The silence in the Gilded Cage was a living thing, heavy and suffocating. It pressed in on Violet from all sides, a physical manifestation of a hundred pairs of staring eyes. Fear, a familiar and cloying companion, wrapped its icy fingers around her heart, but beneath it, a strange and terrifying exhilaration hummed. The fire, her secret shame, was out. The world had seen it.

The soldier she had burned was still whimpering, clutching his hand to his chest. His companion, after a moment of stunned paralysis, drew his sword, the scrape of steel against leather unnaturally loud in the stillness.

“Witch,” he hissed, the word a venomous curse.

The word hung in the air, and Violet could feel the mood in the room shift. The shock was curdling into something uglier, something older. The Ashlands were steeped in superstition, in tales of the Ember War and the fire-wielders who had supposedly scorched the world. Magic was not a thing of wonder here; it was a thing of terror, a plague to be stamped out.

But before the soldier could take a step, the lordling moved. He was impossibly fast, a blur of dark leather and pale skin. He laid a hand on the soldier’s arm, his grip deceptively gentle.

“Stand down, Kael,” he commanded, his voice calm and low, yet it cut through the tension like a knife. The soldier, Kael, looked at his master, his face a mask of confusion and fear.

“My lord, she’s a…”

“I know what she is,” the lordling interrupted, his dark eyes never leaving Violet. He took a step toward her, his movements fluid and deliberate. The crowd parted before him as if he were a ship cutting through water. “What is your name?”

Violet’s throat was dry. She backed away until she felt the rough-hewn planks of the kitchen door against her spine. There was nowhere left to run. “Violet.”

“Violet,” he repeated, tasting the name. He stopped a few feet from her, close enough that she could see the intricate silver embroidery on his tunic, the flecks of silver in his impossibly dark eyes. “My name is Lord Valerius. And I have been looking for you for a very long time.”

The statement made no sense. It sent a fresh wave of confusion and fear through her. How could he have been looking for her? She was nobody, a gutter rat from the forgotten edge of the kingdom.

Valerius seemed to read the question in her eyes. “That spark,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper, meant only for her. “I saw it the moment you met my gaze. The legacy of the flame. I thought it had been extinguished from the world.”

Legacy of the flame. The Ember War. The stories were just that—stories, ghost tales told to frighten children. Weren’t they? But the fire in her veins, the impossible thing she had just done, was no story.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered, the lie tasting like ash in her mouth.

A flicker of impatience crossed Valerius’s face. “Don’t you? The heat that coils in your gut? The anger that feels like a forge in your heart? You have spent your entire life fighting it, haven’t you? Trying to pretend it isn’t there.” He took another step, his proximity overwhelming. “Imagine what you could do if you stopped fighting it. Imagine what you could become if you learned to control it.”

His words were a seductive poison, tapping into a deep, hidden part of her she had never dared to acknowledge. A part of her that was tired of being small and afraid, that yearned for the power she had just tasted.

Borin finally found his voice. “Get her out of here, my lord,” he boomed, his face pale beneath his beard. “We don’t want her kind in Dusthaven.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the tavern. The patrons were finding their courage, their fear of the unknown being replaced by the righteous fury of a mob.

Valerius shot a cold, dismissive glance over his shoulder. “Her kind, as you so eloquently put it, is the reason your ancestors weren’t enslaved by the Shadow Clans of the North. Her kind is the reason this kingdom still stands. And you would cast her out like a stray dog.” He turned his attention back to Violet, his expression softening almost imperceptibly. “They will kill you, Violet. If you stay here, they will hunt you down and burn you on a pyre, hoping to appease their petty fears. Is that what you want?”

No. The answer was a silent scream in her mind. She didn’t want to die. For the first time, seeing the fear and hatred in the faces around her, she realized the true danger she was in. Her secret wasn’t just a personal burden anymore; it was a death sentence.

“Come with me,” Valerius urged, extending a hand. His fingers were long and pale, his signet ring gleaming. It was carved with the image of a raven clutching a burning branch. “I can protect you. I can teach you.”

Trust him? A cold, arrogant lordling who had looked at her like she was dirt on his boot just moments before? But what choice did she have? The faces of the townsfolk, people she had known her whole life, were twisted into masks of hostility. There was no safety for her here. Not anymore.

Her gaze flickered from Valerius’s outstretched hand to the hostile crowd, and then to the door of the tavern, which seemed a thousand miles away. Escape was impossible. Survival meant making a choice.

With a trembling hand, she reached out and placed her fingers in his. His skin was cool, a surprising contrast to the heat that still pulsed beneath her own. A jolt, like static electricity, passed between them. His grip was firm, possessive.

“A wise decision,” he murmured. He turned, pulling her along with him, and addressed the tavern at large. “This woman is under my protection. Anyone who attempts to harm her will answer to House Vorlag.”

The name fell into the room like a stone, and the anger in the crowd immediately gave way to a new, more potent fear. Even in a backwater like Dusthaven, the great houses were known. House Vorlag was one of the oldest, one of the most powerful, with a reputation for ruthless efficiency. They were the king’s shadow, his spies and assassins.

Valerius didn’t wait for a response. He strode toward the door, pulling Violet in his wake. His two soldiers fell into step behind them, their swords now serving as a clear warning to anyone foolish enough to follow.

The cold night air of the Ashlands was a shock after the heat of the tavern. The wind howled, whipping Violet’s copper hair across her face. Valerius led her away from the main path, down a narrow, winding alley between two crumbling buildings.

“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice small against the wind.

“Away from here,” he replied without looking back. “To a place where you won’t be seen as a monster. To the capital. To the Sunstone Court.”

The capital. It was a world away, a place of myth and legend to someone like Violet. And the court… that was where the whispers and daggers were. That was the heart of the kingdom’s power, and its corruption.

He stopped abruptly in the shadow of a collapsed archway and turned to face her. His dark eyes were intense, searching. “What I said in there was true. I will protect you. But in return, I require your absolute loyalty. You will do as I say, when I say it. You are a weapon, Violet, a weapon the likes of which this world hasn’t seen in centuries. And I intend to be the one who wields you.”

The cold ambition in his voice was unmistakable. He hadn’t saved her out of kindness. He had saved her because he saw a use for her. She had traded one cage for another, a gilded one, perhaps, but a cage all the same. The fire within her, the power he coveted, bristled at the thought. It did not want to be wielded. It wanted to burn.