A day had passed since the council meeting, and now we waited for the Fatebound Vow ceremony scheduled for tomorrow. They moved us into a much nicer wing of the academy, no longer treating us as prisoners. However, one problem arose: they made us share the same room. Orion lay in the bed on the right, snoring since the moment he closed his eyes, while Silas lay on the left, talking in his sleep for hours. I was in the middle, like a piece of ham in a sandwich, surrounded by two very noisy buns. Orion’s snoring resembled that of an ogre, shaking the entire room, and Silas argued and shouted in his sleep, tossing and turning like a fish out of water.

I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts were elsewhere, focused on someone else. Ever since Lyra and I were bound by blood and I saw her entire life flash before my eyes, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I hadn’t seen her since; she had been avoiding me like the plague. Revealing every little detail of your life to a stranger can be more humiliating than exposing your bare flesh—it’s far more intimate. I knew more about her than perhaps even she did, just as she knew everything about me, and that was frightening. I couldn’t tell which she feared more: me knowing all her deepest secrets or knowing me.

“Can’t sleep,” I growled as I rose from my bed and headed for the exit.

Each of us received a pass as a blank, white card. This pass allowed us to enter and exit our room as we pleased and granted us passage to certain other areas. I had one destination in mind: the kitchen.

As I left the room, I didn’t even try to tiptoe. I wanted those two to wake up and have trouble falling back asleep. But I could only dream of such a scenario; not even a bucket of ice-cold water could wake those baboons.

“Ah, so sleepy,” I yawned as I walked down the hallway, greeted by a dimly lit corridor.

The quaint halls were empty, with only my faint footsteps filling the cold air. Tiny flickers of ember that floated at the edges of the ceiling illuminated the path in front of me, creating a calm scene where one could sleep in peace without the monkey noises from certain people. I would love nothing more than to find a quiet, poorly illuminated corner where I could stay until morning and forget all about the day before. But first, I needed something to eat, or my growling stomach would keep me awake for the rest of the night.

Finally, I made my way to the kitchen and, to my surprise, I wasn’t the only one there. In the darkest corner of the room, Lyra sat by herself, devouring a baked chicken leg.

“Breath, that leg is not going anywhere,” I teased. She coughed in surprise, lowering her head in embarrassment.

Heading to the self-serve section of the kitchen, I grabbed a plate and opened a glass lid of one of the food storage boxes.

“Hmm, what to get?” I muttered to myself, overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices.

In the end, I picked up some baked potatoes, two slices of bread, and a grilled steak.

“May I join you?” I asked.

“Be my guest,” she said politely, wiping her rosy lips with a napkin and straightening her back to appear more dignified, as if she hadn’t been devouring that poor chicken like a starving wolf moments before.

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“You don’t have to hide anymore and eat when no one is looking; you can eat whenever you wish. Lilith is gone. You’re free,” I said.

“H-How do you know about that?” she asked, confused, then realization dawned on her. “I keep forgetting you know everything there is to know about me.”

“And you know everything there is to know about me,” I replied, meeting silence. She didn’t say a word, just averted her gaze and stared to the side. “Do you think less of me now?” I asked directly.

“No,” she answered, still not meeting my gaze. “You did what you had to, even if that meant leaving the life you always dreamed of...” She paused, deep in thought.

“But?”

“Why didn’t you fight harder? Why didn’t you fight harder for your family? You had the world, and you lost it of your own free will,” she said, finally catching my gaze, her eyes burning with envy.

“Do you believe in destiny, my ember?” I asked.

“I do not,” she replied.

“Neither did I, but the more I fought against it, the more it punished me. Ever since birth, and even in the future, fate had this path prepared for me. Every time I strayed from it, those I loved paid the price. My existence brought them only pain and misfortune, so I decided it would be better to be forgotten by the world and fight destiny on my own, not dragging anyone else down with me. They are my world, and I don’t need to be a part of theirs to be happy. As long as they are safe, that’s all that matters...”

“You’re full of shit.” Lyra remarked. “Every second since you left Emberfield, you’ve been thinking of them. Is your mother’s bakery doing well? Did she stop drinking? Has Iris made some friends? And are there any boys chasing after her? And if there are, you’d fly over the continent and scare them shitless before they could even think of pursuing her. They are your world, Valerian, and you know damn well you are a part of theirs. You have a home to return to; that’s more than the rest of us have.”

“At least I have Silas by my side,” I said.

“Have you ever thought how strange your reunion with him was?” she asked. “Soon after the world forgot about you, he left on an adventure and stayed in some town in the middle of nowhere for years! Just for you to find him a day later when you left home! It was almost like...” she pondered for a while before I answered.

“Destiny.”

“Perhaps,” she chuckled, then fidgeted with her red locks, wanting to say something but hesitating.

“What is it?” I pressed on.

“W-Why do you call me your ember?” she finally mustered the courage to ask.

“You remind me of home. Your flame reminds me of Emberfield’s dawn sky and warm summer mornings. It reminds me of my mother’s humming, Silas’s strumming of strings, and Iris’s loud cheers that woke me each day. Like an ember, you warm my chest and make my soul weep. You remind me that what I had done was not for nothing and that one day everything will be the way it was. You are my ember, for your flame keeps me who I used to be. It reminds me not to stray too far, and when I’m lost, it serves as my guiding light toward good, so I can one day look my mother in the eyes and not be ashamed of what I have done. I’m afraid I’ll lose myself and become him, my past self with whom I became one. Heaven knows I’m looking more like him with each day...” I spoke, not to her but to myself, as the thoughts I hid poured out as words. I was afraid I’d forsake the person my family knew and become someone they didn’t recognize.

“You will never be like him; you are good and you are kind. If you ever get lost, I’ll serve as your ember and put you on the right path,” Lyra said with a determined look as she took hold of my cold hand.

“Then be an ember and warm this food for me, would you? It’s cold,” I said, sliding my plate toward her.

“How is it that my magic only serves to make your life better? First, the water is too cold, and now the food?” she snapped back, irritated by my constant needs.

“Come on, just a little?”

“Oh, I’ll warm it up for you!”

“No, you’ll burn it!”

“Hot enough?”

“Now you ruined it…”

And just like that, we argued and laughed until the morning arrived, and I forgot all about the things that had kept me up at night.