They called her the Flame Queen.
The last nightmare of Solmire.
A devil long before the fire ever reached the palace gates.
Now, as Solmire burned, they weren't wrong.
Because flames rose higher than the sun towers, touching the smoke-cloaked heavens. The once golden domes of the Fire Palace were blackened, crumbling under heat that warped stone and flesh alike. Ash fell like snow, coating corpses and shattered, melted blades. Screams, human, horse, and hellish, merged into a single death song.
And at the center of it all…
Eris Igniva.
Bathed in blood. Drenched in flame. Laughing.
Her skin cracked and blistered, glowing with molten veins. Her eyes were twin suns gone mad, wild and bright and utterly beyond salvation. Fire curled around her like a living beast, responding not to will but to wrath. Every breath she took scorched the air. Every scream she made shook the battlefield. There were no commands left to give. No allies left to save.
She was the battlefield.
The Witch of Solmire. Tyrant. Monster. Unrepentant.
Her feet were bare, turned black by soot and blood. Her ceremonial robes had melted to her skin. Charred silk clung to her body like a second layer of flesh. Her once-luminous pale hair whipped around her face, crackling with embers.
She did not weep nor did she scream. Instead she burned.
Magic, pure, ancient, and wild, poured from her like a rupture in the world. Fire split the ground. Stone cried out beneath her. Subjects screamed names of lost gods, and she answered them with flames that devoured flesh in seconds. Their bodies turned to shadows before they hit the ground.
She was not human. Not anymore.
Warriors from every house in Solmire, united under one desperate flag, surrounded her like moths flying into the inferno. And like moths, they burned. Some didn't even reach her before they collapsed, scorched by her magic, their bones turned to cinders before their swords were raised. The few who still stood trembled. Their swords shook. Their wills bent under the suffocating heat that radiated from her every breath.
She killed without blinking. Without mercy. Without care.
Even the innocent died screaming, servants, children, healers, anyone too slow to flee.
She didn't flinch as arrows pierced her shoulder. She laughed. A rasping, broken sound, laced with madness as she pulled them out and turned it to ash.
All she had ever known was heat, hunger, and hatred. Born with fire in her blood and fury in her bones, the world never gave her kindness. Never gave her peace. So she gave it hell instead.
But now, finally, it came for her. The dragon Inside her had awakened.
And it wanted carnage.
"More," she snarled, her voice cracking like kindling. "Send me more, Caelen. I haven't bled enough for you yet."
From the edge of the smoldering courtyard, he emerged. Sword drawn, face etched with ash and vengeance. Silver armor glinting in the chaos. And a face she knew as intimately as the back of her hand, yet hated with the same vicious passion.
Caelen Caldrith.
Hero of the realm. Slayer of the flame.
Her husband. Unlike Eris, Caelen had no fire in his blood. No magic in his veins.
Just a sword. An enchanted one.
A man once bound to her by chains of marriage, forced into a crown by her whims. The boy she'd taken from the dirt, made a king, and broken a hundred times.
Now the world called him hero.
She turned to him, smiling through lips cracked and bleeding. Her teeth were red. The fire that once obeyed her whim now writhed against her skin like chains. It was eating her alive. Her hair was nearly gone. Her eyes, still that blazing wildfire, began to dim.
She bared her teeth at him.
"Come to watch me die, my love?" she hissed. "Or do you want to do it yourself this time?"
"I've come to put an end to your tyranny Eris." Caelen declared.
"Oh?" Eris's brows hung but not in disbelief.
"You're not human," Caelen said coldly, circling her like a wolf. "You're a monster in flesh."
His blade gleamed, enchanted by priests who swore it could cut through gods. His mouth was set in a grim line, but his eyes burned with one thing:
Hate.
Eris tilted her head as he approached.
"A monster" she repeated, voice hoarse, throat lined with soot. "How noble. How tragic."
Caelen didn't answer.
"You always looked better like this," she said, smiling through cracked lips. "Covered in ash. Wearing that frown. Reminds me of our wedding night."
Still no answer.
Just the slow, brutal drawing of steel from sheath.
"Oh, Caelen," she laughed, staggering on her feet, blood dripping down her legs, her arms, from her mouth, her ears, every opening burning. "You only ever loved me when I bled."
And bleed she did.
The fire raged from within her, clawing its way out. Her veins pulsed molten gold, her flesh peeling, melting in places. The dragon within her howled, surging, bursting from her pores. Her body convulsed, skin splitting as more flames erupted through it. More blood poured from her. But still, still, she stood. Raising one burning hand, she swept the battlefield with death, incinerating an entire squadron in one breath. The air stank of scorched meat and shattered oaths.
"Stand down, Eris!" he roared.
But she couldn't hear him anymore. Not over the dragon screaming in her head. Not over the memory of betrayal, of abandonment, of being labeled a witch for doing everything he was too much of a coward to do.
"YOU LEFT ME TO ROT!" she screamed, her voice splitting the sky.
Caelen charged.
She met him halfway.
Steel clashed with fire. His blade bit into her hip. Her flames burned his armor. They danced in blood, their war too personal for the world to understand.
"Do it," she whispered, sagging into his sword, pressing herself against it. "Kill the witch. Kill your wife. Save your precious lover."
Caelen's hand trembled. And yet Eris's eyes gleamed.
"You were nothing," she whispered, staggering. "Before me. No name. No power. You lived in the dirt. I made you king."
"And you made yourself a monster." The word sliced through her.
She looked around.
Smoke. Bodies. Fire. Screams. And something inside her cracked.
Not the dragon.
Her.
Her knees buckled. She didn't stop him. The fire inside was no longer screaming. It was sobbing.
And in that stillness, that rare clarity between madness and oblivion… she understood. She was tired. So tired.
So when Caelen raised his sword with no hesitation and drove the sword through her chest, through her dragon-tainted, crown-blackened heart, she smiled.
Then, her body gave. The fire overtook her.
Her eyes turned to gold, no, flames. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as the dragon inside her broke free in one final burst.
And Eris Igniva, Queen of Ash, Witch of Solmire… burned from the inside out.
A living pyre.
A war goddess turned to smoke.
As her body turned to ash, glowing from the inside out, she reached for him. Not with hatred. Not with claws.
With tenderness.
And as her fingers crumbled and her voice broke, she whispered, "Tell Rael… I love him."
Her final breath was fire.