Varek:
Ariane stepped forward, slow and uncertain, as if each stride cost her something precious. A tether pulled at her—an unseen weight wrought with fear, of memory, of something darker.
The air thickened around her. A breathless hush cloaked the world as though nature held its tongue in anticipation of what would come. Magic whispered in the atmosphere, wild and watchful.
I did not move.
I watched as she lifted her trembling hand to the void, a solitary gesture against the backdrop of a storm long held at bay.
The fire came slowly at first, a flicker—small, tentative. A breath of flame caught in the stillness. But then it rose, and with it came the truth of her: the inferno, the untamed magic, the storm she had buried deep within her soul.
Flames coiled around her, not as tools o
