Of burning cinders and glass

The fire devoured everything.

My dreams. My sweat. My blood. All reduced to glowing embers and bitter smoke, like the universe had decided to take a match to the one thing I had left.

Heat kissed my skin, but I didn’t flinch. I didn’t scream. I didn’t even blink. I just stood there, barefoot on the cold concrete, watching my world turn to ash.

It should’ve hurt. It should’ve burned. But all I felt was a hollow, icy kind of silence. Like the grief had frozen over so fast it cracked.

Selene’s hospital bills. The shop had been my last hope—my last desperate attempt to hold everything together. My legs wobbled.

My heart didn’t.

Because suddenly, I remembered something worse.

My mother’s keepsakes.

The panic hit so fast, it snapped me out of my trance. My chest caved in. I couldn’t breathe. They were still inside. My mother’s locket. Her music box. The last pieces of her.

The firemen shouted things. Useless, logical things. “It’s too dangerous!” “Stay back!” “Miss, no—!”

I ran.

Someone tried to grab me—I didn’t look to see who. I tore out of their grasp like I was made of smoke and adrenaline. The heat clawed at me. Ash stuck to my skin. My hair whipped through the cinders, snagging on the air like it wanted to pull me back. The world was blazing chaos around me, and all I could think was:

Don’t let her disappear.

The smoke wrapped around my throat like a jealous lover. My lungs screamed. My vision blurred. Everything was burning—wood, fabric, dreams—but I shoved past the flames like they were nothing.

I could feel the building creak, the bones of it groaning like an old man about to give up. I didn’t care.

I reached the shelf. My fingers dug through the wreckage, blind and frantic. There—metal. Cool. Familiar.

The locket.

It was still here. Tarnished, soot-stained, but whole.

I clutched it so tight my hand shook. My other hand fumbled until it closed around warm, painted wood.

The music box.

Its winding key was bent. The lacquer bubbled like it had blistered. But it didn’t matter. They were mine.

And I had them.

A loud crack. The ceiling moaned. The world tilted.

My heart skipped.

I turned—too slow.

Everything collapsed.

---------

A shrill beeping.

That’s the first thing I heard. That, and the distant echo of someone’s voice muttering about “miracles” and “recklessness.”

Rude.

I cracked one eye open, then immediately regretted it. White. White walls, white sheets, white lights. Had I died? No, dead people probably didn’t feel like they’d been grilled over a bonfire.

My head pounded. My throat felt like sandpaper had taken up permanent residence. I shifted, and something heavy slid against me.

The bundle.

My breath caught.

With trembling fingers, I unwrapped the cloth. My locket. My mother’s locket. A little melted, a lot smudged—but it was here. The music box sat beside it, looking like it had been through a war. It probably had.

I tried to wind it.

It made a pathetic click… then silence.

“Oh no you don’t,” I whispered, shaking it like a broken vending machine. “You are not giving up on me too.”

“You’re awake.”

I jumped—then immediately winced.

Elias sat beside me, his dark eyes soft but shadowed. His shirt was wrinkled. His hair stuck up like he’d been running his hands through it all night.

“You scared us,” he said quietly.

“You sound like a soap opera,” I rasped. “Go ahead, say I was reckless and beautiful and dramatically self-sacrificing.”

He gave me a look. “You were reckless. But you also looked like a deranged raccoon. Very dramatic.”

I groaned and let my head fall back against the pillow. “That tracks.”

Then came his voice.

“You could’ve died.”

I didn’t have to look to know it was Cassian. He stood by the window, arms folded, jaw tight. The fluorescent light caught on his cheekbone like it was auditioning for a villain monologue.

I rolled my eyes. “Hi to you too.”

Cassian scowled. “Seriously, Ember. What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t. Obviously.” I coughed. “If I had been thinking, I’d have remembered that running into fire usually ends in, you know, death.”

Elias sighed. “She’s fine. Let it go.”

“She’s not fine,” Cassian snapped. “She could’ve been dead.”

“I got what I needed,” I muttered.

Cassian glanced at the bundle in my lap, then back at me. “Was it worth it?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

He looked away first.

Elias pulled something from his jacket. A flyer, folded and slightly crumpled.

I took it, wary.

PALACE HIRING STAFF — HOUSING INCLUDED.

My stomach dropped. So this was it. From fashion designer to royal dish-scrubber in a week. Fantastic.

Elias hesitated. “Selene’s… treatments…”

I stiffened.

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.

Cassian raised an eyebrow. “It’s a roof over your head. Food. A paycheck.”

“Also a soul-crushing reminder that I’ve failed in every possible way,” I muttered, voice bitter.

Cassian smirked. “You’ll fit right in.”

If I’d had the strength, I would’ve thrown my pillow at him.

Instead, I stared at the flyer, at the neatly printed words that might as well have read: Game Over.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“I’ll do it.”