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It’s her voice, as well as her words. Words repeated when I was a little girl, her hands gently cupping mine, her long, delicate fingers encasing my palm protectively.

Words, whispered like magic, while we pretended to blow life into a tiny, invisible flame.

I fall into the memory, feeling her soft hair brush against my cheek. her arms providing me with the only safety I ever knew, trapped in the nightmare of our home.

“Softly. Gently. Perfect. Just like that, my little ember.”

I see her now, kneeling across from me, her knees touching mine, our hair curtaining our faces, and a secret, knowing smile on her lips.

“It’s there, but it’s small. Only you can make it grow. Only you can bring it to life.”

Her Omega perfume swirls around me until she’s all I can smell. The scent of home. The scent of stories told in whispers and giggles, long afternoons spent gazing at the sunlight peeking through the glittering fronds under our Willow tree. Our place. The only place where we could hide from all the pain and fear and shouting.

“Yes. You know what to do. It’s time now, my sweet girl.”

Her mouth moves, urging me, encouraging me as only she can. Filling me with confidence. Filling me with strength. Her voice warps and changes until it no longer sounds like hers at all.

It sounds like mine.

“Let it burn.”

The air around me ripples like heat on summer asphalt, pulsing with static electricity and the smell of ozone.

I can see Vae’s mouth moving, but I can’t hear him.

I lean forward as the floor begins to shake beneath my palms. The stones vibrate. The walls quiver. My own bones shake like a chord struck too hard. The bottles of water tremble violently until they fall, rolling into the wall.

The air splits with a sharp crack of thunder. But it’s not thunder from the sky.

It’s inside. In here, with us.

The ancient wooden beams above us groan a deep, protesting sound that resonates from everywhere at once. Then, with a moaning snap, they splinter apart and explode. Shards of wood tear through the room like needle-sharp shrapnel. I watch them fly through the air, soaring in a determined arc in every direction.

I know, intuitively, that if I wished it, they’d shred through everything in their path.

I don’t flinch, or scream, or cry. I’m not afraid. I know, with that same calm certainty, that whatever this is won’t harm me.

And as much as I want to hate him, as much as he’s hurt me, it won’t wound Vae, either.

The debris curves around us like we’re two eyes of the storm, protected by something inside that’s angry, but not malicious. I feel it coursing through me—fire and lightning at once, echoes of power zapping through my veins and coursing through my blood.

It’s destruction when I want it to be. It’s release when I need it to be.

It’s beautiful chaos.

Then… silence.

There are no voices or movements. Just a high-pitched ringing that makes me wonder if I’m breathing too hard, or not at all.

Vae rises cautiously from his crouched position. He’s covered in dust and pale ash, shaking splinters of wood and debris out of his hair and clothing. His knuckles are white, and his mouth is slightly parted like he wants to speak but has no idea what to say. He keeps his gaze trained on me warily, like I’m a bomb that might go off.

Again.

The flame in my chest flickers one last time. Above me, in response, the lights do the same. Then, like a dying ember that’s run out of fuel, it gutters.

The warm numbness bathing me dissipates like grains of sand through my fingers, until there’s nothing left but confusion and a strange sense of loss.

The fire’s still there, though, and I now understand that it’s never truly gone out. All those times when I thought I was broken and empty, that flame had been there. Watching.