Chapter 3 — Where Love Turns Its Teeth
"You remember everything, Sophia," Sonia said, her voice sharp, carrying the weight of every unspoken word between them.
The air was thick with the scent of smoke and old earth, as though the world itself held its breath.
She stepped closer, boots crunching softly against stone, eyes dark and searching.
"Do you remember what it cost me to be here with you?"
Sophia met her gaze, steady but wary.
"I remember. I remember every word, every laugh, every time you trusted me.
" She took a slow breath. "Do you remember the nights when we swore nothing could separate us?"
Sonia laughed, though it was brittle and sharp.
"Swore? Is that what you call it? I called it trying to survive your shadow.
Every day, I tried to survive being next to someone the world had already crowned."
"You're not a shadow," Sophia said gently, her hand brushing at the edge of her sleeve, where her palm wanted to reach for Sonia.
"You were beside me. You still are, in every memory."
Sonia's lips pressed into a thin line. "Memory isn't company. Memory isn't comfort. Memory is accusation wrapped in quiet moments.
" She stopped, pacing slowly, letting her words sink into the space between them.
"Do you think I forget the nights I stayed awake, aching because your presence felt like fire I could never reach? You were warmth and flame, and I was just cold hands stretched toward it."
Sophia's chest tightened. "I never meant to burn you. I never wanted you to hurt. I loved you then… I love you still.".
Sonia's laugh caught in her throat. "Love?" she whispered.
"Love doesn't keep tally, Sophia.
Love doesn't punish itself for the crimes it didn't commit.
Love is the one thing I gave you, and you… you walked with it like it belonged to you alone."
Sophia shook her head slowly, the firelight flickering across her face.
"No. You made it ours. It was never mine alone. And it still isn't. I would have given everything back to keep your hand in mine.
Sonia's eyes flashed, wet with something unspoken. "You give, and yet, you withhold.
That is your gift, Sophia. You withhold even as you pour yourself out."
Sophia closed her eyes for a fraction, thinking of the nights she stayed silent while Sonia's jealousy and doubt carved deep into her chest.
"I never withheld love," she said softly.
"I only… I only feared that if I reached too far, I would break you."
Sonia's laugh came out jagged this time. "Break me? You never could.
You only made me realize I was not enough unless I became fire myself."
Sonia's words tightened the air between them. "Do you know what it feels like to chase your own light while watching someone else's shine naturally? To bleed and claw for the same power that comes to them effortlessly?"
Her hand shook slightly, not with fear, but with the weight of every unspoken grievance.
"I could feel it in every breath you took. Every smile you wasted on me felt like a knife I was too small to lift."
"I never wanted that," Sophia said firmly, stepping closer, the fire licking the edges of the room like a patient witness.
"You were never too small. You were always the equal I needed, the one I wanted beside me."
"You only want things you can't have,"
Sonia spat. "I saw it before I ever understood it. You hold the world at your fingertips, and.....
" Her voice broke. "I have to claw my way just to exist next to you."
Sophia's heart ached, but she didn't step back.
She let her voice carry, soft but unyielding. "Sonia, I don't ask you to be me. I ask you to let me love you as you are."
"You ask, but I must fight," Sonia whispered, shaking her head. "I must fight to feel whole because your existence makes me incomplete."
"I never made you incomplete," Sophia said, the firelight catching tears she would not let fall.
"You chose to measure yourself against me. But you are—always—your own power, your own force. You forget that."
Sonia looked away, fists clenching. "Maybe I did forget. Or maybe it never mattered. Love shouldn't hurt this much, and yet—" She swallowed. "I can't turn it off.
I can't stop feeling… this burning, this wanting, this rage that I call love for you."
The moment came like a knife folded into silk. Sonia's gaze returned to Sophia's, sharp, trembling, accusing and pleading at the same time.
"Say it," she demanded, voice low but urgent. "Say you would choose me over it. Over all of this power, over everything you were born to command."
Sophia froze. Her heart thudded painfully.
"Sonia… I—"
"You have to say it!" Sonia cried, tears brimming.
"If you won't, then everything between us—everything we built—is meaningless!"
Sophia's voice softened, almost breaking. "It's not meaningless.
It's the only thing real I've ever known."
Sonia's eyes narrowed. "Then why hesitate?"
"I hesitate because truth is heavier than words," Sophia whispered.
"And I am afraid of lying to you."
Sonia's breath hitched.
"Do you not see? Every second of hesitation feels like betrayal. Every moment I waited for you to choose me—"
Her hands shook now. "I felt the world lean away from me. I felt… nothing. And I could not survive it."
Sophia reached out, her palm shaking as it hovered over Sonia's arm. "I would never betray you.
But love cannot be proven in one phrase. I cannot condense what we are into a single sentence."
Sonia pulled back slightly. "Then maybe… maybe we were never enough for each other."
"You are enough," Sophia said, voice breaking, "more than enough.
You always have been."
Sonia's eyes darkened. "You don't understand. I tried to be patient, I tried to be strong. I tried to love you the way you demanded.
But it's not enough, Sophia. It's never enough!" Her hands shook, but she raised them slightly, letting power surge through the air.
The fire did not move violently—it pulsed in response to her grief, her hunger, her need to be seen.
Sophia stepped forward, pleading, "Sonia, don't—don't do this to yourself.
Don't let it take you from me."
Sonia's voice softened, a strange calm mixing with her fury..
"I am already gone, Sophia. Even now, I exist only in the choice I make. And I choose… me."
The power responded instantly. The room seemed to breathe with them.
Heat rose, light swirled around them. Words became force, emotion became movement, but there were no attacks, only echoes of their hearts colliding.
Sonia's grief and jealousy were as sharp as steel, as heavy as mountains, as dangerous as storms, and they could not be tempered by love alone.
Sophia's hands trembled. "Sonia, I love you—please don't—"
"I have to," Sonia said softly,
almost in awe of herself. "I have to finish this my way."
The words carried weight heavier than any blade. Sophia could only watch as the fire pulsed around Sonia, responding to the spirit inside her—the spirit that would not yield, even as the body betrayed her.
Sonia's body collapsed. Sophia ran forward, but it was too late. Not with horror, not with triumph, only with the quiet truth of fact.
Sonia was gone. Her body no longer moved. Her presence no longer pressed against the world as it had. And yet… the power did not vanish.
It lingered. It hung in the air like a promise, like a shadowed heartbeat.
Sophia could feel it in the air, in the smoke curling above the fire, in the silence that followed. Something remained, unbroken, indestructible, waiting.
The spirit of Sonia, unbound, had not ended. It had chosen continuation. Rebirth. Reincarnation.
That much was true. The world would not see her for now, but she was coming back—inevitable, unstoppable, enduring.
Sophia knelt, pressing her hands against the stone, against the firelight that now felt hollow without Sonia's laughter or anger or touch. She did not cry. She did not scream. She only felt.
And in that feeling, she understood: some love cannot be destroyed. Some power cannot be contained. Some promises echo beyond the body.
The room was still. The fire pulsed quietly. Sophia rose, her chest heavy, heart aching.
She whispered, barely audible, "I will see you again."
And the air carried the weight of that promise.