The capital noticed the change slowly.
Vaelrion no longer visited Myrielle's garden.
He no longer attended public ceremonies.
He spent nights in the lower chambers of the palace.
The dungeons were expanded.
Then sealed.
Royal mages were summoned privately.
"Is life truly fixed?" he asked them.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"And if it were not?"
Silence.
The first prisoner was a thief.
The second, a rebel.
The third, a scholar who questioned plague burnings.
Each time the King descended below, the Flame answered his call.
It obeyed.
But it also fed.
The prisoner screamed once.
Then not at all.
The King's strength grew.
He no longer tired.
His wounds healed unnaturally fast.
And something else changed.
His eyes.
Faint red flickers when angered.
The High General noticed first.
The King's shadow sometimes moved half a second slower than he did.
One night, a knight hesitated before kneeling.
The King placed a hand on his helmet.
Blue fire flickered.
The hesitation vanished.
Absolute loyalty replaced it.
Vaelrion stared into a mirror afterward.
"Myrielle," he whispered.
The reflection did not whisper back.
And far beyond mortal sight—
The spirits stirred.
Because the Flame was no miracle.
It was a shard.
Of something ancient.
Something shattered in a war before memory.
And it had found the perfect host.
A grieving king who believed necessity justified anything.