His eyes flickered to the flames dancing at my fingertips, but his expression remained unreadable. The warriors around us tensed, waiting for an order, a signal—anything to tell them whether I was still their enemy.

But my father didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

And that silence told me everything.

He was afraid. Not of me, exactly, but of what I could become. Of what he had tried—and failed—to destroy.

I let the fire burn hotter, let the heat crack the air between us, ...