Title: The Bound Flame
Description: They burned her mother for speaking.

In Ashenwood, women are taught to lower their eyes, swallow their questions, and survive. Fire is controlled. Power is contained. And the symbol carved into the execution post is a reminder of what happens to those who refuse.

Theánthra has spent her life mastering silence.

But when ash begins to answer her touch and the forest remembers what the village tried to erase, she realizes the truth is more dangerous than obedience.

The flame was never meant to be bound.

And neither was she.