'A single spark' must be a common Tía phrase, for Fiesi wasn't the first to speak those words to me. The memory hits me at this moment, a flickering arrow dug into my heart, as the heated fleck of my flame falls.

They fade in as mist around me. A tree supporting my back. My mother's shadow cast over me as she leans, arm looped with a low-hanging branch, smiling laugh just out of view. My father's face fills the spots of sunshine. The olive hue of his skin appears washed-out, greyed, like he was real before and is now only a mirror's echo, a reanimation of ashes.

His eyes, however, remain their bright purple form, however warped they might be behind his glinting spectacles. Right before my nose, a flame dances. His, not mine.

"By its nature," he says, his voice soft as leaves on the wind, "a Tía's flame does not burn. It exists as a raw form of power, meant to shield and create peace. You will strive to be peaceful, Noli?"

I nod eagerly, chin bobbing up and down. "Like, be nice?"

When he smiles, a crinkle forms in the corners of his eyes, lifting them so that cheer glimmers within their endless flames. "Exactly. Be as nice as you can possibly be."

"But not too nice," my mother chips in. I glance up to see her arms crossed, her head tilted in that mischievous way that makes me giggle. "Too nice makes you a wimp."

She shrugs to finish her words; my father is glaring at her already. When I grasp his gaze, though, it softens again, viewed through the growing haze of the violet flame balanced atop his finger. "Nice will do perfectly for now," he says. "Now, as I was attempting to teach, flame is made for peace, but that doesn't mean it hasn't the capability to harm. Quite the opposite, actually. When circumstances deem it necessary, we only need a single spark to start a blaze."

I see it hop upward from his lit fingertip, a smouldering flake of purple that refuses to fade as it drifts in a slow, mesmerising arc. When it hits skin again, a bold flush of amber roars to life, devouring the violet flame within the moment and glowing all the brighter. Its heat washes over my face like a scattered, scalding splash of water, and I gasp, flinching backward. Awe snags my heart's beat. The fire licks over each of my father's drifting fingers as if they are stepping stones, leaving no mark behind save a puffed trail of smoke.

"O mikik óurhara o imegk."

The sauntering wave of his voice, spoken with careful reverence, like each graceful slide of one syllable into another is a precious jewel to be cradled, steals my attention. The words he speaks are utterly foreign, but they awake a distant stirring of familiarity in my core. An old, old language. He's mentioned it before.

"The small make the big," he adds. "If you are to translate it in a literal sense. The meaning beneath is more tender." He closes his fingers over his warm flame, his eyes oddly stern, like he sees through the veil of time I dip into -- or maybe simply into my soul. Fear wanders darkly into his expression, fear I didn't see at the time but now feel as a shake in my bones. "One spark may catch upon the winds of change for the better, but equally, it only takes that same spark to light the path to destruction."

He spoke from experience. Those words were a warning I was too young to understand, and one I am now far, far too lost to listen to. All I can wonder, when the spark hits the carpeted floor of Oscensi's throne room, is whether he ever imagined the two might collide.

A bout of destruction lit for the greater good. Is there such a thing?

I doubt it. It's vengeance I taste, flecks of coppery blood on my teeth, storming embers brewing in the pit of my stomach, as I wrench heat into the waiting air.

The fire spreads quickly. It draws a sharp horseshoe around me, blazing up searingly bright at each point it catches, then ripples outward in waves. A shout of surprise echoes from the outer regions. I whirl in a hurry, hands outstretched to the point of strain in my arms as I search through the wild smudges of orange.

It's too difficult to see, and I haven't the time nor the energy to force the fire to waver. "Go!" I yell, praying they obey and get as far from me as possible. I don't need anyone else caught in the crossfire. My rage is for Shaula alone.

Her goading laughter loops around me, hissing within the flames as her chill settles. Clenching my jaw, I turn to face her, warmth soaking through me like the drip of a sponge as I force my power to fight back. Smoke clouds thickly in the air, itching in my lungs. The back of my neck flushes red-hot. If there are any other voices, they are drowned out by the snapping crackle of the flames, as if each flicker has words to speak of its own, chattered amongst the blaze in a tongue too harsh and clipped to be understood by anyone human.

I feel the boiling anger regardless, stirred up and wearing claws, tearing strips of paint from this crumbling castle's walls as a growl rumbles in my throat. I will silence that laugh if it's the last thing I do.

That fierce soul again, Shaula murmurs, a smile echoing through her voice. Your brutality is delightful. Her head bends, snout angled towards me, her tongue winding out to taste the dirtied air.

Spears of ice lodge into the core of my flames, driving a wall between my power and hers. Shadows roam in the lines between her scales. They shine, awfully untouched.

I like you, she adds. I truly do, Noli. It is a pity I will have to kill you.

A cold fist thumps into my stomach -- imagined, but aching nonetheless -- and I gasp, inhaling ash. My feet skid backward. I throw up my hands, pushing back with all my might until my lungs clear and warmth kisses my skin again. My heart thrashes. Dark droplets seep through the crack in my courage, a patter of stinging rain, inducing doubt.

My father said this was all based on superstition, on myth. What if he was wrong? What if this suicide quest is worth nothing?

My breathing quickens. It isn't just Sarielle and Fiesi and everyone else I've grown to love that Shaula will wipe out if I fail. It is this entire world. This beautiful, boundless world and its thousands of people, ordinary and special and everything in between. This place of snowfalls and sunshine and rolling hills and sparkling ocean. Little yellow flowers and great green forests, all fragile and alive. I love this world, and I will not let it fall to ruin, whatever the stories say. If the past decrees my failure, then I will defy it.

Maybe that makes me some kind of hero, but I hardly care. The distinction matters little.

Shaula will die.

Heat roils in the air, born of malice and snapping its teeth. My flames inch forward. Shaula hisses, reeling backward, her tail lifting to shift side to side in annoyance. I meet her inky gaze evenly.

It does not have to end this way, she says. I am content to give you another chance. We can still be partners, you and I.

"I don't want any of your chances," I snap.

Do you not recall the night of the storm?

The memory darkens my frown, wrinkles my nose. Freezing wind and rain presses up against me, stinging my cheeks and invoking tiny pinpricks of fear, though I know the air to be hot and dry as raw bone. The smooth, clammy cold of Edita's hand laces with mine. A truth I'd already begun to unlock swings wide open, slamming into me hard and sharp in its corners. When I look again at Shaula, I see the full emptiness of her black, soulless eyes, and see they match perfectly with the ghostly girl I trailed after for all those days. It was always Shaula. Every misstep, every mistake and coaxing voice off the path of safe security. I made my choices, but she was the dark cracks in my veins, the guiding little whisper that held me so softly, so heartlessly.

Did you not love me then? she presses. I loved you, Noli. I still can. There is so much I can give to you, so much more than your human friends.

She grinds out the word human as if it is dirty, foreign and devoid of belonging. The deathly taste of Edita's corpse-like lips rises to my mouth, soft with a bitter wrongness and perfectly numbing, and I feel only disgust. Saliva pools in my mouth, and I spit on the carpet.

She snarls. I bare my teeth in return, sure there's a snake of my own uncoiling from within the depths of my core, rearing up, hissing through a row of venomous fangs. "You've only ever manipulated me."

I step forward, and the fire surges with me, great fists that pummel the air with a roaring crescendo. Hungry flames crawl across the charred floor and lick at her scales. She squirms, body shifting in that unreal, warped way, but there's nowhere for her to go. The corner of this room, the brick and stone and mortar of this castle, trap her in. This structure crafted by magicless hands she tried to claim now seeks to consume her. I can't help but feel a dim flicker of satisfaction at the irony of that.

A rumbling creak bounces through the haze of smoke. It competes with the flood of noise howling in my ears, and so impossible to assign to the region above me or the one below. Perhaps both.

Do you not realise that it was the feeble Cormé you defend that first brought destruction to this place? Shaula's voice drips with all of its usual sly, sweetened confidence, but there's a chink in it now, a dribble of desperation that slurs one word into another as she speeds up the rate at which she speaks. I merely followed a death they themselves created.

Something tightens, mixes, in my stomach at that thought. That clash of white and navy, the unceasing hatred and conflict I saw in so many eyes without cause, all crammed under the label of war, has only served to pain me. I've seen countless hurt and dozens of deaths justified by a simple choosing of sides. That never had never had anything to do with Shaula or the realm of the Tía, but still I glare, chipping away the wriggling splinter her voice has caused before it digs in too deep. She won't sway my thoughts again.

"Their crimes don't excuse yours," I say. The floor quivers beneath my feet as the castle groans.

She ignores me, pursuing her point. Our deaths will make little difference. There will always be hate and fear and violence. I feel a brush of cold slip around my neck, a gentle, thumbing pressure lifting my chin, like a corpse's hand cradles my face. This world is broken, my brutal child. Our only choice is to be a victim of the chaos or to seize its reins and take control.

I swat away the ring of cold. Purple flames engulf my palm as I do so, eating through the chill and filling me with pure, easy warmth. To hold the reins of chaos may be what I've chosen to do at this moment, but I dare not even tread that path of thought for fear of finding truth in her bold statement. In truth, control is no longer mine regardless. It trickles through my fingers with every second that passes, streaming and pooling at my feet as sweat beads at the back of my neck. The fire runs wild, intent on its own pursuit of ruin. Even my own slim ring of protection shrinks inward.

This room teeters on the brink of collapse. I have little time left. Despite it all, my heart squirms, swollen with a pressing fear.

Thrusting my hands forward, I delve into the courage of the blaze, the rage that lies deeper in my soul, and touch upon my response. My voice grinds together, cracking as much as the castle bricks. "But if there's always hate, then there will always be good, brave people with the strength to combat it. Someone may rise to replace you, but there will be an army of righteousness and honour to defeat them, too. There are always heroes."

You believe in heroes? Shaula asks. Amusement ties ribbons around her voice. She scents my fear, and she thinks it means something. She's wrong.

The ground at my feet cracks. Charred, rotting fabric finds my nose, a lingering promise.

I take in a sharp breath, then hold it, determined not to cough just yet. My teeth dig into my tongue. Do I believe? I've heard tell, or felt within my company and amid the world I've travelled, of that rolling cycle. All the tales Sarielle told were illustrated the same way. No matter the circumstance, the generation, the magic, there were always heroes and villains, saviours and monsters, light and shadow. It's a balance, of sorts. I've always felt as if I stood on a rocking plank, one that tipped this way and that, dipped into each side without full understanding of either. Now, the words filter through numbly.

I survey Shaula, every clacking scale forced together to form the bulging curves of her, her many, many loops all cast in the harsh light of my fire. It seems to swarm around her, feasting on her. Huddled into that corner, inky eyes narrow and reflectionless, she looks somewhat lonely. A tinge of sadness pulls at my chest.

"No," I say, my voice dropping surprisingly soft. "Death doesn't care what we label ourselves. It comes for us all, eventually."

A wavering moan drifts through the castle, swaying this way and that as the dull sound of rock breaking apart bounces off each crumbling wall. Crevasses fork far and wide in every direction from the place Shaula sits, spreading like the creased lines of a map, each destination bathed in fire. Her black eyes peel wide as her head swivels towards me. Noli--

My arms drop to my sides. "That's not my name."

The floor cracks open, and she falls.

I'm not ready for her to scream. It's a horribly shrill sound, one that slits the air with the power of a thousand scattering blades, cresting over the roar of the flames around me and dragging razored claws through the centre of every thought. My fists curl so tightly they ache, toes curling at the twisting, slithering discomfort that dives into every pore, but stay rooted firmly to the spot. I have to watch. I can look at nothing else as the fractures in the once-pristine white room tear themselves open, and a shower of rubble drag Shaula into the dark depths of a pit.

It isn't a void, not really. Darkness clouds there, a frenzied swamp oozing from her in hope of protection, but she has no easy way to channel the power in this form. It can't save her, not when my own flame has torn into the chinks in her armour already. The thud when she hits the floor below, smashing straight through the thick partition before she lands hard upon foundational ground, resonates through the entire castle. Everything shivers.

Chunks of rock are quick to bury her, lodged in her body and flattening her tail as dark rivers of blood soak all shine from her corrupted scales. My flames, lost in the chaos and still pulsing with my own imbued hatred, follows her. Where every falling ember lands, it razes right through the cracks between her scales, sinking in teeth and ripping her apart. She crumbles, folding inward, her screams dropping out as if plunged underwater. She becomes a series of craters, a bloodied mess, then puddles of ashes, soot drifting idly upon windless currents as even the blood dries up. Bile stings the back of my throat, but still I don't look away. All life is to be sapped from her until nothing remains.

Even when the last scale has become dust and her fangs have melted to whitened cinders, the fire does not cease its feast. It rages aimlessly, destroying all it touches, and the final drop of control slides easily from my clenched fist. I feel it slide cooly between my fingers, lingering upon my skin before it drips away. What was once a contented, furious burn in my stomach becomes an inferno, the thin pinch of clean air wrapped around me snaps to pieces, and I taste searing pain.

Weakness rocks through me in stormy waves, quick to scrape away any serene element there might be to my victory. Backlit by smudges of warmth, I pitch forward.

My knees hit the ground hard. The impact jolts, shoving out the last breath I might ever take. The chasm I tore open in the floor gapes at me, mere inches from my face. My hands claw at its jagged edge, sharp slats of wood and stone cutting into my palms until blood sticks my fingers together. Sweat coats my skin in a slickened layer, eating into my flesh. Maybe I've been dipped in hot oil. Maybe the air has teeth now, and it chews the skin from my bones. Painful tears stream from my eyes, and I squeeze them shut, but they continue to sting.

This is it, then. Finally, this is the end.

My body is desperate not to admit it. My lungs scream and beg, and I thump a fist against my stomach, doubling over as a rasping cough wracks my chest. Breaths wheeze in and out, bringing more agony than relief. Each one tastes of metal, like the point of a sword, one wrestled down, down my throat as sharp ends cut all the way along until it plunges into the centre of my chest. It's worse than drowning, somehow. The water was cruel, but it had a softer touch, wet fingers that gently prised the oxygen from my lungs until I forgot the urge to need it. Fire is different. Even as my creation, the fire mocks me, cackling in my ears and giggling at my weakness, ravaging my flesh as if it takes pleasure in tearing me apart. My skin feels like dripping paper.

Somehow, I roll onto my back, clutching at my awfully heavy chest as I force my eyes to crack open. I won't die blind. Through the boiling heat haze shimmering amid smoke-clogged air, there is a faint tendril of sunlight, one I have to squint to latch onto. It filters from far, far above, from a caved-in crack in the ceiling where panels are slowly peeling themselves away.

An entire world lies between me and that chink of open air, but still something is kindled within me at the sight of it. The drab winter sky is as pure and blue as a sheet of diamonds. It smiles at me, touches my cheek with soft, loving fingers. Maybe the world I love so much has some fondness for me in return.

Maybe. It hardly matters now.

A sigh drifts loose, and I realise I can breathe.

The air rushes out and back in all at once, dizzying enough to stick its meddling hands in and stir up the orange-hued mix of fire and distant whites and blues until it all swims in meaningless circles. My head pounds. Caught in a whirlwind of confusion, I lift a trembling hand to press to my temples.

Instead, my palm brushes skin.

Thin, wrinkling flesh over lumps of hard bone. The feather-light brush of rawness, of my own clinging sweat touching strange, blissful cold. Those imagined fingers belong to someone real. My stomach flips, twisting and tripping over itself, and I flinch sharply enough to bang my head on the ground. Stars spiral before my eyes as I sit bolt upright, lungs heaving and still full of sickening bitterness, limbs so fragile and so unbearably shaky I fear I'll slip right off the ground and into thin air, like this is one plane of existence colliding with another. It all spins.

My hand slaps against my cheek, shielding it lest it be touched again. I'm sure it takes hours before I stop drifting and find a kind of anchor in the scorched strips of carpet laid over rotting wood beneath me. Awareness comes as a shock, and the first thing I sense is the churning, hideous sensation of my own charred flesh. My hand shifts to clap over my mouth as my stomach heaves. Another film of tears bars me from seeing. I blink them away, eyes equally ablaze.

Locked in my grimace and the simple desire to stay conscious, it takes me a long time before I make out his face. The moment I do, however, it all clicks into place.

The forest air returns, a sweeping gust of drizzle and bone-chilling damp. An unceasing rattle tremors my small bones. In this image, I'm ragged: a collection of hard wires hugged by tight skin, dirt and sodden cloth clinging to me like mould, cinched from all sides by crawling decay. At some point I became seven years old, or eight, or one hundred; I'm beyond the solace of numbers. All that keeps me trudging on is the syrupy voice in my head, and the scent of living meat on the air. Dried blood sticks to dryer lips. I gnaw at it with blunt teeth, immune to its copper taste.

Then he appears. The man, tall and towering over me, slipping easily from the shadows as if he is one himself. A dark hood shades his face. Feral hunger is the first to respond, rumbling through me as a starved, strung-together beast until it rises to my throat as an animalistic growl. Icy darkness curls from my fingers and readies to pounce.

His hood peels back, revealing a face streaked with raindrops and dim green eyes. Sorrow curls the edges of his lips. Suddenly, I lose the will to move. Thought and feeling drains away as if my skull leaks, trickling it all out onto the grass at my feet, and pain is swept along with the tide. Soothing hollowness settles in its place, matching to that dark, swirling look in the man's gaze I can't tear my eyes from.

The memory breaks abruptly, like shattering glass, crumpling into burning sheets that the flames of the present chew at and cast away. The green eyes remain.

Harlow.

He kneels at my side, his complexion ashen and swarmed by smoke. His gaze is soft and empty. He stares, and I stare back, choking on my own disbelief. A veil shimmers over us both, tinging the beaten-back flames in faintest emerald and encasing in a small bubble of cool, fresh air.

Is he saving me? After everything?

My first instinct is to jerk away, to fight it, but some echo of self-preservation -- or more likely the trembling, fragile fatigue weighing me down -- keeps me sitting there, stunned. Tiny, gentle strings of violet flame tickle the screaming wounds driven into my flesh, carefully knitting my skin back together. I'm a strange, aching patchwork, painfully half-alive. It takes a long time before I'm able to formulate my initial, panicked rejection into something of rational thought.

"You can't." My voice is hoarse and cracked, but somehow there. It's still taxing to breathe. "I have to die. I must pay the price of a life."

He holds my gaze. His silence is a curled fist around my throat, and I see what he intends.

One, wavering word breaks free. "Why?"

"You're Mayci's son," he says simply.

I shake my head, my brow furrowing. That can't be it. After the continued passage of our back-and-forth, after all he's put me through, he can't just say that and make it all okay. Love isn't that strong.

Is it? A bitter laugh climbs to my throat, limp and scraping like rock. I wince, swallowing a lump of ash. The flames rage around us, flushing my face and itching in my burns, but I don't look away from him. "It really was all about protecting me?"

His lips quirk, one half of a smile formed of languid amusement. "You still speak of protection like it's your sworn enemy." He sits back on his heels. His spine presses up against the edge of his domed barrier, the edge of his sagging hood and black tunic licked at by the very tips of the flames' claws, though he doesn't so much as flinch. "You remind me too much of my younger self, Nathaniel. Don't become me."

His hand lifts in a flurry of twitching fingers. I sense the pull of magic as a tug in my gut, laced with a sudden, shocking leash of fear that strangles, wrenching a gasp into my aching lungs. My arm slides, fingertips reaching towards him. "Harlow--"

I'm likely too late for him to even hear. The veil shrinks inward, casting him in a harsh flood of firelight as his own shield is sapped away. His head tilts back, his eyes sliding closed. When the flames engulf him, he's as stiff as he always is, a hollow piece of timber to be devoured by heat and smoke.

Hot sparks singe my outstretched fingertips, and I yank my hand back towards me, cradling it. Despite all the hateful thoughts I've had for Harlow, the nights and days in which I've dreamed of his death, I find myself twisting away, unwilling to watch him burn. My hand rises to cover my nose and mouth. I breathe shallowly into my palm, eyes cinching shut. The fire's chattering fizz keeps me company. It's muted, pulled back to a plunging distance, enough that I can no longer sense its delight.

Its satisfaction settles, eventually, though I don't particularly notice its dimming light. I do feel, however, the second at which Harlow dies. His barrier flickers, cracks of heat seeping in, then collapses as if whisked away on the wind. Purple smudges the edges of my half-lidded vision as my flames coat my arms, shying close to my healing burns in feeble protection. The flickers are soft, their gestures washed with hesitance, but they try. Gratitude wraps my chest for their presence, though it's short-lived.

My flame shields me from the worst of the heat, but it can't fight smoke.

I heave another cough, retching at the awful taste sucked up my nostrils, sticking to my throat. My shoulder presses against the splintered, broken floor as I curl into a tight, choking ball. Red embers float through my vision, dancing upon a backdrop of ruin. Far away, a chunk of the ceiling falls, crashing into the throne. The pure white marble has long since cracked.

Pain squirms amid my insides. My fingers find my collar, tug it up over my mouth, but it helps very little. I told them not to come back for me. Any additional sacrifice was worthless. I'll die here anyway, and now I'll die utterly alone.

My eyes flutter shut. Safe, secure darkness awaits behind them, as eager to snatch me away as ever, but still I'm not prepared for the fall.

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

You know you might've put your boy through a little too much when he starts comparing burning to drowning as methods of death. Pls my boy stop dying. Find a new hobby.

Although I guess if he dies for good, that's the end of it all :3

- Pup