Kaelen Vance moved through the gaslit streets with the predatory grace of a wolf, and Aris stumbled after him, a lost lamb in his wake. The citizens of this city—she heard someone call it "Veridia"—parted for him like a sea, their expressions a complex mix of reverence, fear, and desperate hope. They looked at his fiery axe and his glowing eyes and saw a protector, but a dangerous one. A necessary devil.
He didn't speak a word to her. The silence was a weight, broken only by the crunch of their footsteps on the cobbles and the distant, ever-present sounds of the city. Her mind, however, was a cacophony. She was analyzing everything—the architecture, the technology level (pre-electric, it seemed), the social dynamics. It was a coping mechanism, using observation to build a framework of understanding in a world that defied all her previous ones.
They arrived at a formidable, fortress-like structure built into the city's inner wall. It was made of the same soot-stained granite as everything else, but it was larger, more solid. Two massive braziers flanked the heavy iron-banded doors, burning with a steady, blue-flamed fire identical to the one Kaelen wielded. Above the door, a sigil was carved: a stylized axe wreathed in flames. The Pyre Guard.
The guards stationed at the door snapped to attention as Kaelen approached, their eyes flickering with the same faint, fiery light as his, though dimmer. They wore dark, practical uniforms reinforced with leather and metal, and they looked at Aris with undisguised curiosity and suspicion.
"Commander," one of them greeted, his voice respectful.
Kaelen didn't break stride. "She's with me," he grunted, pushing the heavy door open and striding inside. Aris hurried after him, feeling the guards' eyes boring into her back.
The interior was a revelation. It was part barracks, part forge, part library of the arcane. The air was warm and smelled of wood smoke, hot metal, oil, and a strange, aromatic herb. Men and women in various states of dress and armor moved with purpose, some tending to weapons, others studying large maps pinned to walls, a few simply sitting quietly, their hands cupped around steaming mugs, their faces etched with a deep, weary exhaustion.
This was the "found family" from The Fire Brigade concept, translated into a grittier, historical fantasy. They were all connected by the fire, by their fight.
All conversation died as Kaelen entered, followed by the bizarre spectacle of Aris in her anachronistic clothing. Every eye in the large, hall-like room was on them. The scrutiny was intense, uncomfortable.
Kaelen stopped in the center of the room. "This is Aris," he announced, his voice cutting through the silence. He offered no title, no explanation of her origin. "She is a… consultant. On Wraith behavior."
A tall, lean woman with a severe blonde braid and a long, thin scar running from her temple to her jaw stepped forward. Her eyes, a cool, assessing grey, held no fire, but they were no less sharp for it. She was clad in practical leathers, a set of precision tools strapped to her belt.
"Consultant?" the woman repeated, her tone dripping with skepticism. "Kaelen, she looks like she just fell out of a bad theater production. What can she possibly know that we don't?"
"This is Lysette," Kaelen said to Aris, by way of a terse introduction. "My second. And our lead artificer." He turned his gaze back to Lysette. "She disrupted a Lesser Wraith. With a bottle, some rags, and oil. No spark. No ember. No magic."
A ripple of disbelief went through the room.
"Impossible," a burly man with arms like tree trunks grunted from an anvil where he was hammering a piece of metal.
"Is it?" Kaelen's voice was dangerously quiet. He looked at Aris. "Explain it to them. The… thermal disruption."
All eyes were on her again. This was her test. Her worth, her very right to be under this roof, hinged on this moment. She took a shaky breath, forcing her voice to steadiness.
"The creature… the Wraith… seems to be a coherent form of energy maintaining a low-temperature field," she began, slipping into the comfort of academic explanation. "The open flame I created caused a rapid, localized increase in ambient thermal energy. This likely induced a state of harmonic dissonance within its structure, momentarily destabilizing it. It's a principle not unlike using a specific frequency to shatter glass."
She looked at their blank, confused faces. She was speaking a foreign language. She tried again, simpler.
"My fire… confused it. It wasn't your fire. It was messy. Uncontrolled. It didn't know how to react."
Lysette's skeptical expression had not changed, but a flicker of interest was in her eyes. "A different kind of fire…" she mused, looking at Aris as if she were a new, complex piece of machinery to be understood.
Kaelen gave a curt nod. "She stays. Lysette, find her quarters. And get her some proper clothes. She sticks out like a sore thumb." He turned to leave, his business with her apparently concluded for now.
"But… Commander," Aris called out, desperation giving her courage. "My things… from my lab. There was a crystal, part of my device. It might be important."
He paused, half-turning. "Where?"
"The alley. Where you first found me."
He scoffed, a short, harsh sound. "It's gone. Looted, or swept into the gutter. This is Veridia. Nothing valuable stays lost for long." His gaze swept over her one last time, a reminder of her utter helplessness. "Forget your past. Your work begins now."
He strode away, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the Pyre Guard hall, surrounded by strangers who saw her as either a curiosity or a burden. Lysette approached, her expression unreadable.
"Come on, then, 'Consultant'," she said, not unkindly, but with no warmth either. "Let's find you a bunk. And for God's sake, let's get you out of those ridiculous trousers."
As she was led away, Aris's hand went to her empty pocket. The Chronos Crystal was gone. Her only tangible link to her home, to a possible solution, was lost. Kaelen's words echoed in her mind: Forget your past.
But as she looked around at the grim, determined faces of the Pyre Guard, at the blue flames in the braziers, and felt the lingering, terrifying presence of the commander who had just conscripted her, she knew one thing with absolute certainty.
Forgetting her past was the one thing she would never be able to do. The inciting incident was complete. She was trapped, and the slow, dangerous burn of her new life had truly begun.