My girlfriend is trapped in my superpower

The dawn broke gray. No sunrise, no warmth—just a pale wash of light across the horizon, as though even the sky feared what was coming. The village stirred in quiet ripples, voices hushed, movements deliberate.

Men sharpened rusted blades until sparks kissed the stone. Women carried buckets of water to fill troughs and basins. Even children moved in lines, passing bundles of arrows, bundles far too heavy for their small arms. Every soul in this place carried the weight of a battle none of them were meant to fight.

I stood in the square, watching it unfold, the echo of last night's argument still clawing at me. Lyra's fire-bitten certainty. Mira's sharp fear. Both truths, both dangerous.

Bram appeared at my side, yawning loudly, though the dark circles under his eyes betrayed his sleepless night. "Gods, it's like they're prepping for a festival—except instead of ale and dancing, we've got, oh, I don't know… certain death."

Mira shot him a look sharp enough to cut. "Cheerful as always."

He shrugged, smirking faintly. "Hey, if I'm going to die, I'd rather go down laughing."

Lyra flickered into sight then, perched casually on the edge of a crumbling wall. Her hair burned faintly, defiant against the pale dawn. "Not death. Fire. There's a difference."

The villagers around us barely flinched at her presence anymore. They had accepted her as part of me, maybe part of themselves. But their eyes always came back to me—like a compass pulled to its true north.

I hated it. And yet… I needed it.

Selene appeared soon after, her cloak of shadows trailing behind her like a living thing. She moved through the villagers with a presence that commanded silence, and they gave it willingly. When she reached me, her gaze was steady, unblinking.

"They look to you," she said simply. "And you'll need to decide if you'll look back."

Her words fell like a weight in my chest.

The air was thick with the scrape of metal, the thud of wood, the whispered prayers of old men who could no longer lift blades but still carved runes into the dirt. The village breathed war, yet it was a breath of fear, not of valor.

I sat near the well, Mira at my side, sharpening a dagger she insisted on pressing into my hand. Her fingers brushed mine briefly, and the touch was grounding, but her eyes—gods, her eyes burned with something I couldn't name.

"They're children," she muttered, her voice sharp enough that only I could hear. Across the square, two boys were trying to string a bow too big for either of them, grunting with the effort. Mira's jaw tightened. "This isn't their fight."

I hesitated. "And if it comes here anyway?"

"Then we fight. We, Kael. Not them." She angled her body toward me, whispering fiercely. "Don't let Selene fill your head with destiny and seals and saviors. You're not their answer—you're a boy still bleeding from yesterday's wounds."

I flinched, the words cutting deeper than I expected. Mira saw it, and her hand softened on mine for a heartbeat, but her voice stayed hard. "I won't let them consume you."

Before I could respond, a flicker of light broke the corner of my vision. Lyra, lounging on the well's edge, smirked at Mira with all the sharpness of fire itself.

"Funny," Lyra drawled, her voice echoing faintly like embers crackling. "You talk about protecting him as though he's a fragile ember. But he's not. He's the flame that can end this. You think hiding him will save him? No, Mira. That will burn him out faster than any battle ever could."

Mira's head snapped up, eyes narrowing. "And letting him throw himself into the fire will save him?"

Lyra's smirk dimmed, her flame-hair rippling faintly as if stirred by a wind only she felt. "It's not about saving him. It's about letting him become what he is. Whether you like it or not, the boy's blood burns for this. That seal? That monster? It's tied to him. You can sharpen all the knives you want, but you're not the one the shadows bow to."

Silence stretched taut between them, heat and ice colliding.

I stood, the weight of their words pressing like stones in my chest. Around us, villagers kept working, unaware of the storm brewing in whispers and glances. My gaze swept the square—children carrying arrows, elders tracing wards, Selene watching me with a stare that refused to yield.

Everywhere I turned, there were expectations. Belief. Fear. I couldn't breathe.

The square's rhythm faltered. Mira's glare cut into Lyra, Lyra's flames curled sharper, and I stood trapped between them, too many words on my tongue and none strong enough to break the silence.

Then Selene's voice sliced through the air.

"Enough."

Her shadows rippled across the square, silencing even the hammering of nails and the thrum of bowstrings. Villagers stilled, their eyes turning to her as if some invisible command bound them.

She stepped forward, her cloak brushing the ground like a living nightfall. Her gaze swept from Mira to Lyra, then landed on me. "You argue as though this is about choice," she said, low and steady. "It is not. You cannot understand the weight you carry without knowing why the world put it on your shoulders."

Mira's jaw clenched. "Then explain it. Stop dangling riddles."

Selene's eyes glowed faintly, and for the first time since meeting her, I felt not her suspicion, not her cold authority, but something heavier. Grief.

"You want truth?" she whispered. Her shadows curled outward, encircling the well, the square, even the villagers who bowed their heads as if they already knew what was coming. "Then walk with me into it."

The darkness spread like a tide, not smothering, but wrapping—soft, inescapable. I tried to breathe, but the air shifted, thickened. The square vanished. Mira's hand jerked to her blade, Bram swore under his breath, Lyra narrowed her ember-eyes—but none of us could stop it.The world peeled back.

I was no longer in the village. I was standing in another time.

Stone towers cracked with shadow, fires burning against skies split by screams. Warriors cloaked in flame and others cloaked in shadow stood back to back, facing a monstrosity that writhed with mouths and claws, its form too vast to comprehend. The ground shook with every step it took, its roar a sound that felt older than time.

A woman stood at the front—hair like fire, eyes like mine. She raised her hands, and the world itself seemed to bend to her will. Beside her, another woman, wrapped in shadows, whispered words that made the monster tremble.

Selene's voice echoed through it all, though she was nowhere I could see. "Our line was forged here—in blood, in fire, in shadow. A covenant born of desperation. To seal the Devourer, to lock it beneath the bones of the world. But a seal is not forever. It weakens, always. And when it trembles… only those who carry the flame and the shadow can bind it again."

The vision flickered—bodies falling, flames guttering out, shadow-wielders collapsing into the dark. I stood there, heart pounding, unable to look away.

The vision did not relent. Flame and shadow clashed against the monstrosity, but even united, they faltered. The Devourer roared, its limbs tearing through battalions like grass before a storm. Its breath poisoned the air; its hunger bled into the earth itself.

I staggered, my body trembling though none of this was mine. I felt their terror. Their despair. And then—I felt their choice.

The woman of flame—the first bearer—dropped to her knees. Blood poured from her mouth, her fire sputtering like a candle in the wind. The shadow-wielder at her side grasped her hand, their powers entwining, but it wasn't enough.

Then—out of the abyss of destruction—a voice rose. Not human. Not of this world.

It was Lyra. But not as I knew her. She burned then like a star, colossal, terrifying, her laughter carrying across the battlefield like molten steel. Her body wasn't flesh—it was fire given thought, void given form. She was not bound to anyone, not then. She chose to appear.

The Devourer shrieked when it felt her. For the first time, it recoiled.

Selene's voice wrapped around me like chains. "The Voidflame was not ours. It was not meant for men or women, not for any mortal hand. It was born from the emptiness between stars, a hunger that devours and a fire that purifies. When all hope failed, our ancestors begged it for aid."

The vision twisted. I stood at the heart of the battlefield. The flame-bearer raised her head, blood on her lips, and screamed into the chaos, "HELP US!"

And Lyra answered. She descended like wildfire, her form splitting sky and ground alike. But her laughter dimmed when she saw the ruin. The pleading eyes. The children huddled behind crumbling walls.

The Devourer thundered forward again. Lyra's fire lashed back. But the Devourer was not a beast to be slain—it was hunger itself, endless, impossible. So Lyra turned, and instead of destroying, she forged.

Her voice, younger then, less mocking, but no less sharp, rang out: "I will bind myself to your line. My fire will burn in your blood, passed from heir to heir. But know this—you will not own me. I will burn who I wish, when I wish. This is not servitude. It is a pact."

The flame-woman bowed her head. "Anything. Just save them."

And so Lyra poured herself into them. Her fire twisted into their veins, mingling with shadow, forming a seal strong enough to cage the Devourer beneath the world.

The cost? The flame-bearer's body split apart in light, her life gone in an instant. The shadow-wielder screamed and collapsed, her hair bleaching white as her power drained.

But the seal held. And Lyra… shrank. Her vast, terrible form folded inward, piece by piece, until she was nothing more than a spark inside the surviving bloodline. Bound. Eternal.

My chest ached as the vision shifted. I turned—and saw Lyra as I knew her now, arms folded, smirk tugging at her lips. But her ember-eyes held something they never had before. Sadness. Resentment.

"Told you," she murmured, almost too soft to hear. "I'm not your gift, Kael. I'm your curse."

The vision dimmed. The battlefield blurred. Selene's voice carried through the smoke.

"And that is why they call you heir. Because you carry both—the flame and the bloodline to wield it. The seal weakens. And when it breaks, brother… the world will demand you pay the same price she did."