The Last Ember

The first time I burned, it was an accident.

I was seven. Hungry. Angry. Cold.

The wind had been howling through the cracks in our cottage, and my stomach had been growling louder than the storm. I crept into the pantry and stole a withered apple, thinking no one would notice. But Mother did. She caught me before I took the second bite. Snatched the apple from my hands and slapped me across the face so hard my vision blurred.

And then—

Flames.

Her sleeve caught fire. It crawled up her arm like it had been waiting. Hungry, like me. I screamed. She screamed louder. We both lived, but something in her died that day. She never touched me again. Never looked at me the same way. I was the daughter she feared. The monster she couldn’t beat out of her bloodline. After that, we moved to the outskirts. She told the neighbors I was sick. Kept me indoors. Whispered prayers over me when she thought I was sleeping.

But I wasn’t cursed.

I was fire.

And fire never forgets.

Now I’m seventeen.

Mother’s dead. The cottage is ash. I’ve been running ever since. Fire is illegal. Fire is extinct, they say. Snuffed out after the Ember Wars scorched half the continent a hundred years ago. No fireborn has been seen since the Purge, when the king himself ordered them hunted and executed.

So what does that make me?

I don’t know. But I know I can’t be seen.

I sleep in the ruins, deep in the crumbling district of Darrowfell where no guards patrol and no nobles dare step. The city is rotting from the inside out perfect for someone like me. Forgotten. Unwanted. Today, the sun is a copper coin in the sky, too dull to burn. My fingers ache from the cold, and the little warmth I let slip last night lingers on my skin like guilt. I shouldn’t have used it. Just a flicker. Just enough to stop my teeth from chattering. But now someone is following me. I hear boots crunching behind me. I duck down a narrow alley, chest tightening. My hands tingle. No. Not now. I can’t burn in the open.

The footsteps stop.

I freeze.

Then—

A voice. Calm. Low. Infuriatingly amused.

“You’re not very good at hiding fire.”

I spin.

And standing at the end of the alley is a boy no, a man cloaked in storm-gray with a blade on his hip and a golden clasp at his shoulder.

My blood turns to ice.

The prince.

Kiran of House Vareth. The king’s only son. The heir to the throne that slaughtered my kind.

I’ve seen his face on every coin, every wanted poster. The smiling symbol of order. Of power. Of control.

And yet here he is, alone, watching me with a look that says he’s not surprised to find me.

I back away slowly. “If you’ve come to kill me, get it over with.”

He doesn’t move.

Instead, he says, “You’re not cursed.”

I blink.

He steps closer. “You’re rare. Dangerous, yes. But not cursed. You just… weren’t taught.”

I swallow. “Taught what?”

His eyes burn gold in the shadowed light. “How to control it.”

I laugh, bitter and cracked. “And you’re going to teach me? The prince of the realm? That’s rich.”

“I’m not here as the prince,” he says, voice quiet. “I’m here because I’ve seen what happens when fire is left wild. And I won’t let it happen again.”

Something twists inside me. A memory. My mother screaming.

I should run.

I don’t.

Instead, I say, “Fine. Teach me.”

He nods once. No smile. No threat.

And that’s how it begins.

Because when you fall in love with your enemy… someone always gets burned.