**Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Heir's Fire**
The walls of the palace no longer held peace.
They held fire.
Not the kind that raged with flames.
But the kind that crawled beneath the skin.
That hummed in the silence.
That stared back through mirrors.
Ever since Bram's death, I'd felt it growing stronger.
That old ache—grief turned to vengeance.
But I wouldn't let it consume me.
I would wield it.
Because grief is not weakness.
It is memory set aflame.
And I would use it to light the path forward.
* * *
The branded prisoner gave us more than silence.
In his madness, he spoke of a hidden leader.
"A flame walker," he muttered. "The Heir of the Firebound Faith."
It sounded like myth.
But sometimes, myths are warnings dressed in poetry.
We questioned him for hours.
He gave no names. No locations.
Only riddles.
"The heir wears no crown, but walks like they carry ash in their lungs."
And: "The heir doesn't need a throne. They burn those who sit on one."
It chilled me.
Not just because of what he said…
But because something inside me believed it.
* * *
Elira and I searched every hidden scroll.
Every banned book. Every fragment of text Odric kept locked behind vault doors.
And we found a reference.
One line, buried in a dying priest's confession:
> "The last of the Firebound was taken into the snow.
> Hidden by those who feared what truth could become in the hands of a child."
"A child," Elira whispered. "That means this heir… was born."
"And they were hidden," I said. "Meaning they could be anywhere."
Elira looked at me.
"Even here."
* * *
We drew up a list.
Every servant.
Every noble child born during the year of the purge.
Every face that had passed through the palace in the last decade.
It was hundreds.
Too many to search blindly.
But we weren't blind.
We had something the others didn't.
Fire.
* * *
I returned to the branded prisoner.
He was weak now—gaunt and coughing blood.
But his eyes still burned.
I leaned close.
"There is one fire I will not let you burn," I said. "And that is mine."
He smirked.
"She'll come to you."
"She?"
"She always does. The fire favors blood."
I stood.
And left him to the silence of his cell.
* * *
Two days later, she did come.
Not a warrior.
Not a priest.
A girl.
Sixteen.
A kitchen maid named Thalia.
She came to Elira shaking, holding a cracked pendant in her palm.
"It started glowing when I touched the Queen's goblet," she whispered.
We tested her.
The pendant only glowed when she held it.
And when I touched her hand—heat surged through my skin like lightning.
"Elira," I breathed. "She's the one."
* * *
We took her to the inner chamber.
Lorenzo sat across from her. I stood beside him. Elira guarded the door.
Thalia said nothing for a long time.
Then, in a voice too calm for her age:
> "I don't want the throne. I never did. But I remember the fire."
I frowned.
"You were a baby."
"I was hidden in the hills. With the last of the Firebound monks. They died protecting me. But I remember their stories. I remember their prayers."
Elira narrowed her eyes.
"What prayers?"
Thalia looked up.
And whispered:
> "Let truth rise like smoke
> Let blood not forget its flame
> Let no heir rule who forgets the ash beneath her feet"
It was the same as the scroll I'd found in my mother's hidden chamber.
* * *
She was the heir.
But she didn't want to rule.
She wanted safety.
"I don't need a crown," she said. "I just want to survive."
I took her hands.
"You don't need to fight," I said. "But you do need to choose where your fire burns."
She looked at me with old eyes.
Eyes too heavy for sixteen.
"I choose you," she said. "Because the fire in you… it doesn't consume. It remembers."
* * *
We hid her.
Not in a dungeon.
But in the old tower of Queen Ivelyn—sealed for decades.
There, Thalia could study.
Could live.
Could breathe.
And there, she could burn without fear.
* * *
The court knew nothing.
But the enemy did.
Because the next night, they attacked again.
Not with blades.
With flame.
The kitchens.
The stables.
The lower halls.
Set ablaze at once.
Three servants died.
Four guards injured.
And on the wall, scrawled in soot:
> "One fire can be hidden.
> But two?
> That's a war."
* * *
I stood in the ashes the next morning.
Hair tied. Face bare. Eyes open.
Lorenzo beside me. Elira armed. Thalia hidden.
I picked up a shard of scorched stone.
Then whispered to myself:
"Then let them have war."
* * *
The time for secrets was over.
I summoned the nobles. The soldiers. The scholars.
And I spoke:
"There is an heir among us. Not to a throne—but to fire. To truth. To memory."
"The enemy wants her dead."
"I want her alive."
"And I swear, by every drop of royal blood in my veins—if they want to burn us down, I will drown them in their own flames."
No one dared interrupt.
Because they saw it now.
I wasn't just a timid bride.
I wasn't just a stitched-up queen.
I was fire.
I was legacy.
I was the one thing they feared most—
A woman who knew who she was.
And wasn't afraid to burn for it.