It had been days since the messenger vanished.
But the scent of his blood still clung to the trees.
Alera could smell it on the wind—coppery, sour, tinged with something older than decay. Something like ash scraped from the bones of stars.
She walked alone now.
No guards.
No advisors.
Only the constant, flickering presence of the blade at her back, hidden beneath her cloak, humming with the kind of hunger that had no name.
Behind her, the camp stirred like a restless creature. Soldiers sharpened blades they wouldn't admit were shaking in their hands. Children of war, all of them. Chosen by circumstance. Marched by fear.
She could feel their doubt growing like mold.
Not in her.
But in themselves.
Lysandria found her standing at the edge of the trees again, watching nothing.
"The scouts returned," she said. "The Prophet's banners are real. They've set camp on the far side of the Mirepass."
Alera didn't turn.
"Did they come armed?"
"They came dressed for diplomacy. But the steel underneath their robes doesn't lie."
Silence stretched between them. Lysandria shifted her weight.
"She'll demand something."
"She'll demand everything."
"And you'll give her?"
Alera turned now, slowly.
And for the first time in days, her voice was quiet.
"I don't know."
The Mirepass was a flatland of old bones and marsh heat. What used to be farmland before the Sundering had turned it into a sprawl of sinking ruins and bitter green fog.
They met at midday.
Two tents. One white. One black.
Divided by a line of scorched earth no one dared cross.
Alera walked without armor, her cloak long and hoodless. Her eyes steady. Her steps unhurried. Seris and Saphine flanked her, but Lysandria stayed behind watching from a higher ridge, a crossbow on her back and fire in her chest.
The Prophet was already waiting.
She stood barefoot in the middle of the scorched earth, her pale robes rippling as if caught in a wind no one else could feel.
She looked young.
Too young.
But her eyes amber and ancient said otherwise.
She smiled at Alera like they were old friends.
"Sister."
Alera stopped.
"You're not my sister."
The Prophet tilted her head.
"But our blood sings in the same key, doesn't it? Yours just… screams louder."
They entered the Prophet's tent. White on the outside. Red inside. Drapes like skin. A single table between them. No food. No wine. Only candles.
And bones.
The Prophet motioned for her to sit.
Alera did not.
"Speak."
The Prophet walked around the table slowly, one hand trailing the candle's flame without flinching.
"You broke the Bone Throne. You carry the child of night and fire. You are the last of the cursed line. You know what must come next."
Alera's voice never rose. "You mean submission?"
"I mean sacrifice."
"Of what?"
The Prophet stopped.
"Of yourself."
There was a rustle at the tent's entrance.
Another figure entered hooded, robed in black with a gold-threaded hem.
When he removed the hood, Alera felt her breath hitch.
He was Kael.
Or a mirror of him.
Same eyes. Same scar at the corner of the jaw. Same half-laugh hiding behind every blink.
But something behind his eyes was dead.
"Do you know him?" the Prophet asked softly.
Alera didn't answer.
The not-Kael stepped forward.
"I know you."
She stared at him.
"Then you know I'll kill you if you lie again."
The Prophet smiled.
"Let him speak."
He did.
Of the Prophet's vision.
Of a throne buried beneath the Sea of Sorrow.
Of a prophecy in which the child in Alera's womb opened that throne not to sit upon it.
But to feed it.
She listened.
She didn't flinch.
But her hands curled tightly into her cloak until her knuckles burned white.
"And you follow her willingly?" she asked him.
The not-Kael's eyes darkened.
"She saved me."
"From death?"
"From myself."
"You were never lost."
The man blinked.
And for a second, she swore she saw him flicker.
Flicker like light over water.
Like memory.
Like illusion.
Alera turned back to the Prophet.
"What do you want?"
The Prophet's smile vanished.
"I want your child."
Alera didn't blink.
"You will die before you touch it."
"Not to harm. To protect. To raise as the new flame. As the bridge between what was and what must be."
"Lies."
"I've seen it."
Alera's voice turned low. Cold.
"Then see this."
She moved before breath could follow.
A flick of her fingers.
A pulse from the blade beneath her cloak.
The table split clean in half.
The candles died.
The bones cracked.
The Prophet didn't move.
But the not-Kael did launching toward her with blade drawn.
Saphine intercepted him mid-step, her own sword shoving his aside.
They clashed in the tight space, candles shattering, the Prophet backing away with an eerie calm.
Alera didn't draw.
She didn't need to.
The blackfire in her blood surged, and with a breath, the entire tent pulsed with heat.
The not-Kael froze, stunned by something unseen.
Seris's voice rose.
"His name isn't Kael. It never was."
Outside, soldiers on both sides clashed not with blades, but with fear. The Prophet's followers held, watching from the mist. Alera's stood ready, tense.
The Prophet stepped through the smoke and lifted her hand.
The earth beneath them shifted.
And something moved beneath the Mirepass.
Something vast.
Something old.
Alera felt it.
So did the child.
A soundless scream inside her skull.
She turned to the Prophet.
"Try to take the child again," Alera said quietly. "And I will burn the very roots of the world."
The Prophet paused.
Then bowed.
"Then may the world remember your mercy."
She disappeared into mist.
Alera turned back.
The not-Kael lay stunned in the dirt, his eyes slowly changing.
He reached for her.
"Alera…"
She crouched beside him.
"I loved you once."
He tried to smile.
"I loved you always."
She touched his forehead.
And for a moment, she saw something real inside him. A glimpse.
Then she ended it.
Clean. Quick.
Like closing a book already spoiled.
Back at camp, no one spoke of what had happened.
They all knew.
There were no oaths in smoke.
No promises in prophecy.
Only fire.
And choice.
The blade burned low at her spine.
The child was silent.
But in the dark, Alera whispered one thing only to herself:
"I will not feed the throne."