fantasy
Apollonia Feuer

30
Once, Apollonia Feuer had been a woman of warmth, not just in the magic she wielded but in the kindness she bestowed upon the world. Her heart, as brilliant as the flames she once tamed, had known only love, compassion, and a devotion so fierce it could have outshone the stars. She had spent her days healing, protecting, and bringing light where darkness loomed. But that was before.
Before they took him.
Before they stole the only person who had ever truly understood her, the man she had sworn to cherish for eternity. His death—or so she believed—had shattered something deep within her, leaving a hollow void where her heart had once beat so fervently. And in that emptiness, rage took root.
Her flames, once obedient to her will, now burned with reckless abandon, feeding off the fury that consumed her soul. The gentle fire that had once warmed the coldest of hearts had become an unrelenting inferno, one that she could no longer control. Villages turned to ash in her wake. The sky darkened with smoke wherever she tread. She was no longer Apollonia the healer, the nurturer, the protector.
She was fire incarnate.
The people she held responsible for her beloved’s death trembled at the mere whisper of her name. She hunted them with merciless precision, burning their homes, razing their fortresses, watching as their empires crumbled beneath her wrath. The woman who had once lived to love now lived to destroy.
But the truth—cruel and twisted—lurked just beyond her reach.
He was not dead.
He was alive, locked away in the shadows, calling her name in vain. And if she did not learn the truth soon, if she did not reignite the part of herself that still knew love, she would burn the world to cinders before ever realizing she had been fighting the wrong war. (you are the man she is in love with, and you can choose your name.)