Chapter 31 - Ashes and Echoes

(Caring Mother)

*

She never looked, not once, behind,
Yet still she lingers in my mind.
A touch, a breath, a warmth long past,
She leaves, but shadows always last.

I envy flames that kiss her skin,
The love she lost, the might within.
And in the silence that she leaves,
I count the ghosts my heart still grieves.

Too late I came, too far I burned,
For ashes speak of all I yearned.
But even now, with nothing left—
It’s her I chase with every breath.

*

---

I watched her climb the stairs until the shadows swallowed her.

One moment, she was there strong, tired and aching in all the ways she’d never say aloud and the next, gone. The faint creak of each step fading like a heartbeat left behind.

She hadn’t looked back.

She never did.

I glanced down at the cup in my hand, still warm from where her fingers had touched it. I hated that I noticed. Hated how much it mattered.

My thumb brushed the rim, finding the faintest trace of where her lips had been. A delicate impression, fleeting and meaningless to anyone else. But I stared at it as if it meant something. As if it had been left there for me.

It hadn’t.

I sighed and let the warmth seep into my skin, pretending it was something more than it was. For a moment, just one foolish heartbeat, I thought about pressing my mouth to that same spot. About drinking from it, as if I could steal something she would never give.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I set it down. Quietly. Reverently.

Then I sank into the chair by the fire, the one I always used when it was just the two of us here. My book still lay open on the table, spine bent with familiarity. I reached for it — then hesitated. My fingers hovered above the pages, but I didn’t touch it. Didn’t want to.

I couldn’t focus anyway. Not with the ghost of her presence still clinging to the room like perfume and ash.

She was with her daughter now. And I was here, sitting in the echo of her absence, like always pretending this ache in my chest wasn’t real.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

She always goes when her daughter cries. Always drops everything — even sleep, even peace just to be there. She never hesitates. That love runs so deep it anchors her, keeps her fighting, keeps her from falling apart.

I envy that.

I envy them.

But more than anything... I envy the boy she lost.

The one she’s still chasing after, sixteen years later, through blood and fire and silence. I’ve seen her tear herself open looking for him. Watched her hands shake when she thought the trail had gone cold. And every time, every time she breaks, she rebuilds herself with nothing but rage, love and the stubborn hope that he’s still alive.

And yet... part of me wishes she’d stop.

I lowered my gaze and whispered, barely aloud, “If only you’d let go of what’s gone… maybe you’d see what’s still here.”

The words were heavier than they should have been.

Bitter. Weightless. True.


And crueler than I wanted them to be.

Because I didn't mean them. Not entirely.

But sometimes... sometimes I dreamed of a life where she’d already let go. A life where her eyes looked at me the way I looked at her — not as a friend, not as a tether to her past, but as something she could hold onto in the now.

I closed my eyes.

And let the ache settle deep.

The fire crackled softly behind me, but I barely gave it any mind.

My eyes opened, they were fixed on the empty stairwell, but my mind drifted elsewhere — far from this quiet morning and the ache it left behind.

When did it start?


When did admiration become longing? When did looking up to her turn into something that pulled at my ribs every time she smiled?

Of course I fell for Bellatrix. How could I not?

We grew up together — wild girls with scraped knees and stars in our eyes, always chasing after something bigger than ourselves. We trained together in the capital, sparring until our knuckles bled and our laughter echoed across stone courtyards. She was the sword, and I the flame. Bellatrix, with her fierce strength and impossible will. Me, with the talent for bending the arcane. A knight and a mage. Steel and fire.

She was my idol.

My friend.

And the day I first learned what love was supposed to feel like — the fluttering chest, the nervous stammer, the unbearable warmth when she brushed my arm without meaning to, I realized I wanted that with her.

I wanted her.

It terrified me at first. Not because I didn’t know what I felt — no, I knew, I knew it with a kind of quiet certainty that made it hard to breathe. But back then, I still thought such feelings were dangerous. Two women? Loving each other? I’d heard the whispers in the barracks, the sneering behind closed doors. I knew what happened to those caught where they weren’t meant to be.

Or at least, I thought I did.

It wasn’t until I joined the mages' circle that I saw it wasn’t so rare after all. There were women who loved women. Men who loved men. Some loved both. And no one burned them for it. The realization came like sunlight through storm clouds — hesitant, but blinding. It gave me courage.

So I planned it.

My confession.

I spent days rehearsing it. Weeks, maybe. I even practiced in front of a mirror like some lovesick girl from the bard’s plays.

Bellatrix deserved to hear it — to know, even if she didn’t feel the same. Even if it shattered everything between us.

I remember the day so clearly. The spring sun had made everything golden, even the rusted stones of the old training yard. I wore my best robes. She always liked them — the dark ones embroidered with copper thread that shimmered in the light. I’d combed my hair, even braided a silver thread through it, just to give myself something to do with the nerves.

I went looking for her.

And I found her… behind the stables.

With him.

Adriel.

One of the new knights. He’d only been stationed with us for a few months, but already he had Bellatrix’s attention. He was tall, noble-born, with a smile like honey and eyes that always lingered too long on her lips.

And there they were — tangled together like they belonged. Her hands in his hair. His mouth on hers. A kiss that was more than a kiss. One that said this is real.

I couldn’t move. Not even to breathe.

I just stood there behind the corner of the stable, the words I’d rehearsed collapsing into dust in my throat. My feet didn’t move. My body didn’t move. Only my heart — that traitorous, stupid heart — it shattered with such force I thought the air might hear it.

I left without a word. Pretended I hadn’t seen anything. Pretended I was fine.

I became good at pretending.

Even when she left the Order months later quietly, without so much as a farewell. I told myself it didn’t matter. That she was happy. That she’d found what she wanted.

But she didn’t leave alone.

She left with him.

Adriel.

Together, they vanished from the kingdom’s watchful eye, the two of them slipping into the quiet countryside like a final goodbye she never gave me. No letter. No explanation. Just absence.

And still, I kept track of her.

Years passed. Command assignments. Mage campaigns. Diplomatic missions. My hair got longer, my robes more distinguished, but my heart? It stayed right where I’d left it — in her hands, whether she knew it or not.

Then one day the news came.

A village in the west, near the outer cliffs. Small. Peaceful. Burned to the ground. No survivors, they said at first. But that wasn’t the part that mattered.

It was the names.

Bellatrix and Adriel.

They lived there.

Together.

With a newborn son.

My hands shook the day I read the dispatch. I told myself it was rage. Or grief. Or horror at the cult’s cruelty — the same cult we’d spent years trying to dismantle. But deep down, beneath all the justifications and patriotic fury, was something far simpler. Far more shameful.

I wasn’t just afraid she had died.

I was afraid I would never get the chance to see her again. To say anything. To understand why she left without saying goodbye. To know whether she ever thought of me, even once, in those six years.

I told myself I had buried it. That time had dulled the edges.

But the truth is, I never stopped watching the wind for her shadow.

And when I heard what happened to that village…

I didn’t wait. I didn’t think.

I just ran to the flames.

…

The sky above the village was choked with smoke, dark clouds spiraling from the ruins like mourning wails carried by the wind.

What had once been a peaceful settlement was now nothing more than ash and memory. Charred wooden beams jutted from collapsed roofs like broken ribs. Scorched stone paths twisted through the devastation like veins drained of life. The scent of burnt flesh lingered in the air, stubborn and cruel.

Then, with a crackle of displaced magic, a tear opened in the sky. A ripple of blinding white flame that seared reality as it passed.

Adonis stepped out of it.

Her long cloak, deep crimson with gold trim, fluttered behind her as if the flames themselves feared to touch it. Her boots crunched down onto the ashen earth, and the gust of her arrival sent dust spiraling outward.

Her eyes — once soft and thoughtful — were now twin furnaces of unyielding purpose.

She took a single look around and felt her heart twist violently in her chest. She didn’t breathe. Couldn’t.

“Bellatrix… I came too late. Again.” she whispered.

At the edge of the village, a temporary encampment stood — crude tents lined with the royal insignia, surrounded by grim-faced knights tending to wounded survivors. Lanterns flickered weakly in the smoke, their light dwarfed by the smoldering remnants of the town behind them.

Adonis walked toward it, her steps slow but unwavering.

The moment the nearest guards spotted her, hands flew to hilts. One stepped forward.

“Halt, state your business—”

He never finished the sentence.

Without a single word, the steel of his sword glowed red-hot in his hand — then split cleanly in two. The hilt fell to the dirt with a heavy thud, the blade melted at its center like wax under a forge.

Gasps erupted.

Magic pulsed in the air around her, thick and suffocating. A wave of heat rolled out from her form, and the very ground beneath her boots cracked with every step.

Her eyes scanned the devastation ahead, blazing with unspoken urgency. Something cold had wrapped itself around her heart, and only one thing could melt it again.

“Stand down!” one of the senior knights barked, stepping between her and the younger soldiers. His eyes widened as recognition dawned. “Wait—by the gods… the Witch of Flames.”

He knelt immediately.

“Head mage,” he said, voice low, almost reverent. “Forgive us. We didn’t know—”

“Where are the survivors?” Adonis snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut steel.

The knight flinched. “T-this way, Head Mage. Please.”

She offered no thanks.

None was needed.

All around her, the others parted like waves before a storm.

And as she followed him deeper into the camp, the fire behind her seemed to burn just a little hotter — as if the ruins themselves remembered the name Adonis Emberveil.

And feared her.