8 - The Fire Was Laughing

Her vision blackened. She must have dreamed the last part. The painkillers must have kicked in. Then fingers gripped her shoulder—sharper than before.

“Don’t,” Milo said. “You have to stay awake.” He helped her to her feet. “You won’t lose the arm,” he said.

Aurora winced, white pain amidst a backdrop of heat and chaos. “Comforting.”

They continued walking in silence. She looked around, vision swirling. The Fire Kingdom was unrecognizable. What once stood as a fortress of hierarchy and flame had descended into something primal — something alive with screaming, smoke, and vengeance. The Infernos flailed and screamed. All because the fire didn’t obey them anymore.

“Pathetic,” Aurora muttered, almost in pity.

Milo’s eyebrows raised at the hint of empathy. The power had shifted. And the women were mauling. Aurora wanted to look away. “Get me out of here,” she muttered. Then she looked back at Karl’s slumped body. “Hurry, then bring him back too.”

Milo simply looked at her as they hastened away. Aurora saw not all the women were taking part in revenge. Some of them were wide eyed, trauma sketched so deep in their face they forgot they could stand. Others had run. And in that vacuum of control, the Fire Kingdom devoured itself. Ash fell like snow. Children continued to cry in alleys, as they always had. And somewhere, amidst the roar of magic and grief, a woman stood still—her hands glowing, her face streaked with soot—and laughed.

Milo dropped her in a clearing and went back. When he returned with Karl, she sat beside his limp body, knees drawn tight, fingers curled in the dirt. His breathing was shallow, but steady. His face was slack, his lip split.

She thought of him standing over her, remembering the pain as he slashed her arm.

“What are you going to do when he wakes?”

She didn’t answer.

“If you want,” Milo said, too casually, “I could erase his memory.”

She looked up.

“It would fix your problem,” he added. “Easily.”

Her stare hardened. “That’s exactly what you’d do. Test me.” She shook her head, disgust rising in her throat.

Milo didn’t blink. “What will you say to him?” he asked—quieter now, still watching, still needling.

“What about you?” she shot back. “Are you going to abandon him?”

Karl had followed Milo like a shadow ever since he’d “saved” him from the Fire Kingdom years ago. A thought surfaced uninvited: Maybe I should stay with him. Even if he hates me. Maybe that could be her purpose now. Just like Jin once was. But she knew. Even if she gave everything, it wasn’t about Karl. It wasn’t goodness. It was to fill her need. She swallowed.

Milo’s gaze didn’t waver. He’d already heard what she didn’t say. “He might never forgive you,” he said, leaning in. The fire cast crimson shadows in his almond eyes. “But that was never the point, was it? You don’t need his love. You need him to anchor you.”

“Shut it,” Aurora bit out, though it came too late.

Milo leaned back. “Let’s say you chose differently,” he murmured, voice soft in the smoke. “Would you have traded hundreds for one?”

Her throat tightened. “I didn’t mean to lose her,” she rasped.

“No one does,” Milo said gently, dipping his head. She thought about her leaving him in her past life. He tilted his head. “That’s the myth, isn’t it?” Milo’s voice drifted. “That when it matters most, we’ll become our true selves. That choice will reveal us. But the truth is...” He paused. “It just exposes how little we knew ourselves to begin with.”

Aurora looked down at her bloodstained fingers, dark and tacky.

“I thought I’d changed. After Selus. After the Crystal Kingdom. But maybe I just got lucky once.” Her voice cracked. “Maybe it wasn’t growth. Maybe every problem looks different the next time—and the last victory means nothing. Maybe I’ve always been helpless. Always will be.”

Milo’s eyes flicked up to meet hers. “Last time, you grew. Floundered, sure—but you still found a way to win. That’s not nothing.” His voice wasn’t cruel. If anything, it was careful. “There was a cost then,” he continued, “but this time… it feels heavier.” He paused, watching her. “Now you understand. Strength isn’t what you show in victory. It’s what you carry after the failure. That’s why this hits differently.”

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Aurora swallowed. “So what now?”

“Now you walk forward anyway,” Milo said. He rose, slow and unhurried. “Because the next kingdom won’t ask who you tried to save. Only what you’re willing to do now.”

She looked at Karl—his chest rising and falling in shallow rhythm. Looked at the flames still devouring the city behind them. Her jaw clenched. Her fingers curled tighter in the dirt. She hadn’t even noticed how hard she was gripping the ground until now.

“I don’t want to go to the next kingdom,” she spat. Milo didn’t react, not at first. He just tilted his head, like he was watching something delicate start to crack. “Then what do you want to do?” He wasn’t trying to mock, but his tone wasn’t soft either

Aurora swallowed. Her throat ached. “I want to stay,” she said quietly. “I’m not abandoning them.”

Milo laughed. She flinched. He glanced at Karl, then at the chaos still unraveling beyond the gate, at the women whose screams had turned into something else now—not fear, but fury. “No one’s asking you to go,” he said. “But the moment’s already passed. This kingdom is already becoming something new. With or without you.”

Aurora didn’t answer. Milo stood with the calm grace of someone who’d already decided his next move. “If you stay, it’s not to fix what happened,” he said, reading her every move. “It’s to accept defeat and run away.”

She flinched again.

“And him? You don’t get him back either. Not the way you knew him.” His voice was gentle now, but it cut anyway. “So I’ll ask you again.” He looked down at her—really looked. “What do you want to do?”

Her throat tightened. She hated him and how calm he always looked. How easy it was for him to name things, to peel her open and never bleed himself. But most of all, she hated that he wasn’t wrong. Still, she didn’t answer, didn’t cry, didn’t scream. She just sat, the crackle of fire was the only sound between them.

Milo let the moment stretch. Studied her like she was something rare. Then, gently, he tilted his head. “I’ll leave you to think.”

He turned, walked past Karl’s body. Aurora stayed where she was. Shit. I thought he’d never leave. Her arm throbbed and her lungs hurt. And for the first time since seeing Karl's mom in the square, she didn’t know if she could get back up. But she didn’t lie down either. She sat still. As if quiet might be safer than choice.

Behind her, Karl let out a broken, unconscious breath. His fingers twitched once in the dirt, reaching for something that wasn’t there. And in the distance, the fire crackled like it was laughing.

-------

When she woke, Karl was already sitting up, facing the sunrise. The fire had burned low—embers fading into ash, flickers of amber hanging in the air like something half-remembered. She sat too, slowly swallowing.

“My mother watched them as they beat me. Her eyes were empty.” He turned just enough to glance back at her. The softness was gone.

She jumped to her feet, facing him. “Karl…I failed,” she said. The words felt thick in her throat. She couldn’t say sorry. Not because of pride, but because it wouldn’t change anything.

Karl stood, brushing the ash from his coat. “You chose wrong,” he said, a cold flash of blue in his eyes. He spat on the ground then looked at her. “You’ll always choose wrong.”

He didn’t yell. That made it worse. Then he turned and walked. She wanted to go after him, but couldn’t. She had no right. She looked at the sky. Before Milo had recruited her, she was supposed to disappear. Now she wondered if disappearing would’ve been easier than this. At least, to everyone else. She watched his back retreat into the haze.

You should have saved her, she heard him say.

Maybe he was right. She breathed once, letting the sting settle. Then, she got up. Karl had already left the clearing. She turned toward where Milo would be. She walked without thinking, kicking forward one foot after the other. He didn’t look at her.

“He left,” she said.

“I know.”

The forest held its breath again. “He said I chose wrong.”

Milo’s gaze didn’t shift. “Did you?”

She opened her mouth before closing it. She didn’t know anymore. “I saved the mission,” she said at last. “But I lost him.”

Now he looked at her. The weight of it made her straighten without thinking. “And?” he asked quietly.

She hesitated, thinking about what hesitation would have meant. The words came out slowly. “I’d still do the same thing.”

His head tilted slightly. “Then it wasn’t the wrong choice,” he said. “Just the one you’ll carry.” He pushed off the stone, walking past her. He stopped. “Survival doesn’t come clean, Aurora. And no one who changes the world gets to keep everyone.”

She met his gaze. “If I don’t continue… I’m just running. And I have nothing left to run from.”

He nodded, unsmiling. “Then let’s keep going.”

—--------------

Samantha watched smoke rise from the Fire Kingdom, ash curling in the direction of the Fire Kingdom She raised her hand. A shimmer of white light pulsed at her wrist. The crystal embedded in her skin responded not to power, but to memory. She flexed her fingers. The pulse sharpened. Still working. The wind shifted. She tasted ruin.

Good.

He had always moved like that—Milo. Too reckless to be controlled. Too controlled to be anything but dangerous. That’s what made him so interesting. And what made him useful.

But now he was watching someone else. Aurora. Samantha tilted her head, studying the distant horizon. What made this one different? What had he seen in her that he hadn’t seen in Samantha?

Or rather… what had he overlooked?

Her lips curved. He’d chosen the girl. And to Samantha, that was not fine. They would soon see. But not yet.