Mowgara was already there. She stood at the front of the dais, flanked by two of her highest hierophants, her robe a dark tide that poured down the steps, heavy and seamless as the night. Her crown—the Circlet of Flame—burned with a steady glow, its fire coiling around her brow without flicker or fade. She was the very image of sovereign fire, still and terrible, and as I stepped into place beside her, she did not even look at me.
“You’re late,” she said.
“I’m here,” I replied, too tired to argue.
“Your birthmark?”
“It’s fine.”
“Then the broth worked.”
I said nothing – if she noticed or cared, she didn’t show it. Below us, the crowd shifted like a tide, parting to make way for the guards – andbetween them, they brought him forward.
Alaric walked with slow, deliberate steps. His robes were torn, the frayed edges clumsily bound with cord, as if a few knots could dress him back into dignity. His mouth was sealed – not with cloth, but with a blackened clasp of wrought iron that curved across his face like a cruel smile. His hands were chained in front of him, and though two guards flanked him, he did not resist nor falter. His eyes were clear.
And he was looking straight at me.
They led him up the pyre’s steps and bound him to the black stone with thick iron chains. I watched as they looped them over his chest, across his arms, and around his throat, as if he were something powerful still, something that might yet break free.
Mowgara stepped forward, her arms raised in ceremony. The crowd fell silent. And the Sorcerer Queen drank in their reverence like a fine wine.
Her voice, when it came, was not loud – but it carried. It always did.
“My people,” she began, “today we gather not in mourning, but in preservation. Today, we cast into the fire all that would threaten the order of the Flame.”
Every word landed like a drumbeat, deliberate and unrelenting. Whatever else I thought of her – and there was plenty – I had always admired her for this: the way she could command a thousand hearts with nothing but her voice. No spell, no flame – just words, wielded like a blade.
“This man”, she continued, turning toward the chained figure, “stood in open defiance of the Flame. He sowed unrest, spread lies, and rallied traitors beneath false hopes. He led men and women astray, away from order, away from peace of the Queen.”
My breath caught, just for a moment.
She raised her hands above the Dragonstone.
“Let this be our offering. Let this be our shield.Let this be the fire that guards the gate.”
She began to speak the words then – not in the tongue of Irongate, but in the ancient words only known to the Sisterhood. I recognised them—I had heard them before whispering in the dead of night as a child, standing behind the ritual doors with ash on my face and terror in my throat.
These were the words of ignition, and the pyre answered.
One of the hierophants beside her stiffened, a thin line of blood slipping from his nose as if the sound itself had cut him.
Black flames, like the night itself had become fire, rose slowly at first, then hungrily – deep black edged in gold, licking up the stone like it had been waiting, like it had always been meant for this. The fire wrapped around Alaric’s feet, his robes catching not with smoke or shriek, but with eerie quiet. The iron clasp across his mouth glowed red.
Still, he looked at me.
The mark beneath my armour pulsed once.
Then again – harder.
I swayed, the world blurring at the edges, the cold and sweat suddenly gone from my skin, replaced by something far more dangerous:heat. Not from the fire below, but from within. My shoulder burned as though something was hacking at me beneath the skin, like something was suddenly clawing for breath. And in that instant, I remembered…I hadn’t drunk the broth.
All I could do was to watch as the fire climbed. It curled up Alaric’s legs with slow, dreadful hunger, devouring cloth and flesh in equal measure. The iron sealed across his mouth had turned a molten red, bright enough to draw cries of awe from the crowd, but the man made no sound. No screams, no struggle, only breath—laboured and shallow—slipping past blistered, sealed lips and through the gaps in the clasp as though even now he refused to yield. The flames lickedhigher, curling around his body like something ritual, something practised, and through it all, his gaze never left mine. And I… I could not look away. It was not pity that held me there, nor horror, nor fascination. It was the pull of him – the gravity in his silence, in his stare, in the way the fire refused to reduce him into anything less than what he had been. Even as his face blackened, even as the chains burned into his skin, there was something whole in him. Whole, and aimed at me.
The pain beneath my armour sharpened until it was no longer pain but presence – bright, white-hot, and alive. It flared through my shoulder and into my chest, into my spine, filling my skull with light, until it took everything I had not to cry out. My jaw clenched so tightly I tasted blood. I gripped the edge of the stone railing with both hands, grounding myself in the weight of it.
Beside me, Mowgara stood tall and radiant, arms still raised in solemn ceremony, her lips curved in the faintest smile. She did not look at me, but I could feel her watching – and I would not stumble, I would not tremble, I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing me bend.
Below, the crowd had begun to cheer.
