My girlfriend is trapped in my superpower

Kael

Sareth's words hung in my skull long after he left.

No answers. Just vague riddles dressed as wisdom. "Some truths cannot be given, Kael… they must be earned."*What kind of truth was worth this much silence? What kind of heritage weighed so heavily that even a man like him refused to spit it out?

I sat alone by the dying embers of the training grounds, sweat still clinging to my back, and for the first time since the Devourer, I felt small. Smaller than the flames I carried. Smaller than the whispers chasing me through the village.

The boy with cursed fire.

The savior of the girl.

The monster in waiting.

I'd heard them all, even when people thought I wasn't listening. Some bowed their heads when I passed, some spat to the ground. My fists tightened against my knees. I wanted to scream. I wanted someone to look me in the eyes and tell me who the hell I was supposed to be.

"Sulking doesn't suit you."

Lyra's voice cut through the night like a blade, smug and velvet-soft at the same time.

I didn't turn, though I felt her presence flare inside me, heat curling through my chest. "I'm not sulking," I muttered.

"Yes, you are." Her laugh was low, mocking. "Sitting alone, brooding, fists clenched, staring at flames like they'll cough up answers. It's adorable, really."

I scowled, pressing a hand against my temple. "You're impossible."

"And you're predictable." She stretched the word out, savoring it. Then her tone shifted, softer, almost sharp. "You asked for answers. Did you really expect him to hand them to you like bread at a market?"

My silence was answer enough.

Lyra leaned closer—or maybe it was just my mind letting her—but I could almost feel her lips brush my ear. "You already know, Kael. It burns inside you. That blood, that fire… it doesn't come from nothing. You're not a mistake. You're not an orphan abandoned out of pity. You're the spark of something greater. Something dangerous."

Her words were poison and balm at once.

"And what if I don't want it?" I asked, the whisper torn from me before I could stop it.

Lyra laughed. Not cruelly. Not kindly either. Just… knowingly. "It doesn't matter what you want. Fate doesn't ask for permission. You were born to burn. Born to be hunted. Born to be remembered."

I swallowed hard, the weight of her voice pressing against the already heavy silence.

"You'll see soon enough," she added, fading back into the corners of my mind. "The world doesn't care for your doubts. It only cares what you'll do when it bows—or when it burns."

The fire crackled low at my feet. I stared at it, seeing shadows in the embers, shapes that felt like faces I should know but didn't. For the first time, I was afraid not of the monsters outside—but of the blood inside.

Sleep didn't come easy. When it finally did, it came like falling into water—heavy, suffocating, dragging me down.

Darkness stretched in every direction, thick and endless. But I wasn't alone.

A flicker of light moved in the distance. Not flame—something softer, colder, like a lantern swaying in the wind. I followed it without meaning to, each step swallowed by shadows. The deeper I went, the louder the whispers became.

Kael…

The voice wasn't Lyra's. It wasn't mine. It was… familiar, though I couldn't place it.

The lantern-light bent, and suddenly I wasn't standing in a void anymore. I was in a village—ancient, quiet, its houses carved from stone and lit with faint blue fire. Children ran barefoot through the streets, laughing, their eyes glowing faintly with something I recognized. Something like mine. At the center of it all stood a girl.

She stood on a balcony overlooking the village, hair dark as midnight, eyes like silver moons. She raised her hand and the air itself bent to her will. Not fire. Not heat. Something else—something colder, sharper. Like starlight carved into blades.

The villagers looked at her with awe, the same way the people here looked at me with fear.

Selene.

The name ripped through my mind unbidden, heavy with meaning I didn't understand.

"Cute, isn't it?" Lyra's voice drifted through the dream, half-laugh, half-sigh. She appeared beside me, though I wasn't sure if it was really her or just my mind painting her in. She tilted her head, eyes glowing with mischief. "Little miss moonlight, practicing like a good girl while her brother is out here playing clueless."

My chest tightened. "Brother…?"

Lyra's grin widened, sharp and secretive. "Oh, I shouldn't spoil it. But doesn't it sting? Knowing there's someone out there carrying the same cursed blood, maybe even stronger than you? And you've been here, bumbling through training while she's been… waiting."

"Waiting for what?" I demanded, but my voice cracked like it didn't belong to me.

Lyra leaned close, lips brushing my ear as the dream flickered around us. "For you, Kael. For the fire to meet the moon. For the bloodline to awaken."

The image of the girl blurred, fading into smoke. But her silver eyes lingered, burning in my mind longer than the flames ever had.

Then the shadows shifted, twisting into something else. A figure cloaked in darkness, its face hidden but its voice echoing like thunder.

If he fails… the seal breaks.

Then the dream collapsed.

I shot up in bed, sweat cold against my skin, heart hammering like I'd run for miles. Lyra was quiet in my head for once, like even she didn't want to touch what I'd just seen.

But the words still burned.

Brother. Bloodline. Seal… Collapse?

Somehow, I could still feel those silver eyes staring back at me.

After that dream, I couldn't sleep again. My body lay still, but my mind was a battlefield.

Selene. A sister? A name that felt branded into me.

Lyra's words slithered like smoke: "fire meets moonlight… the bloodline awakens."

I sat up slowly, my fingers curling in the sheets like they could anchor me. The room was suffocating, air thick with shadows that pressed in from the corners. I thought of Sareth's vague answers earlier—his carefully measured tone, the way he looked at me like I was something he wanted to protect… or something he was afraid to break open too soon.

I whispered into the dark. "Why do I feel like everyone knows more about me than I do?"

Silence. Lyra didn't answer. That was worse than her usual sarcasm.

The walls of my room felt too close, too heavy, so I slipped out. The night air was sharp when it touched my skin, carrying the faint scent of pine and smoldered firewood. The village slept restlessly; I could hear its breath, the creaks of houses, the distant shuffle of livestock in their pens.

I walked. Slowly at first, then with a restless urgency. My boots crunched against gravel, each sound too loud in the stillness. People here had called me a hero. Others had called me a demon. Neither word sat right in my chest.

The dream clawed at me still. The girl. Selene. My blood—was it really cursed, or chosen? And if she was real, what kind of life had she lived while I stumbled through mine, blind?

Brother? The word hurt. It hurt like a wound I didn't know I had. I didn't even notice where my feet carried me until I heard them. Voices. Low, urgent.

I froze in the shadows between two homes, heart slamming against my ribs.

"…unstable," Master Korran's gravelly voice muttered. "You saw what he did to the Devourer. That kind of power—no vessel holds it without cost. He'll break."

Corvin's smoother voice followed, laced with something colder. "Which is why we don't wait for him to break. We find the pressure point and apply it. The girl inside him—Lyra. She's the key. Extract her, and the boy is nothing but a shell of fire waiting to be used."

My blood iced over. I leaned closer, careful not to breathe.

Korran exhaled sharply. "You'd tear the spirit from him? Do you have any idea what that would—"

"Spare me the morality lecture," Corvin snapped. "You felt it. That flame isn't his alone. It belongs to a bloodline long thought extinct, a bloodline that makes monsters crawl from the dark. If we don't control it, someone else will. And then the world burns."

I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms. So that was it. Not just fear—they wanted control. They wanted me.

Before I could slip away, another sound drew my attention. Footsteps. Not the Masters this time—lighter, sharper. I turned my head and caught a glimpse of a figure moving through the far edge of the square. Cloaked. Familiar.

Sareth.

He wasn't with them. He was leaving. No… sneaking. His pace was too precise, his head turning just enough to check shadows as though he expected to be followed.

I pressed back into the wall, breath caught in my throat.

My mind spun. Sareth had claimed to be an ally, a mentor. He'd spoken of my bloodline like it was both gift and curse, but always with that frustrating vagueness. Now he was slipping away in the dead of night, his cloak swallowing him in silence.

Do I follow him? My heart pounded. Every instinct screamed yes. But another voice—Lyra's—finally stirred in my head, soft but cutting.

"Well, well. Seems our new friend has secrets. How tragic, Kael—you're not the only liar in this village."

Her laugh was low, almost tender, but laced with mockery.

I stood there in the dark, torn between too many truths. The Masters plotting to rip Lyra from me. A stranger who arrived like salvation but walked like a thief. A sister I'd never known, haunting my dreams with silver eyes.

And me… Well I am caught in the middle, fire in my veins and no clear path forward. I exhaled shakily, my breath clouding in the cold night.

"I'm going to tear apart every secret you're all hiding from me," I muttered to no one, to everyone. "One way or another."

But even as I said it, my stomach twisted. Because deep down, I already knew—whatever I uncovered next wouldn't be something I could walk away from.