She Chose the Wrong Hero

Elira

It began with the book.

At first, it was subtle.

The vault ward flickered once—then again. Elira thought it was her imagination. But when the third flicker came, Aeren looked up from his desk across the hall, brows furrowing.

"You felt that?" he asked.

She didn't answer. She was already standing.

The vault door was closed. But the air in the hallway had changed.

Warmer.

Not like sunlight or breath, but like a forge left open too long.

Elira pressed her palm to the iron seal. It pulsed once under her touch, then opened with a slow groan, the wards giving way like they'd grown tired of holding.

Aeren stepped in behind her.

Neither of them spoke.

The room was empty.

Except the book wasn't where they'd left it.

It now sat on the floor in the center of the warding circle—opened.

A single page turned by unseen wind.

No marks on it.

Just a soft hum, like breath caught in stone.

Elira crouched slowly.

Her fingers hovered above the paper.

"I didn't open this," she whispered.

"I know," Aeren said.

The page was blank, but the parchment wasn't clean. It was old, too old—older than ink, older than scripts.

It remembered things.

And as Elira watched, words began to appear.

Not ink.

Heat.

The words burned themselves into the page like fire pressed beneath skin:

"The Second Flame is lit."

"Virein stirs."

Aeren stepped closer.

"Elira…"

She didn't look away.

She didn't need to.

Because she could already feel it, echoing through the floor—through the seams of the kingdom—like a heartbeat returning after years of silence.

Kael.

She closed the book gently.

Not to stop it.

But to acknowledge it.

"I was too late again," she whispered.

Aeren didn't argue. Didn't offer comfort.

He stood beside her, the silence between them thick with the same fear she felt but couldn't name.

It wasn't just Kael anymore.

It was the world reacting to him.

Later that evening, Elira climbed to the upper observatory alone.

The city stretched beneath her in candlelight. But the stars had gone out early—clouded over by something that wasn't weather.

The clouds were too still.

The wind had forgotten to move.

And somewhere in the distance, a temple bell rang out—wrong. Bent. Off-key.

She touched the stone rail, letting her hand rest against the cold.

Her magic buzzed beneath her skin, restless.

It had never felt like this before.

Not in the last life.

Not even in the days before the world fell.

This was different.

She didn't want to believe it, but it was clear:

Kael hadn't just broken another seal.

He had awakened something buried beneath all of them.

And whatever it was—it wasn't sleeping anymore.

She heard footsteps behind her.

Aeren.

She didn't turn. He didn't speak.

They simply stood side by side again, like they had at the northern wall. Like the storm hadn't yet reached them, but it was watching.

After a long silence, she asked:

"What if we can't stop him?"

Aeren replied, voice quiet:

"Then we have to survive what he becomes."