Chapter 1 The Fire Still Burns

Chapter One:

The Fire Still Burns The city was dead, but it hadn't stopped breathing.

Emily stepped through the ruins, boots crunching over broken glass, bones, and the burnt remnants of banners that once meant something. Smoke still hung in the air, thick and sour like regret. The war was over officially but nothing about this felt like peace.

"Commander," Ruth called from behind, voice low. "He's awake."

Emily didn't stop walking.

She knew who Ruth meant. Raphael Laerin. The infamous general of the losing side. The man she had hunted for two years. The one who cost her friends, family, and sleep. Now he was in chains, locked beneath the palace that once stood proud over Kaerinth.

He should've been a corpse. He wasn't.

"Is he talking?" she asked without turning.

"Not yet. But he's smiling."

Emily's jaw tensed. That sounded like him.

She stopped at the edge of what used to be the throne room. The roof was gone. The fire had taken it during the last raid. And in the middle of the floor, cracked stone marked where a final shell had landed. The war's last scream.

And still, she didn't feel victory. Just hollow.

"Bring him to the hall," she said. Ruth hesitated.

"You sure you want to face him like this?"

Emily turned. Her face was cold steel.

"There's no like this. There's only now.

They dragged him in minutes later.

Raphael looked like hell bloodied lip, bruises blooming across his jaw, dark hair matted with sweat and ash. But his eyes...

Still sharp. Still dangerous.

"Commander Valen," he said as if greeting an old friend. "Didn't expect you to come down from your throne so soon."

"You're not worth a throne," she replied. "Just a grave."

He chuckled. "That's the first honest thing anyone's said all day."

Emily stepped closer, their heart steady but heavy. She didn't fear him not in the way soldiers feared monsters. She feared what he represented. The part of her that hadn't come back from the battlefield. The version of herself he saw... and recognized.

"You're going to sign the surrender," she said.

"I'll sign nothing." His voice was hoarse but sure.

"You've lost. You know that, right?"

He looked up at her, unblinking. "I know you think you've won."

She leaned in, just enough to taste the venom between them. "I should have you executed."

"Then why haven't you?"

Silence stretched like a blade between them.

Ruth stood at the edge of the room, watching. Waiting. She didn't trust him but lately, Emily wasn't sure Ruth trusted her anymore either.

Emily stepped back. "Put him in the lower cell. No food. No visitors."

Except her. She didn't say that part aloud.

As they dragged him away, Raphael glanced over his shoulder. "I'll still be here," he said quietly. "When the war inside you stops pretending it's peace."

And then he was gone.

Emily stood alone in the ruin, the wind howling like the ghosts she carried. She didn't shiver. She just stared at the place he'd been and whispered to herself.

"Then maybe I'll see you after the war."