Smoke lingered in the cool night air. The ruins of Lord Baelen's manor still smoldered, occasional flames licking at collapsed beams before dying out. Nothing moved among the destruction. Nothing lived.
Calder knelt in the courtyard, clothes reduced to charred rags. His skin remained unmarked despite the inferno that had consumed everything else. Even the stones beneath him had partially melted, creating a shallow crater that radiated outward from where he had held his sister's body.
Her remains were gone. Reduced to ash along with everyone else. Nobles and servants alike had burned in the explosion of crimson fire that had erupted from his core.
He should feel something. Guilt. Horror. Satisfaction. Instead, a terrible emptiness filled him where the flames had been.
"What have I done?" he whispered, staring at his hands as if they belonged to someone else.
The distant sound of galloping horses jolted him from his stupor. Torches approached along the main road, accompanied by shouting. News of the manor's destruction had reached the nearest town.
Survival instinct overcame shock. Calder stood on unsteady legs and ran toward the surrounding forest. Each step carried him further from the only home he had ever known, leaving blackened footprints that faded with distance.
The dense woodland swallowed him. Branches tore at his face and exposed skin as he pushed deeper into territory locals avoided. Stories claimed these woods were haunted by spirits of those executed for magical crimes.
Let them haunt me then, he thought bitterly. I've earned their company.
He ran until his legs gave out. Collapsing beside a small stream, Calder caught sight of his reflection in the moonlit water and recoiled.
His face remained the same, but his eyes now held flecks of amber that seemed to glow from within. More disturbing was the raised mark on his chest, visible through the tatters of his shirt.
A sigil burned into his flesh, not by external flame but something from within. Complex whorls and sharp angles formed a pattern he had seen only in forbidden texts glimpsed in Lord Baelen's library. The mark of Ignis.
"No," he whispered, clawing at the brand as if he could tear it away.
The sound of snapping twigs froze him mid-motion. Someone approached through the underbrush, moving with surprising stealth despite the darkness.
Calder pressed himself against the damp earth, praying to gods he'd never believed in that whoever hunted these woods would pass him by.
"Might as well stand up, boy," a gruff voice called from the shadows. "If I meant you harm, you'd be bleeding already."
A man stepped into the small clearing. Tall and broad-shouldered, with a weathered face framed by a salt-and-pepper beard. He carried a hunting bow casually in one hand, no arrow nocked but clearly ready to draw in an instant.
"Name's Thorne," the hunter continued when Calder remained frozen. "And you're the only survivor of whatever happened at Baelen's place. Question is, are you victim or cause?"
Calder slowly rose to his feet, mind racing through possible lies. His tattered clothing and obvious flight marked him as suspicious at best.
"I'm just a servant," he said, voice hoarse from smoke and screaming he couldn't remember. "Something happened with the kitchen fires. I ran when it spread."
Thorne's eyes narrowed. "Kitchen fire. Interesting explanation for what looks like a battlefield from half a league away."
The hunter approached, stopping a cautious distance from Calder. His gaze dropped to the exposed sigil on Calder's chest.
"Even more interesting mark you've got there," he observed with deceptive casualness. "Not the kind that comes from ordinary flames."
Calder's hand instinctively moved to cover the brand. Too late.
"I don't know what you mean," he stammered.
Thorne snorted. "Save your lies for the Inquisitors, boy. They'll be here by dawn once word spreads. You've got more pressing concerns if you plan to live until sunrise."
"Are you turning me in?" Calder asked, muscles tensing to run though he knew the hunter could easily put an arrow in his back.
To his surprise, Thorne laughed. The sound held no humor.
"If I handed over everyone with secrets in these woods, I'd have no time for actual hunting." He gestured toward the west. "My cabin's an hour's walk that way. You look like you could use a meal and proper clothes before deciding your next move."
Suspicion warred with desperation in Calder's mind. "Why would you help me?"
Thorne's expression hardened. "Maybe I have my reasons for disliking Baelen and his kind. Maybe I recognize the look of someone who's lost everything. Or maybe I'm leading you into a trap."
He turned and began walking away. "Your choice. Follow or don't."
Calder hesitated only briefly before falling into step behind the hunter. Death might await at the end of this path, but it certainly awaited if he remained alone in the forest.
They walked in silence through increasingly dense woodland. Thorne moved with the confidence of someone intimately familiar with the terrain, occasionally pausing to check tracks or listen to night sounds incomprehensible to Calder's untrained ears.
"We're being followed," the hunter announced casually after one such pause. "Three men, trying to be stealthy and failing."
Calder's heart hammered against his ribs. "Inquisitors?"
"Bounty hunters, more likely. Too soon for official pursuit." Thorne changed direction slightly. "There's a hollow ridge ahead. Good place for an ambush if you're the ambusher, bad place to walk into if you're not."
Calder's mind raced, spurred by the urgency in Thorne's tone. As they approached the ridge, he felt the burden of power awaken within him, hot and raw, an instinct he was already beginning to half-understand.
"You ever fought before, boy?" Thorne asked, not bothering to look back.
Calder opened his mouth, hesitated, then nodded. A handful of brawls as a child didn't count, but something deep in him yearned to embrace the flames that had once consumed everything he held dear.
"Good," Thorne grunted as they crested the ridge, revealing a small grove where the trees formed a natural barricade. "They'll underestimate you. Use that."
As if on cue, shadows moved at the edge of the clearing. Three figures emerged, their intent clear in the way they held their weapons—daggers gleaming in the pale moonlight. Their eyes fixated on Calder, laced with greed and an ominous hunger.
"Look what we have here," one of them sneered, a wiry man with crooked teeth. "A little bird just flew from its nest. And a hunter too. How quaint."
Thorne unslung his bow, fingers deftly finding an arrow. "Back off, boys. You're outclassed. I'll offer you one chance to walk away."
The leader snickered, "Is that so? I'd like to see just how outclassed we are."
Calder felt the pulse of heat swelling within him, rising just as the tension escalated. The sigil on his chest throbbed, pulling at his focus. A surge of flame whispered through his veins, fierce and demanding. The decision to unleash it hummed along his skin.
"Now!" Thorne barked.
Before Calder could think through his hesitation, the world erupted in a conflagration of fire erupting from his hands. Bright and blinding, it shot forth, consuming the grass and igniting the air with crackling energy. The intensity washed over him. There was something liberating about it—a sense of control, the knowledge that he could harness destruction at will.
The first bounty hunter shrieked, stumbling backward, singed and wide-eyed, while Thorne nocked another arrow, shooting true, piercing the second man's shoulder.
Calder watched, shock mixing with a strange euphoria as the flame engulfed their leader, reducing him to silence amidst the crackling inferno. The smell of charred flesh filled the air, sickeningly sweet and acrid.
Thorne approached the last remaining bounty hunter, who lay on the ground, clutching his bleeding shoulder.