The road beyond Marrowdeep was ash.
Not dust. Not sand.
Ash — fine as silk, clinging to boots and breath, rising in plumes with every step. The sky overhead burned orange even at night, and the horizon pulsed with distant embers like a slumbering heart beneath the land.
They were nearing Azeruun — the last place where the Flame was worshipped before the Pantheon turned it to cinders.
Rael walked at the front, his breath steady, his aura different.
The sixth seed pulsed within him now, reshaping him. His footsteps left faint trails of gold. His presence tugged at the edge of sense — heavier, hotter, deeper. Not overwhelming… but undeniable.
The others felt it.
And they were changing too.
Selene kept close, silent. Watching.
Nyssira said nothing, but her eyes had softened.
Even Aelthaea glanced his way more often now — not with calculation, but curiosity.
And Hel, wrapped in shadows and torn cloth, trailed behind. She never spoke. But she watched everything.
The ruins of Azeruun appeared not with walls, but with song.
Faint hymns echoed through the blackened stone — not from mouths, but memory. The city was scorched into the valley like a scar, its buildings melted, its altars half-sunken. Flame did not burn here anymore.
But it remembered.
Rael approached the broken gate.
And the gates opened.
Not with wind.
But with will.
At the heart of the temple-city, where the flames had once reached the sky, stood two figures — waiting.
One knelt in prayer, robes of ember-thread flowing around her. Her long hair glowed faintly, and her skin shimmered like coal kissed by moonlight. She radiated peace.
The other leaned against a crumbled pillar, arms folded, smirking. Her hair was crimson silk, her gaze molten. She wore no sleeves, no fear, and no patience.
They were opposites.
They were sisters.
Laria and Kessai.
Laria opened her eyes as Rael approached.
She rose from her kneel slowly, reverently, as though gravity responded to her calm. The ash swirled around her feet but didn't touch her.
"You came," she said, her voice like distant bells.
Rael nodded. "You were waiting."
Laria smiled faintly. "We were praying."
Kessai pushed off the broken pillar, stretching languidly. "And I was getting bored."
Her voice was deeper, sultrier — heat wrapped in velvet. She strolled toward them, her hips swaying with every step, eyes locked on Rael like a huntress studying the first warm-blooded thing she'd seen in years.
Selene instinctively stepped forward beside Rael.
Kessai smirked. "Relax, First Flame. I'm not here to steal your throne."
Selene didn't blink. "That's because it's not vacant."
Kessai chuckled. "We'll see."
Laria bowed her head. "Forgive my sister. She was always fire without patience."
"And she was always patience without flame," Kessai muttered, brushing a speck of ash off her shoulder. "Balance is overrated."
Rael looked between them. "You knew I would come."
Laria nodded. "The city burns, still. It only needed a new god to breathe."
Rael frowned. "I'm not your god."
"No," she said softly. "You're something older."
They led him into the heart of the ruined cathedral.
The walls were cracked and scorched, but a single altar still stood — not stone, but glass-black obsidian carved into a spiral flame. Around it, braziers glowed, though no fire had been lit.
"This is what remains of the Covenant Flame," Laria said, placing her hand over her heart.
"The original pact made between mortals and the divine," Kessai added, stepping behind Rael. "And the place where many tried to birth a god… but only one ever succeeded."
Rael stepped toward the altar.
The braziers flared to life.
Not with flame, but with golden light — the same hue that now danced across his veins.
The sixth seed stirred.
And the altar responded.
Laria whispered, "We will serve, if you are the one we've waited for. But not without trial."
From the altar, flame burst.
A ring of fire encircled Rael and the two sisters.
The others — Selene, Nyssira, Hel — stood outside, watching, tense.
Kessai smiled. "We test in two ways."
Laria stepped forward. "One with spirit."
Kessai leaned close to Rael's ear. "One with flesh."
The ring of fire ignited around them.
It wasn't a wall — it was a trial. The braziers along the obsidian altar flared with golden-blue flame, reacting to the sixth seed's presence. Rael stood in the center, facing Laria and Kessai.
Laria stepped forward first.
Her eyes shimmered like candlelight in prayer. "The Flame is sacred," she said. "It reveals the truth of the soul. To claim us, you must stand within it and remain unburned — not by strength, but by conviction."
She extended her hand. A soft line of fire flowed from her palm to his chest, touching the sigil burned into his skin by the seeds. It did not burn — it recognized him.
A whisper passed between them.
"I saw you in prophecy," she said. "Not as a conqueror… but as a flame that devours chains. I was taught to kneel before gods. But you—" her voice wavered, "you are not a god. You are a fire that defies divinity itself."
Rael stepped into her flame fully.
It wrapped around his chest, his arms, his jaw — testing his resolve, his truth, his hunger.
He did not flinch.
"I don't want worship," he said. "I want those who walk beside me. Queens. Not devotees."
Laria's flames pulsed once.
And accepted him.
She placed her hand over his heart.
"I will walk beside you," she said softly. "Even when this flame consumes the stars."
Then Kessai stepped forward, the flames around her parting like petals.
Her smile was a curve of provocation. "That was the trial of spirit," she said, circling him slowly. "Mine is the trial of flesh."
Rael raised an eyebrow. "Explain."
Kessai's finger traced his shoulder as she passed behind him. "The Flame isn't just prayer. It's hunger. Creation. The thrum beneath skin when two sparks collide. If you can't handle the heat that comes with desire, then you're not worthy of both halves."
He turned to face her.
She leaned in — not to kiss, but to tempt.
Her lips brushed his neck. Her breath was heat, not wind.
"Can you hold your flame," she whispered, "without letting it consume you?"
The fire between them rose higher, golden tongues licking the sky.
And Rael did not retreat.
He grabbed her wrist.
Held it firm.
"Tempt me all you want," he said. "But understand this — I don't chase flame. I command it."
Kessai's eyes widened.
And then she laughed — low, sultry, genuine.
She dropped to one knee.
"Then command me."
Outside the circle, Selene folded her arms.
"Took her long enough."
Nyssira tilted her head. "You're not jealous?"
"I'm always jealous," Selene said bluntly. "Doesn't mean I don't approve."
Hel, still swathed in shadows behind them, watched it all with an unreadable expression. But a subtle tension had entered her shoulders — as though for the first time in eons, she felt the stirrings of possessiveness.
The flames collapsed inward, drawn into Rael's body.
The altar cracked.
The ruined temple trembled as the Covenant Flame, long dead, flickered once more — not with divine will, but with rebellion.
Rael turned toward Laria and Kessai, now kneeling.
"You're mine?" he asked, though the words were more statement than question.
Laria looked up. "By choice."
Kessai smirked. "By fire."
That night, beneath the remains of the fire temple…
The camp was quiet.
But Rael was not alone.
Laria approached first — silently, her soft robes whispering against stone. She sat beside him at the edge of the old altar, hands in her lap.
"I've only ever served gods," she said. "Kneeling. Obeying. Hoping."
Rael turned to her. "And now?"
She looked up at him, eyes glowing faintly. "Now I walk with one. And for the first time, I don't feel small when I stand beside a flame."
She leaned her head to his shoulder.
Just for a moment.
And Rael let it stay.
Moments later, Kessai joined them — stretching like a lazy predator and flopping down across Rael's lap, her head resting against his thigh.
"Don't mind me," she muttered. "Just need to make sure you're warm enough to handle us both."
Rael chuckled under his breath.
But his arms encircled them both.
Not possessively.
But protectively.
He didn't sleep that night.
But he rested.
And the two daughters of the flame slept beside him.
Not as priestesses.
Not as worshippers.
But as queens of fire, claimed not by blood… but by choice.