "I'll be more careful from now on," she said, her voice hollow. "I won't… interfere with your training methods again."
She turned and walked out before Ember could find the words to stop her.
"Melissa—"
The name died on Ember's lips. Melissa was already gone.
That night, Ember stood alone on the balcony, a small flame flickering uselessly in her palm. Why did I say that? she wondered, the heat of the fire feeling cold against her skin.
Across the hall, Melissa sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the floor. She rested her hands on the stone beneath her feet, seeking the steady pulse of the earth.
But the earth was quiet. Too quiet.
For the first time in a long while, Melissa wondered if being gentle had simply made her weak again. If Ember was right to be afraid of her.
And Ember—who had always burned forward without a second thought—felt something unfamiliar and heavy settle in her chest.
Regret. It was a cold, bitter feeling, and for a Master of Fire, it was the one thing she didn't know how to burn away.