Page 2 of Fated for Flames

But the memories remained, seared into my mind like a brand. The betrayal, the pain, the flames—they had been real. So how could I be back here, in my childhood bedroom, as if none of that had occurred?

It couldn’t be true.

This had to be another one of Miss Clarissa’s sadistic illusions, designed to torment me once more. Any moment now, the scene would dissolve and I’d find myself back in my prison, broken and bleeding.

But as the minutes ticked by and nothing changed, a small kernel of hope began to take root.

What if it wasn’t a trick? What if I— “It can’t be.”

A soft knock at my door startled me as I tugged the blanket to my chin as some sort of armor.

“Evelyn, are you alright?” asked a soft voice.

Without waiting for a response, the door creaked open. It was Sophie, standing there with a concerned crease in her brow. But that couldn’t be right; Sophie had moved out of the Coven estate last January and married. What was she doing here?

“I heard you scream. Is everything okay?”

I just stared for a moment before nodding. “It was just a nightmare.”

Sophie’s lips curled up in a kind smile before she quietly closed the door behind her, leaving as silently as she had appeared.

How was this even possible?

I remember dying. A sensation I’d never forget: the sharp, searing pain as dark magic had seeped into my veins, followed by the even more excruciating agony of the flames. As life drained from me, I searched their eyes for any sign of remorse or regret. Instead, I found only cold determination and a flicker of triumph. That realization stung more than the spell that ripped through me, tearing my soul from its mortal coil.

As I tried to make sense of everything and pinched myself to ensure this was real, a memory surfaced. When my body succumbed to the flames and I drifted into nothingness, I heard a voice in the darkness.

It offered me a choice, a chance to come back and alter the course of events, to right a profound wrong. It promised me a chance to rewrite my destiny.

In my desperation, I didn’t hesitate.

I seized it.

What did I have to lose?

I eagerly grabbed my phone from my bedside table. It took me a moment to register as I blinked at the time—twenty past four in the mourning—and then opened the calendar.

“Holy—” I gulped.

Rushing out of bed, I pulled the curtains aside. The sprawling gardens were bathed in moonlight casting shadows across the manicured lawns. In the distance, I could see the dark silhouette of the forest bordering the estate.

As I registered the night sky fading as the sun threatened to rise from the East, a chill ran through me with the memories of being dragged through those woods, the branches tearing at my skin, and cruel hands tying me to the pyre.

I jerked away from the window, my heart pounding, until the bed touched my legs and I could sit down. Looking at my phone, I checked my messages and the pictures that were taken the previous evening. I even went online to make sure that my phone wasn’t malfunctioning.

It couldn’t be true, could it? But there it was, the evidence and the date staring back at me.

It was the morning after the autumnal equinox celebration.

Exactly one year before my sacrifice.

Not only had I returned, but it was one year before my gruesome death. I was back in my childhood room as if I had merely awakened from a nightmare.

Yet, I knew what had happened. My best friend, Lia, and her mother, Morgana Thornwood, the matriarch of our coven—whom I had revered almost as a second mother—had burned me at the stake.

Why?

That was the main question they had never answered during my months of torture.

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