The fire never came back that morning. No matter how hard I tried—nothing.
Hand out.
Focus.
Silence.
Still nothing.
But that one moment… it wasn't a dream. I know what I felt. The warmth, the pull, the way the fire listened. It was real. Too real to forget.
And if it was real… then I needed answers.
I couldn't ask Marda. She'd lose it. If she even thought I was messing with magic, she'd probably turn me in. Everyone feared anything that wasn't normal. Especially Alchemy. The word alone could get your head chopped off.
So I did the only thing I could. I waited until night.
When the village slept, I grabbed my cloak, slipped past Marda's door, and made my way through the dark. Cold bit my fingers. The moon was full, but clouds covered most of it. Even the stars looked scared.
I crept across the muddy paths to the one place nobody really went anymore—the old chapel near the edge of the woods.
It used to be a library. Ages ago. Before the war between the races, before humans started burning books instead of reading them. Now it was just an empty, broken place full of spiders and secrets.
Perfect.
I pushed the door open. The wood creaked like it hadn't moved in years. Dust swirled around me as I stepped inside. Moonlight slipped through the cracks in the roof, just enough for me to see the wrecked shelves and half-rotten books.
I didn't know what I was looking for… but I knew I'd know it when I saw it.
Took me about an hour of coughing through dust and flipping pages of useless old farming logs, fairy tales, and old prayers.
Then I found it.
A small book, leather-bound and nearly falling apart. No title on the cover. Just a symbol on the front—a circle, with four smaller circles inside, and something that looked like a flame in the center.
My heart jumped.
I opened it.
And there it was.
"Alchemy is not just fire. It is balance. Earth, water, air, fire—four elements, one will. One touch. One soul."
The words made my skin tingle. The pages spoke of things I'd never heard before—Transmutation. Channeling. Element marks. Spirit bonds. All stuff the world said didn't exist anymore.
But here it was.
And if this book survived… maybe more did.
Maybe others like me existed too.
That thought hit different.
I wasn't just some weird kid who could make fire by accident. I was something the world feared. A piece of a legend. A spark in a land that tried to kill all the light.
I shut the book, shoved it under my cloak, and crept back home like a thief.
But I wasn't stealing.
I was taking back what was mine.