Ivy
I staggered back.
"No," I whispered. "That's not possible. He died—Lucien, you killed him."
Lucien looked away.
"I thought I did. I buried him in flames. But the bloodline… your father, he's more than just human. He's Velorian. He was never meant to die by my hands."
The air around me grew thin.
Ayra watched us from the corner, her little hands clutching her bear, confused, afraid.
"You knew," I said slowly. "You knew and still brought her here."
"I didn't bring her here," Lucien said. "She came to find you. And now, he's following the scent of her power."
"Why? Why Ayra?"
"She's the heir," Lucien whispered. "To both of us. Fire and thorn. She's the weapon he couldn't create himself."
Lucien
I had never seen Ivy so still.
Not even when she gave birth alone.
Not even when I chained her in gold.
She looked like the last candle in a burning house—just about to go out.
"I should've killed him better," I muttered.
"You should have never touched me," she said.
I flinched, but didn't argue.
"Ivy," I said, my voice low, "I know you don't want to hear this, but we need to run. Not for me. Not for you. For her."
Ayra.
She was the only thing keeping us from killing each other.
The only piece of her I ever got to love without breaking.
Ivy
I looked down at my daughter.
She was so quiet now. Almost like she could feel everything we weren't saying out loud.
Lucien reached out to touch her, but I stopped him.
"You don't get to act like a father now," I whispered.
"I know," he said. "But I'll still protect her. Even if she hates me too."
I hated him. I hated how easy he made it to fall back into old wounds.
But I loved her more.
And I knew… My father was a different kind of evil.
Lucien was a storm.
But my father?
He was the fire that never went out.
Ivy
I hadn't heard that voice in seven years.
But it was carved into my bones—like a scar you don't need to see to feel.
My father stepped into the cave as if he owned it. As if he had always been there, waiting.
Ayra clung to me, trembling. I wrapped my arms around her and stood tall.
Lucien stepped in front of us.
"Stay behind me," he said.
But I didn't.
Not this time.
"I'm not afraid of you," I told my father.
He smiled like that was a joke. "Then you've forgotten what fear feels like."
"No," I whispered. "I just stopped letting it control me."
Lucien
She stood there—broken, tired, furious—and I finally saw it.
She didn't need me to save her anymore.
She was fire.
She was thorn.
And when she stepped forward, the cave trembled beneath her feet.
"You won't touch my daughter," she told him.
"She is mine," he growled.
"No," Ivy said softly. "She's ours. Mine and Lucien's. And you will never touch her again."
He moved too fast—dark power whipping like wind—but Ivy was faster. She raised her hand and flames burst from her fingers like they'd been waiting all along.
He screamed.
Not from pain.
From shock.
"You awakened it," he hissed. "You don't know what you've done—"
Ivy
"I set myself free," I said.
And I meant it.
The fire inside me had always been there. My mother had buried it. Lucien had feared it. But Ayra? She made me want to own it.
And for her, I burned.
Lucien struck next—his shadows snapping across my father's chest like chains. Together, we fought him—not as enemies. Not as lovers. But as something in between.
We were rage and mercy.
Past and future.
The flame and the thorn.
It wasn't easy. It wasn't clean.
But in the end, it was done.
Lucien
He fell.
For real this time.
No resurrection.
No final threat.
Just ashes, and silence, and the sound of Ivy breathing hard beside me.
"I'm sorry," I said, voice rough.
"For what?" she asked.
"For everything."
She looked down at Ayra. Then up at me.
And for the first time, she didn't look like she hated me.
"I don't forgive you," she said.
"I know."
"But I don't want to run anymore."
I reached out and touched Ayra's tiny hand. She didn't pull away.
And for me, that was enough.
Ivy
Veloria stood quiet under the stars.
We never got a fairytale.
But we got something else:
Freedom.
A new beginning.
A future built on truth.
I didn't wear a crown.
I didn't need to.
Because I carried fire in my veins, and a daughter in my arms.
And beside me stood the man who once broke me...
…and now helped me build something new.