Bind Me In Flame

Arinya, three days before the bond

They always beg.

It doesn’t matter who they are. Lords draped in velvet. Merchants slick with coin and panic. Soldiers with blood on their hands and guilt crammed into the cracks of their armor.

They all come to me thinking they’ll be the exception.

They aren’t.

They kneel. Eventually. They always do. And when the flame starts to rise—when the magic begins to chew at the edges of the bond—they beg. For mercy. For more time. For gods they long stopped believing in.

Some even cry.

I don’t like that part.

I don’t hate it either.

I just don’t let it matter.

I speak the words. I draw the rune. I light the fire.

Tonight is no different.

The man kneeling in front of me stinks of fear and expensive perfume, like he tried to hide the rot under something gilded. His sweat is soaking through silk that probably cost more than I’ve ever been paid. His hands tremble around the parchment like he still thinks holding it might keep him safe.

It won’t.

He reeks of old secrets and worse choices. All of them about to go up in smoke.

“Please,” he says, voice papery with panic. “Don’t do this. My wife—she’ll know—she’ll feel it!”

I keep my face still. My voice quiet. That helps them believe I don’t care. But part of me does.

Just not in the way he needs.

“She already knows,” I say, running my thumb along the edge of my blade. His name is carved into the metal, still warm from the etching. “She’s the one who hired me.”

The look on his face then—gods, it’s always the same. That precise moment when hope curdles and falls silent inside them. When they realize I am not the villain in their story. I’m the ending.

And they paid for it.

I don’t wait for more. If I let them speak, I hesitate. And I don’t hesitate.

I press the blade into the embers.

The blood sigil catches with a hiss that fills the room like breath drawn through teeth. The flame twists into the air. A deep red and gold, laced with old magic and older judgment.

This fire doesn’t flicker.

It devours.

The oath breaks with a sound like bone splitting under pressure. The god-marked contract unravels into smoke and screaming.

His screaming.

He jerks backward, heels scraping against the stone. The mark on his chest chars black, veins of fire spidering through his skin. Magic tears itself free of his body in convulsions—violent and slow, like it’s angry to be leaving.

It always is.

Oaths like this are stubborn. So are men like him.

I kneel beside him as he thrashes. Not out of mercy. I just want to be sure.

His eyes catch mine.

He’s not begging now. He’s understanding.

That’s worse.

The spell finishes its work. The bond collapses inward and fades into ash. The room goes still. The scent of burned blood and extinguished magic hangs heavy in the air.

The silence is familiar.

Too familiar.

I stare at the mark as it fades. He’s breathing, barely. The contract is gone. The tie severed. The fire has nothing left to consume.

He’ll live. Probably.

But his wife won’t take him back. And he won’t find anyone else to save him now.

I rise. Smooth my coat. Wipe the blade on the hem of his robes. He doesn’t notice.

Then I pocket the coin.

My price was paid in full.

As I walk away, the echo of the spell lingers in my blood. The kind of hum that leaves your bones too warm. Like the fire’s still watching.

It always watches.

I don’t look back. There’s nothing worth seeing.

Only ash.

Only silence.

And another name waiting to burn.

The streets of Draith are slick with heat, the kind that seeps into the cracks of stone and bone alike. Summer in the capital doesn’t just scorch—it suffocates. The air hangs thick as velvet soaked in blood, too heavy to breathe without tasting something metallic.

Perfume. Rot. Magic.

It clings to your skin no matter how fast you move. The smell doesn’t wash off. It sinks in. Lives under your clothes. Nestles in your hair. You don’t forget Draith’s summer. Not once it touches you.

I keep my hood up. My face stays hidden in shadow. My hands remain buried in the deep pockets of my coat, knuckles brushing against steel and spell-slicked glass. I don’t move quickly, but I don’t move slowly either. Just enough to look like I belong here.

The last spell I cast is still whispering through my bones, bright as a live wire. It crackles across my fingertips, invisible but insistent, a soft bite of magic that hasn’t quite finished leaving me. My fire never wants to be contained. It lingers, even when it should let go. It sings in the aftermath like it enjoys the echo of what it just destroyed.

That’s the curse.

Not the heat, though it bites. Not the name they gave me, though it’s burned into every bounty list from here to the border. Not even the fire under my skin, though that has its own hunger.

No, the curse is simpler than all that.

I’m good at what I do.

Too good.

Good enough that the gods should have struck me down years ago. Good enough that the Crown would rather pretend I don’t exist than admit they know how to find me.

But people always find me. There’s always someone desperate enough to buy back their freedom, or someone wealthier still who wants to rip someone else’s away.

They call me an Oathbreaker. They spit the word like it should mean shame.

It doesn’t.

As long as the desperate keep calling, I’ll keep answering. Because I need the coin. I need the spells. And I need the one thing they all forget to lock away before they bleed their names into paper.

Secrets.

Those are worth more than gold. Worth more than spells. Worth more than mercy.

And I collect them like other people collect regrets.

Tonight, I expect to crawl back to my den with soot still under my nails, light a joint that smells like rosemary and rebellion, and sleep like the dead. The kind of sleep that doesn’t dream. The kind that forgets your name until morning.

I’ve earned it. The spell left my nerves twitching, my magic coiled just beneath the surface like an animal not ready to settle. It always takes a few hours to come down after a break like that. But rest is part of the ritual. Fire, silence, sleep, repeat.

At least, it should be.

But fate, as usual, has other ideas.

He’s waiting for me in the alley behind the bone apothecary. The streetlamps don’t quite reach this far, and the shadows are thick, but he stands out like he belongs here more than the darkness does. He leans against the brick wall as if he owns it, one boot planted against the stone, arms loose, relaxed. Too relaxed.

He wears no hood. No glamour. No false face. Just quiet confidence, sharpened to a point.

A silver coin flicks between his fingers, catching the faintest glint of light every time it turns. The motion is lazy, but the weight of it feels intentional. His eyes follow me as I approach, pale as stormclouds, sharp as blades. There’s something in his posture that says this meeting isn’t chance.

“You’re late,” he says.

His voice is smooth, unhurried. Confident in a way that most men fake and fewer survive.

“I’m not yours,” I answer, stopping just out of reach.

He smiles. All teeth. The kind of smile that knows it’s going to get what it wants, eventually.

“Not yet.”

He tosses the coin without ceremony. I catch it without thinking. The metal is cool against my skin, but it doesn’t stay that way.

Royal mint. Old. There’s something wrong about the engraving, like it was meant to be touched but not held. A faint aura clings to it, the residue of a spell long since cast. The weight sinks into my palm in a way that makes my fingers itch.

I don’t like heavy.

“What’s the job?” I ask, already knowing it’s the kind that doesn’t get spoken aloud in cleaner places.

He meets my eyes without hesitation. “Break a firebind.”

The laugh escapes me before I can stop it. Short. Sharp. Almost bitter.

“Suicidal,” I say. “Who’s the mark?”

His grin spreads, wider now. Not amused. Satisfied.

Then he says the name.

A name I’ve heard carved into tavern walls and inked into desperate songs. A name that soldiers mutter before battle like a warning or a promise. A name whispered in bedchambers by lovers trying not to sound like they’re afraid.

A name that should be a man, but feels more like a shadow cast across the continent.

Prince Darest Valen.

I go still.

The coin flares hot in my palm, as if it knows what I just heard. As if it agrees with the part of me that’s already screaming.

“That’s not a firebind,” I say quietly. “That’s a death wish dressed in silk and blood.”

The stranger steps forward. Not fast. Not threatening. Just enough to remind me that I didn’t ask his name, and I probably should have.

“The bind is real,” he says. “The prince is not what he seems. And you’re the only one who can break it.”

I should walk away. I should throw the coin at his chest and vanish into the alley before the fire in it finds a place to burn.

I should disappear like smoke and regret. I’ve done it before.

But I don’t.

Because deep beneath the chill crawling up my spine, buried under the dread curdling in my belly, I feel it—the stir of something ancient. Something hot. Something that already recognizes the name he just spoke.

The fire under my skin shifts. Waits. Wants.

And gods help me, I want to see what burns.