One day with Cerberus felt like I was being reforged. Not trained. Reforged—like metal beaten under the hammer of war until it screamed into shape.
My body ached constantly. My bones felt heavier, my breath harder to control. My flames—still wild—no longer lashed out randomly. They responded, if only just. I could hold a flame in my palm now. Shape it. Feel the heat without flinching.
But none of that compared to the weight that pressed down on Aria.
She tried to hide it. Said little. Moved with the same deadly grace. But something had shifted in her. Her eyes didn't rest. Her silences grew longer. Her blade stayed close even in sleep.
Something was coming. I could feel it in her silence.
And then one night, during a rare break in our training, I confronted Cerberus.
"I want you to push me harder."
He looked up from where he sat sharpening a jagged, rune-marked blade. "You sure? You're barely surviving now."
"I'm sure. Aria... something's wrong. I don't know what. But I need to be strong enough to face whatever it is."
Cerberus gave me a long, unreadable stare. His amber eyes flickered like torches studying a battlefield.
"Alright, Ashling," he said, rising to his full, mountainous height. "You asked for it. No more soft hands. Tomorrow, we break the leash."
He didn't explain what that meant.
But the next day, I bled more than I breathed.
He threw me into combat drills where flame alone wasn't enough. Forced me to fight blindfolded. Made me crawl across burning stones while controlling my power, lest I explode in a flash of golden death. He summoned nightmares from the ghostly hounds within him—illusions of Hell's beasts, testing my will against fear.
And every time I faltered, he shouted the same phrase:
"CONTROL THE FIRE, OR BECOME ITS ASH."
Later That Night – Aria's POV
Kai had fallen asleep on a pile of blankets near the far end of the station. His body was twitching with the aftershocks of pain, but his breathing was steady. For now.
Cerberus sat alone, cross-legged near a dying fire. He was staring into the embers as if they whispered secrets from an older time.
I approached quietly.
"He's changing," Cerberus said before I could speak. "Faster than I'd like. But not fast enough."
I folded my arms, leaning against a crumbled wall. "He has to be ready. You know that."
"You're not just talking about Hell's scouts anymore."
I looked down at the stone floor. "No. I'm not."
Cerberus's voice dropped. "Michael."
I nodded slowly.
"He gave me until the seventh moon. Then... I lose everything. My name. My memories. My soul."
Cerberus didn't speak. Just stared into the fire.
"They're scared," I continued. "Heaven and Hell both. Of what Kai could become. Of what he already is. If the balance tips, the war becomes something no realm can contain."
Cerberus clenched a fist, his knuckles popping like old firewood. "I fought in that war. Stood at the gates when angels fell like stars. When Lucifer cracked Heaven's sky. That was when I learned: no one wins a holy war."
I looked at Kai, his body rising and falling with each breath. "Then we have to stop this one before it begins."
"That boy carries more than flame," Cerberus said, almost in a growl. "He carries choice. The same one Lucifer made. The same one you ran from."
I met his eyes. "And if he chooses wrong?"
Cerberus stood, casting a long shadow across the firelight. "Then this world will burn. And I'll burn with it before I let them take him."
The fire cracked. The night held its breath.
And we both watched over the boy who might one day decide the fate of every realm.