Fear.
Exhaustion.
Hope twisted tight enough to snap.
My fire flares in answer.
“You will have news,” I snap, heat bleeding into my voice, “when I deign to give it. And that will not be on my mating night.”
The Flame answers me with a sharp roar, sparks leaping high.
Grier stiffens, jaw working, then bows deeper this time.
“Yes, my lord,” he grunts, retreating back into the ranks.
Silence falls again, heavier now.
This feels wrong.
Too exposed.
Too ceremonial.
Like a performance staged for desperate eyes.
Like theater—when what I need is truth, fire, and blood-honest resolve.
Delia deserves more than spectacle.
More than a rite performed under necessity. She deserves choice, time, gentleness—things fire has never been known for.
I hate that I cannot give her those things.
I am still turning that thought over when I hear it—soft footfalls in the corridor beyond the great doors.
My body stills.
I should have done this differently.
I should have waited.
Should have courted her with patience, as Alaric did with his illusions and careful truths.
I might have softened the edges, made this feel less like standing at the mouth of a forge.
But that is not who I am.
Fire is cruel, yes—but it is also honest.
It does not pretend.
It does not disguise itself as a swimming pool only to harbor an abyss beneath the surface.
It cannot be something it is not.
No illusions here, Shula.
The doors finally swoosh open.
