They buried the girl twice.


Once in the ground,

and once in the records.


Neither worked.


Her name was Romi.


Born in a bloodless village tucked between two House borders, she was raised on borrowed stories and old maps that had no claim to her skin. No House crest. No sanctioned training.


And yet—


On the day she turned thirteen, the fire called her.


Not gently.

Not softly.


It cracked the ground beneath her and pulled a name from her throat that she’d never spoken before:


“Ire.”


No one had spoken that name aloud in years.


The House of Ire had been dissolved—publicly shamed, stripped of rank after their final heir was executed for blood treason and memory tampering. The last scroll bearing the name had been burned in the Sky Hall under full moonlight.


And yet, the mark on Romi’s shoulder—the one that appeared with flame—was unmistakable.


A spiral pierced by a blade.

The sigil of House Ire.


Her mother wept.


Not because she was afraid, but because she'd always known.


“They told us the line had ended,” she whispered. “They were wrong.”


Romi didn’t flinch.


“I don’t care what they ended. I want to know what they hid.”


That night, Romi walked into the old well at the edge of their village—where no flame ever stayed lit.


She brought no torch.


Only her hands.


And when she reached the bottom, the walls whispered back:


“If you carry Ire,

then you carry the truth they couldn’t kill.”