The sun hadn't climbed far when Elira and Kesh reached the edge of the meadow.
Past it, trees bent low like old men whispering secrets. Their trunks were pale, their bark peeling like paper. Moss clung to their sides, soft and green, and the air smelled faintly of smoke.
Elira stopped. Kesh did too.
"Do you feel that?" he asked.
Elira nodded. "Something's burning."
They stepped carefully beneath the trees. With every footfall, the forest seemed to lean closer. Birds didn't sing. No leaves rustled. The quiet pressed around them like a blanket that didn't want to be lifted.
Then came the crackle.
Like fire, but different. Not hungry. Not wild.
Controlled.
Elira crept forward, parting the branches until she saw it.
A girl.
She sat alone in a clearing, surrounded by a perfect circle of flame. It danced without spreading, rising in little blue tongues from the earth. Her skin glowed gold like honey, her hair white like new snow. Her eyes were closed, but her fingers moved, slow and careful, like she was weaving something only she could see.
Kesh stepped forward.
"No," Elira whispered, grabbing his arm. "Wait."
As if she'd heard, the girl's eyes opened.
And just like that, the fire vanished.
Not with a puff or a hiss. It blinked out, like it had never been there.
The girl stood slowly, her gaze fixed on Elira. Her voice, when it came, was soft but clear.
"You called me."
Elira frowned. "No, I didn't. I mean, I don't think I did."
"Yes," the girl said, stepping closer. "I felt it. You didn't use words, but I heard it anyway. A pull. Like something deep inside me knew where to go."
Kesh looked between them. "You're... like us?"
The girl's face didn't change. "Not like you. But not unlike you either."
Elira gave a small smile. "I'm Elira. This is Kesh."
The girl hesitated, then said, "My name is Myn."
She reached out her hand, not in greeting, but toward Elira's chest, hovering inches away.
"You carry something," Myn said. "Something old."
Elira took a step back. "I don't know what you mean."
But Myn wasn't looking at her anymore. Her eyes had gone distant, like she was listening to someone far away.
"The First Fire," she whispered. "They buried it in silence. But now it's waking."
"What's the First Fire?" Kesh asked.
Myn blinked, and her gaze returned to them. "It was the fire that made the world move. The one that gave light to the first creature who dared to speak."
"Magic?" Elira asked.
"No," Myn said. "Older than that."
They walked together after that, following no path except the one that felt right.
Myn didn't talk much. But when she did, she said strange things, about lights in the water that told stories, about mountains that once walked, about a door that only opened if you cried while laughing.
Elira didn't understand most of it, but it didn't scare her. Not the way it used to. Something about being with others made the world feel less like it was trying to swallow her whole.
Night crept in like ink, slow and cold.
They stopped at a hollow near a crooked tree. Kesh gathered sticks. Myn lit a small fire with a blink of her eyes. Elira sat and watched the flames curl upward.
"I still don't understand why people are coming to me," she said. "I didn't do anything."
Kesh poked at the fire with a stick. "Maybe that's exactly why. You're not trying to be something. You just... are."
Myn looked at her. "Fire doesn't need to try. It just burns."
Elira shook her head. "But I don't burn. I'm just a girl."
"No," said a voice in the dark.
They all jumped.
From the shadows stepped a figure, wrapped in gray cloth. His face was hidden beneath a hood, but his voice was calm and low.
"You're not just a girl, Elira Gray."
"Who are you?" Kesh asked, standing quickly.
The figure raised his hands. "Not an enemy. A Watcher."
"A what?"
"I watch the ones who matter. I've been waiting."
Elira frowned. "For me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because when the First Fire wakes, the world will burn again. And only the one it answers to can shape that fire."
Elira stood. "I don't want that. I didn't ask for it."
"Neither did the fire," the Watcher said. "But it's here. And it listens to you."
Elira shook her head. "There must be a mistake."
But the Watcher stepped closer. "Do you want to see?"
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
The Watcher reached into his cloak and drew out a tiny glass flame. It flickered, even though there was no wind.
He held it toward her. "Touch it."
Elira looked to Kesh, to Myn. They didn't stop her.
Her fingers brushed the flame.
It didn't burn.
It sang.
A sound like a thousand voices whispering the same name. Her name.
Elira.
Elira.
Elira.
She gasped and pulled back. The flame went out.
But inside her, something had lit.
Not a fire of destruction.
A fire of belonging.
The Watcher nodded. "You have three now. There will be more. The others will find you."
"Then what?" she asked.
"Then you begin."
The Watcher stepped back into the shadows and vanished like smoke.
Silence returned. The fire cracked gently.
Elira didn't speak. Neither did Kesh or Myn.
But in her chest, she felt it.
The First Fire.
And it was
waiting.
To be continued in Chapter Three: The Ash-Bound Oath