The elevator climbed higher than she remembered. Each floor of Kade International was pristine, gleaming with marble and glass, but beneath the polish Nyasha could feel the relics humming in the walls. This building wasn't just an office tower—it was a fortress.
The Emberheart pulsed faintly against her chest. Her mother's flame didn't trust this place. Neither did she.
At the top floor, the doors slid open into silence. No assistants, no guards—just a vast office lined with windows that stretched across the skyline of Umbra's Gate. The city lights bled into the room, cold and watchful.
He stood at the far end, hands clasped behind his back, staring out over the city. Adrian Kade.
Her father.
The man who had banished her.
He turned slowly, and for a heartbeat Nyasha saw him not as the feared warlock-tycoon, but as the man from her childhood: tall, imposing, with eyes like obsidian glass. But then his gaze hardened, and that flicker of memory burned away.
"So," he said softly, voice carrying across the room like a blade drawn from its sheath. "The prodigal daughter returns."
Nyasha stepped forward, steady. "You sound surprised. Didn't your hounds already tell you?"
His mouth curved, not quite a smile. "They did. But hearing of your return and seeing you here are different things. I half-believed you would stay buried in exile."
Nyasha let the words wash over her. "You sent me away."
"I saved you," he countered, his tone sharp. "You were too young. Too reckless. Your mother's death nearly destroyed this family—"
"Don't you dare." Her voice cut through his like fire through glass. "Don't you speak of her."
For a moment, silence. Then he stepped closer, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. She felt the weight of power pressing against her chest—his presence wasn't just human, it was threaded with magic.
"You come back after ten years, thinking you can challenge me?" he said, voice low, dangerous. "This empire stands because of me. You are nothing without my name."
Nyasha smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "That's where you're wrong. I came back not to beg, but to take. This empire isn't yours. It never was. It's hers."
The Emberheart flared against her skin, and for an instant, firelight danced in her shadow. Adrian's gaze flicked to the glow—and his expression shifted. Anger, yes. But beneath it, something else. Fear.
"Where did you get that?" he demanded.
Nyasha tilted her head, savoring the crack in his composure. "You already know. She left it to me. The piece you couldn't bury."
A storm passed behind his eyes. For the first time, the mask of control slipped.
Then, almost too softly: "You don't understand what you're carrying."
She stepped closer, her chin raised. "Then teach me. Or fight me. Either way, Father… I'm not leaving again."
The silence between them was electric, thick with history, grief, and the threat of fire yet to come.
And outside the tower, the city seemed to hold its breath.