Flame coils around her feet like a living thing. It doesn’t wait for her to call, but reaches toward her, drawn from the cracked stones beneath the fire circle. Juno Vire exhales, slow and steady, and steps into the center of the ritual floor. The pain is immediate.
Far below, at the base of Solara’s terrace, the Last Waterfall trickles through canyon mist. Long ago, they say, its roar carved valleys, fed orchards, kept fire in check. Now it does little more than mark time as it fades from memory. Today, that memory feels thin. “Begin the arc,” Tessa’s voice whispers from the shadows of the colonnade. Her tone carries weight, “And let the fire know your name.”
Juno inhales and lifts her arms.
The braziers ignite in unison, ancient channels carved into the stone catching fire like veins awakening. The elders shift slightly on their raised seats, silent beneath their lacquered masks, watching. They have no words for success, only scorn for failure. Juno moves into the first stance. The flame follows, stalking her.
She flows through the opening pattern—a low sweep of the leg, the spiral of her arms, the flare of her palm up to the sky. The fire mirrors her, elegant and exact. She channels her will, just as she was taught: not too tight, not too loose. Let it breathe. Let it believe it chose you. The circle hums with power, and she feels it rising inside her. But already, the feeling from this morning returns.She pushes past it.
She can’t afford doubt. Not here. The next movement requires more risk: a rising column of fire, drawn through her body, shaped with a full spin and then grounded in a low stance. She closes her eyes. The flame rushes upward, and for a moment, she loses control.
It bursts high. A searing crack tears the air. Heat scorches a nearby pillar. One of the elders recoils, their grey robes rustling. Gasps ripple through the watching apprentices on the outer terrace. Juno bites her lip hard enough to taste blood. She raises her hands. Focuses. Breathes. The fire pulls back, reluctantly, like an beast yanked from prey. The column steadies. She finishes the motion, holds the stance.
Silence.
Even the braziers seem to hesitate before returning to their normal rhythm. The waterclock near the Temple of Ember tolls once, solemn and slow. The elders do not speak. Their stillness says enough.
Juno turns from the circle, her legs trembling, and ascends the ceremonial steps. Each feels longer than the last. Her skin burns, from heat and shame. She shouldn’t have faltered. Not here. Not today.
At the landing, Tessa waits.
She does not offer comfort. “You lost it.”
“I brought it back,” Juno says through clenched teeth.
“Too late. The fire revealed what you wouldn’t.”
Juno forces herself to meet her cousin’s eyes. “What do you think it said?” Tessa doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she turns to the canyon edge. “That the river is dying. That the balance is slipping. That you aren’t ready.” Juno follows her gaze.
Below them, the canyon stretches wide and steep, walls red with sediment, the city layered along its ledges like a hive built into the bones of a fallen god. The waterfall—once mighty—is now little more than a silver string catching sunlight, weaving through the canyon’s base and disappearing beneath moss-stained rock. Around it, ancient aqueducts sit crumbled, dry channels leading nowhere.
“How long has it been that low?” she asks.
“They stopped measuring,” Tessa says. “The numbers made the priests uneasy. They claimed it was blasphemy to watch it die.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you’re afraid of what comes after.”
A gust of hot wind rolls over the terrace, carrying with it the scent of sunburned stone… and something else. “I had another dream,” Juno says, her voice quieter now. “Same as before. Stone halls. Green water running uphill. A voice calling my name.”
“Did you answer?”
“No.”
Tessa studies her carefully, then gestures for Juno to follow. “There’s something I need to show you.”
They leave the circle behind and ascend toward the Temple of Ember. As they pass through the outer gate, the ceremonial pyres sputter behind them. Juno glances back. The flame on the leftmost brazier flickers sideways, bending against the wind. Something shifts under her feet. It’s faint, but she feels it: a tremor deep in the stone.
She opens her mouth to speak, but Tessa doesn’t react.
They pass beneath the arch, its columns etched with firescript that predates living memory. Inside, the temperature drops. The stone smells of soot and incense, and the air carries a stillness that doesn’t belong to the surface. Here, the flames burn blue.
Juno slows as they descend into the interior. She’s never been allowed beyond the outer sanctum. No apprentice has. Tessa speaks without turning. “You think the fire faltered today because you lacked focus. That it caught on your breath, or the rhythm of your movement.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No. The flame was testing you. Not for skill—but for inheritance.”
Juno frowns. “Inheritance?”
Tessa stops before a sealed stone door, its edge glowing faintly with runes that pulse like veins of molten glass. She places her hand on it. The light flares, and the door grinds open. “You were born under the falling moon, Juno, in the season of reversal. You think the fire is yours alone?”
Juno steps past the threshold, and gasps. The chamber beyond is ancient. Obsidian walls curve inward like the ribs of a vast beast. Mosaics cover every surface: rivers glowing under starlight, moons cracked in half, figures wreathed in both flame and foam. At the center of the chamber, resting on a pedestal of blackened marble, is a shard of glass—curved, clear, and pulsing with slow, living light. “What is this?” Juno whispers.
“The past,” Tessa says. “And possibly the future.”