Swelling.
Crusting into ashes.
I pursed my lips.
Burning.
If I really thought about it. . .everything had been burning since the moment I met Kenji.
I burned when he first saidToraand my whole body understood what my mind refused to accept.
I burned when I stopped fighting and let him in, past the walls, past the armor, past the girl who swore she'd never need a man the way I needed him now and forever.
I burned that morning when I saw that pyre.
I burned when he took me out later, fixing the parts of us that had been cracked.
And now Hiroko. . .
I took another sip of the sake. The liquid pooled hot in my chest and mixed with every ounce of sorrow I'd been holding since Kenji told me she was dead.
I’m burning now too. . .
Kenji's arms tightened around me.
I thought about yesterday. How he'd dressed me in red and gold. How he'd made me the phoenix—a creature born from ash, built to rise, wings spread and glowing.
I wanted to rise right now and bethatwoman.
Untouchable.
Luminous.
Fearless.
But the truth was simpler and uglier than that.
I was just burning.
Burning with grief so heavy it had weight, teeth, and a permanent seat in my chest.
Burning with terror—the slow, sick kind that whispered that death could come for more at this table soon because the war was not done.
Burning with love.
The reckless, ruinous kind.
The kind that didn't ask permission.
The kind that had claws and wouldn't release me even if I begged.
And yet. . .
Beneath the grief. . .beneath the terror. . .beneath the love that had wrecked me and rebuilt me and wrecked me again. . .
Resolve came.
The way iron changes in a forge. The metal glowing. Perhaps, I was glowing too as this forge of fire began to change me.
