The palace walls pressed down on her like a tomb.
Marble corridors gleamed with torchlight, guards shadowed every turn, and her chains never left her wrists. But in the stillness of her new prison, when the guards' footsteps faded and the moon hung high, Victoria dared to sit cross-legged on the cold stone and close her eyes.
She had learned the rhythm of her light, however fragile—how it healed, how it soothed, how it made flowers bend toward her and deer bow their heads. She had tried to weave it into the iron shackles, to melt them with radiance, but the metal only mocked her.
Tonight, though, something felt… different.
The silence wasn't empty. It crackled.
Victoria's breath caught. Beneath her skin, not the gentle hum of beauty's grace, but something sharper stirred. A heat. A pulse like sparks against tinder.
She pressed her hands to the floor. The stone beneath her palms warmed—then burned.
She yanked them back with a hiss, staring at her reddening skin. The stone where her hands had been was scorched black.
"No…" she whispered. "That's not…"
But even as she denied it, the fire spread through her veins. It wasn't light—wasn't the healing touch of the goddess she thought she knew. This was raw, destructive, hungry.
Memories flashed unbidden: the night she fled eight years ago, when fire had burst from her body to scatter her pursuers. She had thought it only light, an accident of beauty's blessing. But no—this was older, deeper, fiercer.
The Goddess of Fire.
And somehow… she bore both.
Her breath came in sharp gasps as she clutched her chest. "How can I have two? That's impossible."
The priests had always said the goddesses never shared their vessels. A mortal could carry one blessing at most. More would rip them apart.
Yet here she was. Chains on her wrists, collar at her throat—and two divine powers fighting for space inside her soul.
The fire rose suddenly, wild and unbidden. Her eyes flared red, the chains rattled, and the torchlight around her guttered before roaring higher, answering her like kin.
The guards outside cursed and rushed to the door. Victoria scrambled to her feet, pressing her hands to her chest, trying desperately to shove it back down.
"No—stop—please!"
The fire licked her skin, but she forced it back, swallowing the heat until it dimmed to embers. When the guards flung the door open, they found her trembling, sweat-slick, and silent.
The chamber reeked of smoke.
They stared at her with wide, fearful eyes, but none dared speak. Not when they remembered the way she had glowed in chains before the entire capital. Not when they whispered of what she truly was.
They shut the door again.
Victoria sank to her knees, shaking. Tears blurred her vision, but they hissed away as they touched her skin, turning to steam.
Two powers. Two goddesses. Beauty and fire, maybe more.
The impossible was alive inside her.
And for the first time, even through the terror, a spark of hope flared.
Because fire was not meant to be caged