The Firefly’s Burden-Chapter 53: Reckless Fire

The Firefly’s Burden-Chapter 53: Reckless Fire

*Cassie*
The windows of Emberhall breathed summer. Cicadas rasped in the garden, jasmine clung thick to the air, and half-unfurled banners sagged along the balcony rail, gold threads catching stray moonlight like tired fire. Somewhere farther in the city, drums began their first testing beats—low, insistent, the pulse of the Summer Festival and Infernal Rites rising on the horizon.
Inside the archives, the air was furnace-still, pressed down by wards that hummed like a forge waiting for kindling. Mira didn’t notice; she was pacing, restless, three-beat tapping against the desk until the wood shuddered, sleeve seam rolling between her fingers, hair catching firelight like a dare. Her Small Folk diadem gave a soft pulse once—prayers I couldn’t hear, but she did. She didn’t even flinch.
Ghost had grown into his name—no longer the fluffy pup we were gifted at Lumenfeast six months ago but a nearly adolescent husky, long-legged and broad-shouldered. He sprawled in the aisle between stacks, tail thumping the floorboards whenever Mira passed too close, ears twitching to the wards before even I caught them. Kit balanced on the back of a chair, ember-tail glowing faint, giving little chirps of complaint every time Mira’s tapping sped up. And Lynnix, sleek and silver-eyed, perched high among the shelves, tufted ears angled like knives, watching it all with judgment that felt almost human.
They’d been the Summer Court’s answer to our vows—politics wrapped in fur and flame. Proof the Consort bond had been seen and sanctioned. They were ours now, though, and if anyone questioned that, they hadn’t been watching how these three moved with Mira’s moods.
And there it was again—her scent shifting. The warmth I’d memorized—marshmallow toasted too close to the fire, rain off the ocean, the sweet burn of stargazer bloom—cut sharp with something brighter, cleaner, scraping like a blade across my senses. Nerves, I told myself. She was wound tighter than the sunfire thread coiled on the desk.
The tome she’d dragged from the shelves lay open, parchment so old it looked like it would disintegrate under her thumb. She muttered the words like a dare: “Forged to share the mantle of flame.” The glyphs answered with a low ember glow, as if even the ink remembered it wasn’t meant to be forgotten.
On the desk, she’d assembled the impossible—ember-dust in a shallow dish, a vial of storm-scented saltwater, coils of sunfire thread glinting like they might burn through the wood if left too long.
My mouth went dry. “You’re going to set your eyebrows on fire.”
Mira looked up, grin reckless, absolutely certain. “Worth it.”
She didn’t stop moving until the stone floors of Emberhall gave way to wild grass, tugging me through a side door and out into the meadow. Summer wrapped around us—cicadas rasping, fireflies sparking in the tall stalks, jasmine so thick in the air it clung to my tongue.
“Closer to the soil,” she said, barefoot already, skirts hiked in her hand. “The ground wants it.”
I swallowed hard. She crouched low, scattering ember-dust in a wide ring, then poured saltwater sunwise, steady as if she’d done this a hundred times. Sunfire thread gleamed between her fingers as she stitched glyphs into the circle, each loop tugging at the wards until the air pressed like a forge lid.
She looked up at me then, sharp grin cutting through the hum. “Clothes off.”
I blinked. “I—what?”
“Fabric blocks the draw. Skin to soil, Cass.” Her voice had gone low, deliberate. “It won’t take if you’re covered.”
Heat crawled down my neck. “You’re unbelievable.”
“And you’re stalling.” Her gaze dragged over me, not lewd but devastating in its certainty, like she already knew how this would end. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how badly you want to know what it feels like. Power, unchained. You’ll thank me later.”
Every nerve lit like kindling. I should’ve said no. Should’ve laughed, called her insane. Instead, my fingers caught the hem of my shirt. Mira didn’t look away.
I peeled the fabric over my head, slow, the meadow air rushing hot against bare skin. Her eyes tracked the movement, the corners of her mouth tipping up like she’d just won something more dangerous than a bet.
“Better,” she murmured.
My leggings followed, my hands shaking, though not from cold. Ghost let out a low whine at the circle’s edge, tail restless. Kit’s ember-tail flared to match the glyphs, while Lynnix crouched in the grass, silver eyes narrowing like she was judging every second of my hesitation.
Mira stepped close, the ring blazing between us, and set her palm against my chest. Heat bled through me, steady and sure, as she whispered my name.
And then I was burning.
Light poured under my skin, molten veins racing down my arms, across my chest, into my legs until the world fractured open. Sound hit first—the cicadas, the fireflies’ wings, Ghost’s nails in the grass, Mira’s heartbeat slamming steady and wild. My lungs dragged in jasmine-thick air that tasted electric. And Mira’s scent—sweet marshmallow, rain-washed bloom—sharpened again with that bright, clean edge. Not nerves. Not fear. Something else. Something I still couldn’t name.
The wards above us sang. The glyphs burned brighter. Even the earth leaned closer, hungry.
Mira’s voice anchored it all, steady, calm, sure. “It’s for the Summer Festival. And the Infernal Rites. Three days. Then it fades.”
Three days. My body already knew it would never be enough.
The world didn’t return. It detonated.
Sound slammed first—the ward-hum wasn’t hum anymore, it was thunder cracking through my bones. Dust motes flared like sparks, hot against my vision. I could hear everything—the rasp of cicadas in the meadow, the snap of Kit’s ember-tail, the slow drag of boots two halls away inside Emberhall. And louder than all of it, steady and relentless, Mira’s heartbeat. My body locked on to it like prey or compass or both.
She brushed my arm, barely a touch, and my body lunged before my brain caught up—half a step forward, shoulders squared, blocking her from the empty dark. The movement wasn’t thought. It was claim. Protect. Shield. Mine.
Ghost matched me, prowling the circle’s edge with hackles raised, nails carving grooves into the grass. Kit flared bright, his ember-tail sparking wild. Lynnix crouched, eyes silver, watching me with the cool judgment of a predator deciding if I’d earned the right to bare my teeth.
Mira’s laugh cut through the overload, sharp and bright. “Going to duel the furniture for me too?”
Her calm only stoked the frenzy. Because my body wasn’t mine anymore. Veins on fire, reflexes like blades, senses layering over each other until I couldn’t tell heartbeat from breath, scent from sound. Mira’s scent hit again—sweet heat, marshmallow and rain—and then that bright, cutting edge sliced through, electric as lightning on the tongue.
I almost growled. Not anger. Hunger. Not hunger for food, but for something I didn’t have the words for. Instinct clawed at my ribs: protect her, keep her, anchor to her.
Magic, I told myself. It had to be magic. Because if it wasn’t—if it was something older, something deeper—then I was already lost.
Mira moved like she’d expected this, like she’d been waiting for it. Steady, certain, her mouth curved not with fear but with pride. She wasn’t threatened by me towering, bristling, burning with instincts I didn’t understand.
I was the one shaking. I was the one threatened—by my own body, my own feral need to keep her behind me, beside me, always.
“Clothes. On.”
Mira’s voice cut clean through the night.
My body moved before my brain had time to argue. She tossed my clothes and I caught them, dragging fabric over skin that still felt too new—too alive. The word hit something deep and old in me, a pull like gravity; I didn’t test it, didn’t spar with it, just obeyed. The obedience was a shock that rippled through both of us—Mira’s eyebrows flinched up a fraction, mine nearly climbed off my face.
“Inside,” she said, already gathering the sunfire thread from the grass.
The wards relaxed as we stepped out of the circle. Ghost loped at my heel without being asked, Kit a soft ember-flash at Mira’s shoulder, Lynnix a silent shadow slipping ahead to scout the path. Emberhall swallowed us in cool stone and old heat—hall lamps guttering, portraits watching, the building’s ancient bones humming as if they remembered every vow ever spoken within these walls.
Mira didn’t take me to her suite (too patrolled, too many listening walls) but to a small practice studio two corridors over, one Selene used when sleep wouldn’t come. The door clicked and the room folded around us—thick rugs, a low table, two battered training dummies, a window letting moonlight paint a pale square across the floorboards. Ghost collapsed in that square with a huff; Kit sprang to the sill; Lynnix leapt to the top of a bookcase and became a statue.
I stood in the center, trying to breathe around the way everything pressed into me now. I could hear the flame inside each candle. I could map the room by its air currents. I could feel Mira at my back without looking—the rhythm of her heartbeat slotting into place like a metronome someone had set inside my ribs.
She moved toward the table and I moved without thinking—half a step, slipping into that space in front of her again. Not dramatics. A law written straight into muscle.
Her mouth curved. “Furniture duel? Round two?”
I stared at my hands. They were steady. Too steady. “I don’t know what to do with this,” I said, hating the rough edge of my voice. Ponytail, cuff, ponytail—my fidgets misfired, then reset. “It’s like my body got rewritten and forgot to tell me.”
“Then learn it.” Mira nudged the table with her hip. “Lift.”
I slid my fingers under the edge and expected resistance. There was none. The table came up like balsa wood. My breath stuck. I could have set it on my palm and balanced it with a single finger, smug circus trick.
Mira whistled low. “Show-off.”
“You told me to lift it,” I said, which sounded both breathless and ridiculous. I set the table down too fast; it thudded, candles shivered. One guttered. I crossed the room before the flame died, catching the breath of it with a cupped hand and coaxing it taller. When I turned, Mira was already watching me like that had been inevitable.
“So I’m better,” I said, because it was the only shield I had.
She rolled her eyes. “Enjoy it while it lasts.” Teasing, but pride clean and unjealous. “You’re wondering how I live with this every day.” Her voice softened. “I’m half Fae, Cass. I had time to grow into it. And I have a human heart.” A beat. “It keeps me from burning out.”
Human heart. The words landed like a cool hand on the back of my neck. Something in me unclenched.
Ghost’s tail thumped twice. Kit chirred from the windowsill, ember-tail ticking like a clock. Lynnix blinked slow, predator-calm.
“Again,” Mira said.
I crossed the room and back—once; then again. The studio wasn’t big enough for what my legs wanted, but I made do—pace smooth as a blade slide, breath easy. The second candle guttered; I got there before the smoke could rise. My senses were stacking and weaving into something I could almost control. Almost.
Then she stepped into my path and brushed my wrist to stop me.
That bright, clean note lanced through her scent again, slicing the warm marshmallow and rain and stargazer bloom until it was all edge and light. It hit the back of my throat like citrus, like a spark pressed to the tongue, and the recognition detonated—oh.
Not nerves. Not power. Not fear. Want.
I froze. She did too, like the room leaned with us. The air thickened until it felt like we were breathing the same lungful.
Mira’s eyes were very, very steady. “Cass.”
It should have been enough to stop me. It wasn’t. My body had been learning its own language all evening and it finally had a word. The word rose with a thousand others: protect, keep, anchor—want.
I stepped in. Not shoving. Not hungry in a way I’d regret—just sure. One hand cupped the line of her jaw, the other settled at her hip, and the electric tremor ripped through both of us. Her heartbeat stuttered, then caught; mine matched it because that’s what they did now. Her scent spiked brighter—citrus-clean, unguarded—and heat washed my spine like a tide.
“Cassie,” she said again, but it broke in the middle.
I would have sworn to anything holy that I kept my touch careful. That I treated her like something precious and invincible at once. That I remembered every promise we had made and every one we hadn’t spoken aloud. But my instincts were a feral chorus, and they didn’t care about optics or scripts.
I leaned in until our foreheads touched. The smallest contact, and the world upended. Her breath shivered against my mouth; mine came back ragged. Every candle breathed with us. The pets held very, very still.
“Tell me,” I said, the word feeling like kneeling and rising and running all at once. “How do you carry this and not—” I didn’t finish. There wasn’t a word that wasn’t ruin.
Her hands slid up my arms and settled at my shoulders, thumbs pressing in—a quiet cuff-glide that could have calmed an earthquake. “I don’t always,” she admitted. “Sometimes I flare. Sometimes I shatter. But I don’t let it decide for me.” The corner of her mouth lifted. “Human heart, remember?”
I nodded against her, though the part of me that had been pacing since the meadow wanted anything but restraint. The scent—hers—kept dragging me under. Bright. Clean. Unmistakable. My fingers tightened before I could stop them.
“Cass.” A warning, a plea, a prayer.
I kissed her—not rough, not soft, just the exact pressure of a promise we were not going to break. Heat cracked through me in a clean line. Her hands fisted in my shirt, then gentled, as if she’d caught herself on the same cliff’s edge.
It would have been so easy to fall. To stop thinking and let the new instincts write the rest. The room reeled—ward-hum, candlebreath, Ghost’s low whine, Kit’s tiny chitter like a spark trying not to catch, Lynnix’s tail flick against wood.
Mira broke first. Not away—down. Her mouth left mine for my cheek, the hinge of my jaw, the corner of my mouth again, and then she set her forehead to mine so the words could only land in me.
“I want you,” she said, steady, devastating. “I want all of you. But I want you as you. Not borrowed fire, not borrowed anything.”
My throat worked. “We vowed,” I said, the word scraping out like a blade drawn slow. “We swore we’d wait.”
Her eyes shone, unflinching. “We did. And I don’t break vows.” A breath. “Our birthday. We keep it. We wait. We plan. We breathe. We get there—together.”
The relief and the frustration hit like twin waves. “When?” was stupid, but it fell out anyway.
“Our birthday,” she repeated, voice like a thread and a bell at once. “A couple months.”
Everything inside me paced the cage of that promise. Two months was forever. Two months was a heartbeat. I drew back just enough to see her face and the look there—bright, sure, unbearably tender—nearly undid me worse than anything else tonight.
“That’s going to be damn hard,” I tried, aiming for bravado. It came out raw. “If you keep… advertising.”
Her blush was instant and lethal. Heat rose under her skin like sunrise. The air shifted—no hiding, no pretense—the citrus-bright note lifting, sharp and clean, and I couldn’t help it: I laughed once, hoarse and helpless.
“Cassie,” she groaned, mortified.
“Can’t help what I smell,” I said, wicked grin landing brand-new. I brushed my nose along her temple, an almost-kiss that still felt like falling. “You’re impossible.”
“So are you,” she said, pride in it warming my bones.
Behind us, Ghost thumped his tail once like a gavel. Kit chirped, satisfied, ember dimming. Lynnix blinked slow, a queen deigning to approve.
Mira laced our fingers. The grip was sure; the ground under it surer.
“Three days,” she said, practical now—the only way we were surviving this room. “You’ll have the senses until the Festival ends. Everything will be louder. It will try to write your choices for you. Don’t let it. Use it.”
“And then?”
“Then we go be reckless where it counts.” Her smile went crooked. “Together.”
I stepped back half a pace—on purpose this time—and paid for it. But my shoulders loosened. The ward-hum dropped from roar to manageable thrum. I could still hear her heartbeat like a star on a map. Jasmine, ember, and that bright, clean edge I’d finally named spun in the air.
“You’re my compass,” I said.
“And you’re my anchor,” she answered.
The candles steadied. The room breathed. We did too.
Two months. I could do two months. I would do two months.
There wasn’t a universe where I wouldn’t hear that bright note lift and give her away. And there wasn’t a universe where I wouldn’t enjoy how she flushed when she realized I had.
I should have left it there. Let the quiet hold. But the meadow memory snagged—the way my body obeyed before my mind could sharpen a single edge.
“I… obeyed you,” I said, heat sliding under my skin with nothing to do with arousal. “Without arguing. Without—me.” The tug-and-pull between us—the rivalry, the bite—where had it gone in that breath?
Mira caught her bottom lip in her teeth. One strand of hair around her finger, then she purposely let it go. A sigh, soft as a match going out. “That’s on me,” she said carefully. “It’s an awakening.” Her eyes held mine. “I’m an alpha, Cass. Always have been. The ritual made it louder. It will always be there—in me, in the Veil’s bones. People lean toward it. Submit or challenge. You’ll feel it faster than most.”
The room held its breath with me.
“I won’t use it to take your choices,” she added, voice low and iron. “Not ever. I’ll watch my words the next three days while the rite hums in your veins. After that, the pull doesn’t vanish, but you’ll be you again—and I’ll still expect you to fight me when I deserve it.”
Something deep in me—new and old—answered that truth. It didn’t erase my defiance. It set its teeth beside it.
“I hate that I wanted to obey,” I said quietly.
“I know.” Her thumb brushed my knuckles once. “You’re not weak for feeling it. The Veil wrote hierarchies long before us. Even my Mother feels it sometimes, though she’d die before admitting it. And one day—” Mira’s mouth ticked, not cruel, only certain “—she’ll bend to me. But I won’t make you bend.”
I pictured it—my instincts launching first because she breathed a command too close to my ear. The tug-and-pull snarled, then settled. Not gone. Leashed for a while—by magic, by crown, by Mira choosing restraint.
Ghost’s tail tapped once, agreeing. Kit chirred and tucked deeper into shadow. Lynnix blinked like: finally, honesty.
“Fine,” I said, voice steadier than I felt. “Careful phrasing. Temporary leash.” I lifted our joined hands. “But the tug stays.”
Her smile was small and real. “Good. I like the tug.”
I did too. Gods help me.
“Three days,” she reminded.
“Three days,” I echoed—then let the truth out. “And then I’m stealing my will back with interest.”
“Deal.”
The candles breathed; the room did too. I listened to her heartbeat—not as leash, not as law—like a compass I chose. The bright, clean edge lifted once more, traitorous, and her cheeks warmed. I smiled.
Temporary, I told the part of me that answered her like gravity. Temporary, and then we go back to the sport we’re good at.
Until then, I’d learn this new body and every line of power in it—for her, with her, never just because she asked.
Because I was still me. And she was still Mira. And the tug would be ours to keep.
The studio door didn’t creak. It boomed open, heat rolling in first.
High Lady Seara Firebrand entered like a storm on legs, molten gown trailing light, golden-amber eyes cutting sharper than steel. The air thickened, pressing against my skin until every new instinct surged at once. Before thought could catch me, I was half a step in front of Mira, shoulders squared, teeth bared for a fight I couldn’t win.
A touch slid down my wrist—Mira’s fingers, deliberate, grounding. A cuff glide. Stand down, Cassie.
And I did, though my pulse rebelled.
Seara’s gaze skimmed me once, then dismissed me like I was an accessory to her daughter’s rebellion. Her voice was a velvet-wrapped lash. “You toyed with an ancient rite you do not understand. Do you grasp what it means to awaken that kind of fire on the eve of the Infernal Rites? To risk not only yourself but your consort”—her glance branded me cold—“for a whim?”
Mira didn’t blink. Didn’t bow. Her chin lifted, Selene’s polish in her poise, fire all her own. “It wasn’t a whim, Mother. It was a gift. Temporary. Three days. Mine to give.”
“You presume power you do not yet command,” Seara said, every word threaded with heat. “The Festival, the Rites, Eversea—every eye will be upon you. And you risk stability for sentiment?”
The word scraped bone.
Mira’s reply was even and sharp enough to cut the furnace press of Seara’s presence. “What use is power if I can’t share it with the one who stands beside me? You tell me to think like a queen. A queen chooses. And I chose her.”
Silence cracked open between them. Ghost flattened, tail twitching. Kit’s ember-tail sputtered, then steadied. Lynnix crouched high, silver eyes measuring predator against predator.
For a heartbeat, Seara’s mask slipped. I caught it—the flicker, sharp as pride, sharp as assessment. Not just fury. Weighing. Testing.
Mira didn’t see it. She stood, chin high, reading the pause as anger.
But I saw. Seara wasn’t just scolding her daughter; she was measuring her queen. Was Mira ready to bear that weight? Ready to defy even her?
The mask slid back smooth and merciless. “See that your choice doesn’t undo everything the crown has bought you.” She turned, gown whispering like fire down to embers, and left with the same force she’d entered. The door shut with the finality of a verdict.
Heat eased. Wards steadied. My heart did not. I turned to Mira, expecting cracks. Found none.
“She doesn’t scare you?” Half awe, half disbelief.
Mira’s smile was quiet, not mocking, edged with something harder. “She used to. I used to have to fight not to obey every command—remember where I ended and she began.” Her gaze softened, chin still lifted. “But I’m a queen now. And queens don’t bow. I respect her—she’s my mother. I’ll always want her pride. What daughter doesn’t? But fear? That’s gone. She can’t take me apart with a word anymore.”
Her hand lingered at my wrist, thumb steady over my pulse. Steadying.
I nodded, even as the realization twisted sharp: Mira believed she’d won an argument. But Seara had been setting a board. Testing whether Mira’s defiance could carry a crown.
And tonight—for better or worse—she had passed.
Somewhere in the quiet after, the Small Folk diadem on Mira’s brow gave one soft, answering pulse—like a distant lantern blinked twice in approval.
Emberhall exhaled, stone sighing, air gone thick and sticky with the day’s leftover heat. Outside, the festival woke—drums low and insistent, laughter cresting through the garden, the smell of roasted fruit riding the breeze. Summer had arrived, and the city was ready to burn.
Mira curled against me as if none of it mattered.
She fit into the crook of my body like she’d been built for it, hair spilling across my arm in a copper-gold river catching every stray glint of moonlight. Ghost claimed the foot of the bed, long frame stretched, chest rising in even rhythm. Kit was a warm ember-ball pressed into Mira’s side. Lynnix perched on the windowsill, sentinel against a scatter of lantern-light in the distance.
Mira’s breathing slowed, evened, drifted. Sleep pulled her under fast, as if the ritual finally took its price in quiet instead of flame.
I couldn’t follow.
Every sense was still wide open, humming. I could hear the twin beats of Ghost’s steady heart and Mira’s quicker one, and mine syncing to hers whether I wanted it or not. I felt every brush of the sheets, every strand of her hair across my arm. I smelled marshmallow warmth clinging to her, bloom-sweet edged by rain, and that damned citrus spark flaring faint between us—as though even her dreams couldn’t hide it.
I pressed my forehead to her crown, careful not to wake her, and still my body reacted. The instincts didn’t quiet because she slept. They pressed, sharp and primal: protect. keep. anchor. want.
Three days, she’d said. Three days of fire in my veins, chaos in my senses. Three days where every breath, every shift, every beat of her heart felt carved into me like a vow.
I’d thought the ritual would be about strength, speed, maybe magic. It was this. The unbearable closeness. The knowing. The weight of being trusted with something too dangerous to name.
Mira sighed in her sleep, shifting closer, as if her body had heard the thought. I tightened my hold, because I couldn’t not.
She didn’t just give me her fire. She trusted me with the part that could ruin us both.
And three days would never be enough.

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Chapter 53: Reckless Fire