Flame becomes desire when it starts to look you in the eye.
__________
Seraphine stood in the heart of Lucien's palace, the ruins behind her swallowed by candlelight. Whatever the Vale had broken, this place hadn't fallen with it. Marble columns reached into the ceiling. Symbols carved into the walls pulsed with violet light. She didn't ask questions. She didn't trust the answers anymore. Lucien was her torch now.
She followed him through an archway lit with flickering lanterns. The air inside was warmer, a contrast to the field they had just left. The warmth wasn't comforting, just enough to notice.
"Why bring me here?" she asked.
Her voice felt small. The quiet had become unbearable lately.
"So you can decide what to do with what you've taken," Lucien said. He didn't look at her.
Every step echoed. Every echo felt like it didn't belong to her.
Lucien kept walking. But the longer they moved through the palace, the more she noticed.
There were whispers. A soft rustling sound, like murmuring gossip under someone's breath. She glanced upward, curious where the sound was coming from.
Her eyes landed on several creatures watching them. Demons. She knew their name now after killing one just hours ago. Though these demons didn't seem to want to attack her. In fact, they looked like they were trying very hard to be unnoticeable, to blend into the background. Which was laughable, honestly, because some had faces that changed when you looked at them too long. Others looked like masks carved into bone.
None of them spoke. But they all bowed when Lucien passed. Their cover was blown.
He didn't bow back. He didn't even look like someone who knew how to. His entire presence commanded authority. So how could he?
"These are your demons?" she asked carefully, not wanting to sound rude.
"They're not mine," Lucien answered, his brows lowered in a frown.
When he shapeshifted into full man, she realized the stranger wasn't ugly. Ugly? He hadn't even been ugly with horns. But now that she saw him like this, fully human in form, it was impossible to deny it. He was beautiful in the way fire is beautiful. Dangerous. Consuming.
His red irises looked like they could steal pieces of her soul just by meeting her gaze. His face was all sharp lines and angles, the kind of sculpted perfection that made you wonder if the gods carved him out of something they feared. He looked exactly how a god should. A man Adonis might hate just for existing.
Even his lips, red and full, seemed to call to her. Or maybe her eyes lied. Maybe her mind did too.
There was no way she was thinking of Lucien that way. No fucking way.
But still... he was impossible to look away from.
"Not exactly. They serve because I give them reason to."
"And if you don't?" she asked, almost immediately, realizing she must've seemed weird after zoning out on him. But could he blame her?
"They eat."
She paused.
"Comforting," she muttered.
The corridor opened into a large hall. The ceiling disappeared into shadow. The walls burned with pale fire. At the center stood a throne. Lucien didn't sit.
He turned to face her. This time, his eyes looked different. Not warm, but not cold either.
"You made it through the first test," he said. "Good. But that was only the beginning."
"I figured," she replied.
Lucien studied her.
"You still think this is just about revenge."
"I don't think. I know."
"Do you?"
Seraphine narrowed her eyes. "Don't twist this. You said power has a price. I paid. End of story."
He stepped toward her. "You keep repeating that. But I wonder who you're trying to convince. Me, or yourself?"
She looked away. She hated how close he stood. Hated how her heart stuttered when he spoke in that voice.
"I'm here because they ruined everything," she said. "Because they lied. Because they left me to rot."
"Then why are you still afraid?"
Her mouth opened, then closed again. "I'm not."
"You are," Lucien said. His voice was quiet now. "You just haven't figured out what you're afraid of yet."
A demon entered the hall behind them.
It walked like a man but had too many fingers. Too many eyes. It came forward and dropped something at her feet.
Clothes.
A cloak. Boots. Gloves. A belt. All black, marked with faint silver symbols.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Your next skin," Lucien said. "You can't fight in rags."
"I didn't say I was going to fight."
Lucien raised an eyebrow. "You didn't agree to any of this. And yet, here you are."
She didn't respond. She bent down and picked up the cloak. It felt strange. Lighter than it should be.
Lucien turned away. "Change. Then follow. Your training starts tonight."
"Training?"
"You really think the Vale showed you everything it had?" he said as he walked off. "That was only the welcome party."
***
The room she changed in was small. There was a silver mirror on the wall, but her reflection looked blurry. Older. It looked like stress had aged her.. Her porcelain skin was gone. Dried blood streaked her cheeks. Something sharper lived around her eyes now.
The clothes fit too well. Like someone had taken her measurements before she ever arrived. She pulled the belt tight around her waist. Her hands barely shook.
When she stepped out, Lucien didn't say a word. Just nodded and pointed toward a narrow stairwell.
They walked down together.
The air grew colder the lower they went, but her skin didn't flinch. Her newly acquired power kept her steady.
They stopped in a chamber filled with red light. A circle had been drawn into the ground. It wasn't chalk. It wasn't blood. It reeked faintly of iron and something like burnt stone and wet bone. She silently prayed it wasn't human.
Lucien stepped aside.
"You want me to step into that?" she asked.
He nodded once.
"What if I don't?"
"You go back to the ashes."
She stepped forward.
The second her foot crossed into the circle, the air changed. Thick and heavy. Like smoke that could drown.
Something whispered her name.
She turned fast. Nothing there.
Then Lucien stepped in after her. His presence cut through the strange air.
He didn't touch her. He didn't need to. She still felt it. That pull. Like gravity. Like instinct. Like a thread she hadn't realized was knotted around her.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked.
Lucien looked at her. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"
"You could've killed me. More than once."
"I still could."
"But you haven't."
He didn't answer at first.
Then she asked again, softer this time. "Why?"
Lucien didn't smile, but his voice shifted slightly. Sounding almost human.
"Because I remember what it feels like. To be broken. To be betrayed. To be so angry you want to destroy everything. And scared you won't survive what's left."
Her breath caught in her throat.
He stepped closer.
And in that moment, she knew.
She was starting to feel something more than hunger, more than fury. Something wild and thrilling. Something that made her chest ache. Something that scared her more than the circle ever could.
You're not just a means to an end anymore, she thought, her eyes fixed on his.
Lucien said nothing. His usual smirk curled at the edge of his mouth, with his scowl in place.
She didn't say it either. Not yet. Whatever this feeling was, it scared her more than any blade. Naming it would make it too sharp, too real.
Either that… or she really had lost her damn mind. This place could do that, especially to a girl who'd been silver-spoon fed all her life.
But something had begun. Something she couldn't burn. And if she tried, she knew she'd be the one who caught fire.