The Thirteenth Ember - Chapter 22: Chapter 22

The ridge was quiet now.
Only smoke remained.
Kael leaned against the stone wall, watching Aeryn bandage the cut on her shoulder. He wanted to speak — to say something soft, something normal. But nothing in him felt calm.
She was alive. That was enough.
For now.
“I’m fine,” she said before he could ask.
He smirked, but didn’t smile. “You don’t have to lie.”
“I’m not,” she said, tightening the bandage. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to stop hiding. Getting cut in a fight like that?” She looked at him. “That felt real.”
He stared at her for a moment. “You are terrifying sometimes.”
“And you like it.”
He didn’t deny it.
Oryn called from the chamber entrance. “Something’s coming.”
Aeryn turned sharply. “More Ashbinders?”
Oryn shook his head. “No. Just one.”
She arrived with no escort. No fanfare.
She didn’t need it.
Her ivory robes were untouched by smoke. Her hair, the same silver-black as Aeryn’s, was tied in a flame-knot — the mark of a high judge within the Order. Her presence burned colder than steel.
She stopped twenty paces from the threshold and folded her hands.
“Aeryn,” she said.
Kael stepped forward instinctively. Aeryn didn’t let him.
“I’ll talk to her.”
He hesitated. Then nodded.
She walked alone to meet the woman who had raised her — trained her — lied to her.
“Why are you here?” Aeryn asked.
Her mother’s gaze didn’t waver. “To offer you clarity. Before it’s too late.”
“You sent assassins.”
“I sent answers,” her mother replied. “And I see you still don’t know who you are.”
“I know exactly who I am now.”
Her mother looked toward the sanctuary, toward Kael.
“You think this bond you’ve formed is destiny,”
she said quietly. “But it’s not. It’s a trap. One we set.”
Aeryn blinked. “What?”
The older woman stepped closer. “You weren’t just born with the ember. You were bred for it. Selected. Aligned. Prepared since the day you took your first breath.”
Aeryn’s voice dropped. “Prepared for what?”
“To break the Thirteenth.”
The words landed like stone.
“What are you saying?”
“You think love grew naturally between you,” her mother said. “It didn’t. We made sure you’d find him. We manipulated your paths. We left pieces of the prophecy in your way. You were meant to feel chosen. Meant to believe you were saving him.”
Aeryn’s breath caught. “You’re lying.”
Her mother’s eyes — dark, unreadable — softened.
“I’m not proud of it. But I never stopped trying to protect you.”
Kael had stepped forward now. His voice was like stone splitting.
“So what was I, then?”
Her gaze shifted to him. “You were the hammer. She was the silence.”
Aeryn staggered.
Kael caught her.
“No,” she whispered. “It wasn’t fake. What we feel—”
Her mother interrupted, voice cool. “It was engineered. And now, it’s too strong. You’re no longer the solution.”
She raised her hand.
From the mist behind her, a group of new soldiers emerged — their armor gleaming with mirrorstone, immune to fire.
Ashbinders were fire.
These were Nullborn.
Kael pulled Aeryn back.
But her eyes never left her mother’s.
“You used me,” she said.
“I made you, Aeryn.”
Aeryn raised her hand — flame rising.
Kael did too.
Their powers surged together — but stopped at the threshold.
Because Aeryn’s mother had stepped inside it.
And her final words were not shouted — they were whispered:
“If you burn me now, you prove I was right.”