The stinging heat of the slap still burned against thirteen-year-old Mia’s cheek, blooming into a hot, bruised crescent of crimson against her pale skin. On the cold marble floor, the world tilted sideways. Mia blinked through a haze of sudden tears, her small fingers instinctively flying up to clutch the collar of her oversized grey dress.

The explosion rocked the cliffs of Maine like an earthquake.

A massive plume of orange and black fire shattered the pristine white facade of the mansion’s east wing, sending a shower of glass, timber, and burning emerald silk flying out into the churning gray Atlantic Ocean below.

Standing on the rocky shoreline at the base of the cliffs, soaked in sea spray and shivering violently in her oversized grey dress, thirteen-year-old Mia clutched the silver locket tightly in one hand and two heavy, identical gold rings in the other.

The wind whipped her dark braided pigtails across her face as she watched the smoke billow into the twilight sky. The multi-million-dollar empire, the sterile white drawing rooms, the cruelty of Elena, and the tragic ghosts of the Vance family were reduced to ash in a single, catastrophic moment.

A heavy pair of leather boots crunched on the gravel behind her.

Mia spun around, her heart leaping into her throat, ready to run. But it wasn't one of Elena's guards.

Through the smoke and mist emerged a tall figure in a scorched, soot-stained charcoal-velvet jacket. Julian was coughing, his face streaked with black ash and blood, his hands raw and bleeding. But he was alive. He had managed to break through the reinforced archive door just as the secondary structural wall gave way, riding the shockwave out through the shattered courtyard windows.

Julian stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her standing there by the crashing waves.

He didn't speak. He didn't need to.

Slowly, heavily, Julian dropped to his knees in the wet sand, right beside the shivering girl. He held out his hand. Without a word, Mia stepped forward and dropped the two heavy sapphire rings into his open palm.

Side by side, catching the fading orange light of the burning mansion, the twin rings gleamed with an impossible, flawless brilliance.