FIVE YEARS AGO
"Sera, stop it!"
The power inside her pulsed, a tempestuous sea threatening to break its banks. "They called my daughter a bad omen!" Anger stoked the flames, eroding her restraint.
"Sera!" Her husband's pleas were faint, powerless echoes against the storm within her. Where was he when the whispers started, blaming their child for the failing crops, branding Delena a cursed one? Where was he when they ostracized her, turning her laughter into a lonely echo in the village square?
"My Delena," she whispered, a prayer against the gathering darkness. "No more tears. No more fear." They wouldn't break her daughter. They wouldn't turn her light into ashes.
"Sera, you're burning! You're on fire!"
"I am fire," she snarled, unleashing the energy coiled tight within her.
A blinding flash, a deafening crackle. In that frozen instant, she felt the flames that coursed through the earth, the embers that lit the stars. She saw the forest become ash, stone melt to slag, and people...
Sera gasped, the world rushing back in a dizzying blur. Her breath caught in her throat, the stench of burnt wood thick on her tongue. She stood amidst the debris; her home reduced to smouldering rubble. The truth, sharp and cold, pierced her heart.
The village was gone, a pyre of twisted metal and charred wood. Smoke billowed towards the weeping sky, a silent lament for the lives extinguished.
Panicked, she whirled around, searching for Delena. Her husband materialized from the smoke, eyes squeezed shut, clutching their daughter close. They were unharmed, untouched by the inferno. Not a singe on Kerah's clothing, not a burn on Delena's skin. He recoiled as her hand touched his shoulder, his scream echoing in the desolate silence.
"Kerah," she choked, "it's me, Sera."
His face drained of colour, his eyes reflecting a chilling terror. "Stay away," he rasped, his voice fractured.
"It's me," she pleaded, tears stinging her eyes. "Your wife, Sera."
He glanced at her, then away, a shudder wracking his body. A whimper escaped his lips as he clutched their daughter tighter, his voice thick with grief. "You... you're not my Sera."
An unfamiliar ache, sharp as a blade, twisted within her. "Please, don't say that."
His gaze fell on something, his eyes widening in horror. "It's burning again. The mark..."
Something inside her fought for control, a desperate battle against the intoxicating allure of the power. With it, she could bend kings to her will, reshape the world to her whim.
She was judgment. An ending.
"Sera," a voice whispered through the haze, a beacon in the storm. "Sera, stop... please."
The power receded, leaving a hollow echo in its wake. She held Delena close, one arm wrapped protectively around her daughter's trembling form. Her other hand, the one reaching out to Kerah, was now stained crimson.
Understanding dawned, cold and suffocating.
Kerah's body slumped, lifeless in her grasp.
The fire had been extinguished, but a different kind of darkness had taken its place, one that would forever consume her soul.