They woke before dawn, bodies still tangled, skin still smelling of sweat and sex and the faint sweetness of Seraphin's magic.
Lira lay in the middle, one of Kazeal heavy arms across her waist, Seraphin's softer curves pressed to her back. For a moment she simply breathed them in, heart fluttering with a shy, giddy wonder that this was real, that she was no longer untouched, that they had been so gentle and so fierce with her all at once.
Then the caldera's heat rolled over them like a warning, and the moment passed.
They dressed in silence: loose linen trousers and sleeveless jerkins that would not trap the heat. Lira's breasts still felt swollen and sensitive; every brush of fabric made her bite her lip. Seraphin noticed, of course, and smirked as she laced her own top.
"Poor innocent thing," she teased softly. "Going to be thinking about last night every time you take a step today."
Lira flushed crimson, but the bond carried only warm amusement from both of them. Kazeal brushed a kiss to the crown of her head as they saddled the horses.
The descent was brutal.
The switchback trail baked under the rising sun. By the time they reached the black-glass plain at the bottom, their clothes clung like wet parchment and the horses were lathered white. They left the animals in the only scrap of shade and walked the final half-mile on foot.
The bridge waited: a narrow ribbon of obsidian spanning a lake of crawling lava, no handrails, heat so intense the air itself rippled like water.
Halfway up the guardian rose.
It was made of living fire: tall as three men, faceless, arms outstretched. Its voice cracked inside their skulls like splitting stone.
ONE MAY PASS.
THE OTHERS BURN.
Lira stepped forward before either of her lovers could move. The bond flared hot and protective around her heart.
"No," she said, voice steady despite the heat blistering her lips. "All three of us, or none."
The guardian tilted its burning head. Flames roared higher.
Kazeal and Seraphin moved to her sides without a word. Hands found hands. Fingers laced tight.
Lira closed her eyes and reached inward, to the place where three golden threads now lived braided together. She pulled.
Gold fire answered: not wild, not devouring, but warm, deliberate, alive. It poured from her palms and wrapped around all three of them like a second skin. The guardian's white flame crashed against it and bowed, folding back like silk in wind.
The bridge cooled beneath their boots until it was merely warm stone.
The guardian knelt, head lowered, and became a doorway of living gold.
They walked through untouched.
Inside the needle, a spiral stair climbed upward, lit by veins of molten light in the walls. The air was breathable, almost cool after the inferno outside. Their footsteps echoed.
At the first landing, seraphine pushed lira gently against the wall and kissed her slow and deep, tasting of relief and leftover hunger.
"You were magnificent," she whispered against lira's lips.
Kazeal crowded in behind, mouth on the nape of lira's neck, hands sliding under her jerkin to cup heavy, sensitive breasts. Lira whimpered into seraphin mouth.
"Not here," Kazeal growled, though his thumbs were already circling her nipples. "We have two more trials."
Seraphin laughed breathlessly. "Then we'd better hurry, because I plan to have her screaming my name again before sunset."
They climbed faster.
Higher up, the stair opened into a vast, hollow chamber. In its center floated the First Shard: a crystal the size of a heart, burning with steady, golden-white light. Around it, the air itself was silent: no echo, no wind, no heartbeat but their own.
The Trial of Silence had already begun.
No words would work here. Sound simply ceased at their lips.
Seraphin's eyes widened; Kazeal jaw tightened. Lira felt the bond stretch, suddenly the only thread connecting them.
She took their hands again and led them forward.
The moment all three touched the floating Shard, memory flooded them.
Lira saw her mother: the goddess of the First Fire, tearing out her own heart to save the world, weeping as she placed the newborn babe in a mortal man's arms.
Kazeal saw the night the grove burned, the princess's pendant slipping from lifeless fingers into his palm while he screamed soundlessly.
Seraphin saw the moment she stole the forbidden grimoire, violet fire blooming for the first time, knowing she would never go home again.
Pain, love loss rage forgiveness: everything at once, wordless, unbearable.
They sank to their knees around the Shard, tears cutting clean tracks through the soot on their faces, hands still clasped.
Then Lira did the only thing she could think of.
She pulled them close and kissed them: first Kazeal , then Seraphin', slow and deliberate, pouring every unspoken thing into the bond. Love. Gratitude. Promise.
The Shard flared brighter, drinking their mingled emotions like wine.
When they finally broke apart, gasping, the chamber was no longer silent. Their heartbeats echoed like drums.
The Shard lowered itself gently into lira's waiting palms.
One trial left.
They left the needle as the sun bled out across the sky, the crystal warm against lira's breastbone, pulsing in perfect time with the three hearts now bound to hers.
Behind them, the guardian of fire bowed one last time and dissolved into sparks that drifted upward like golden snow.
Ahead, the second trial waited somewhere beyond the burning horizon.
But tonight, when they made camp on the far side of the Cradle, lira knew exactly how they would celebrate. And this time, she would not be shy.