The corridor curves around her before she quite realises she’s already halfway down it, the mother’s crying tapering into that thin, scratchy quiet the temple always swallows. What’s left is the sharp rhythm of her own sandals. Just that. Clean. Steady. A better sound than the one still catching under her ribs.

  The temple settles around her immediately, no ceremony, no fuss, just the familiar press of stillness and old stone. She’s known this silence since she was barely tall enough to reach the offering shelves. Order built right into the walls. She lets it hold her attention the way she’s trained herself to: deliberately, one breath at a time.

  Somewhere off to the side, novices chant through morning recitations. Their voices blend, soft and clipped, trying too hard to stay in step with one another. She’s always thought the sound was more fragile than it needed to be. Further down, a hall opens toward the gardens. She can see the dew catching the sun, bright pinpoints that don’t care who’s watching.

  She stops beneath the arch and rests her fingertips lightly against the cooled stone. She prefers this kind of stillness. Actual stillness. Not the forced emptiness they demand during prayer.

  Her hand drifts to the pendant at her throat without permission,she always does that when her thoughts start to slide in directions she’d rather avoid. The star is worn smooth from years of circling her thumb over the same edge. That edge is the one she seeks now.

  A memory slips in fast. A child, herself but not quite herself,standing in robes that drag along the ground, shivering from wind she hadn’t expected, staring up at temple gates that might as well have been mountains. Seren presses her breath into even lengths until the image breaks apart.

  She turns away from the gardens and keeps walking. Her sandals settle into the grooves in the floor as though the stone remembers her stride. In a world that shifts every time she looks away, the temple stays exactly what it is.

  She stops again. This time at the Flamebearer’s shrine. The brazier burns low and constant. Offerings crowd the base,bits of dyed cloth, small carvings, folded prayers left long enough to yellow around the edges. Normal. Predictable. She watches the flames until her thoughts catch up to her.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  They’ve always taught that Soul Fire comes from the stars. That every person, every creature, carries a flame inside them that fuels movement, thought, magic,all of it,until it eventually burns out and returns to the sky.

  She’s repeated that lesson more times than she can count.

  But if it’s true, why does hers refuse to weaken? Why is it always there, steady, too steady, when the novices barely manage a single prayer without stumbling? She’s seen their flames dip low, nearly snuffed out with the slightest strain, while hers stays bright. Brighter than it should.

  It should dim sometimes. Waver a little. Match theirs.

  If it came from the same stars, shouldn’t it behave like theirs?

  What’s wrong with me?

  The question tugs at her again. She needs to tell someone, she knows that. But the elder priestesses would use it against her. The novices wouldn’t know what to do with the information.

  Maybe Elaria. Maybe.

  Before she can settle on the idea, a chime vibrates through the walls. Once. Twice. Three times. Clear, precise. It travels straight through her, recognisable even before she interprets it.

  She straightens.

  The high sanctum. Elaria.

  That has to mean something.

  She walks with a controlled pace, not fast, not slow. The pendant feels heavier against her collarbone, as if the metal thickened when she wasn’t paying attention.

  The stairwell winds upward. The stone under her feet has been worn down by generations of sandals, and faint wards shimmer on the walls like thin, pale threads. As she climbs, the temple’s background noise falls away. It’s just her breath and the sound of her steps.

  She’s been summoned here twice before. Once when she took her oath at twelve. And once years later, after she healed a man collapsing at the gates. Elaria had praised her then, a brief, clipped thing that still lodged itself deep inside her, maybe deeper than she’ll ever admit.

  Cool air touches her skin as she nears the top. Odd, given the tower has no windows this high. A thick stone door waits at the end of the corridor, bound with iron. Sigils brighten as she approaches, and the door opens without her laying a hand on it.

  Inside, the dome stretches above her, carved with a precise map of the heavens. Gold stars move in slow, deliberate arcs against dark stone. The air feels steady. Focused. Like the whole room is holding its breath.

  At the centre stands the Starfire.