Chapter 3: The First Word
Two days passed in a blur of silence and missed meanings. Ash spent every free moment immersed in the wild, yet the language of the world remained just out of reach. Gwel never tired of the sport, peppering him with insults and vile names that Ash received with a quiet, growing "annoyance."
He felt besieged by voices. The wind chuckling through the canopy, the grass swaying with the weight of its own history, the creaking branches offering heavy wisdom—even the clouds seemed burdened with news of distant lands. Occasionally, he would nearly grasp the essence of a sound, but the moment he focused his intent, the magic dissolved. The wind returned to mere air; the clouds became nothing but tufts of white vapor.
"Hey! Devil incarnate!"
Ash brushed the forest floor from his clothes and stepped into the dim cabin. Gwel sat as she always did, rocking in her chair, her milky, near-blind eyes fixed on the hearth. Ash saw what she could not: the flames weren't just burning; they were speaking. For the first time, he felt a spark of genuine desire to understand.
"Yes, mistress?"
"Didn't I warn you? One more 'mistress' and I'll drown you in the cesspool."
"You said that two days ago."
"Two days ago..." Gwel's gaze drifted, turning inward. "She never came for the potion. The Queen has made her move; the game has begun." She gestured toward her staff leaning against the wall. "Take it. It's yours now. Get ready."
"For what?"
Gwel chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. She picked up a knife, her expression softening into something uncharacteristic. "Don't be angry for how I've treated you. I did what I could."
"I'm not angry."
"I know," she whispered hoarsely. "And that is the tragedy of you. How can you know joy without resentment? You're a boy who feels nothing." She looked at him with a flicker of hope—hoping she had raised a wizard, and not a hollow monster.
Suddenly, the air changed. Ash didn't see it, but he felt it—the metallic tang of iron on his tongue, the smell of copper, and the distant, hungry croak of a crow. It was a premonition, thick as smoke.
"Did you feel it?" Gwel asked, her voice a final benediction. "Good. I didn't waste my time. Goodbye, you demonic fiend. Go find a life that rots that inhuman heart of yours."
The door burst open. A man in his late twenties, eyes wild with a righteous, jagged rage, stormed in. He gripped a worn pitchfork, his knuckles white.
"Witch!" he screamed, spraying spittle. "You tried to kill my child!"
Gwel's laughter was sharp as glass. "You fool, it was your wife who wanted it dead!"
The man lunged. Ash watched, frozen in a strange stasis. Gwel began to hum, and the knives on the table shivered, rising into the air to defend their maker. But the villager was faster. He drove the rusted tines into her chest, piercing the heart that had spent eight years hardening in the woods.
As she fell, her black headscarf slipped. Silver hair spilled over her shoulders, and the firelight caught the glimmer of a slave's mark branded into her forehead. She had lived a servant to many, but her final mistress was Fate—the most merciless queen of all.
"Freak," the villager spat, wrenching the steel free. The animated knives clattered to the floor, dead weight.
Ash stared at the body. He waited for the sharp pain or the lump in the throat he'd heard described in stories. Nothing came. He looked at the corpse and felt only the same indifference he felt for a fallen log. To Ash, the line between life and death was a smudge he couldn't yet read.
The villager turned, leveling the bloodied pitchfork at Ash's throat. "And you... you're her homunculus. They'll pay well for the head of a bastard like you."
The firelight danced on the dirty steel. In that reflection, Ash felt a cold, phantom hand tighten around his windpipe. Death was no longer an abstract concept; it was the steel in front of him.
He raised Gwel's staff. Not out of grief, but out of a primitive refusal to end. He hadn't learned a single word yet. If he died now, he would be unable to follow the orders of the Gods, and following orders was the only thing he understood.
"Different colored eyes," the farmer mocked, stepping forward. "Damn freak."
The word hit differently this time. When Gwel said it, it was a hollow jab. From this man, it carried the weight of an execution.
Ash stared into the reflection of the fire on the pitchfork's blade. A sudden, searing heat flooded his veins, mimicking the rolling boil of a cauldron. His heart hammered against his ribs, fueled by a brand-new chemical: fury.
Just as the internal heat threatened to consume him, the world fell silent, and he heard it.
The Word.
It wasn't a sound made of letters or breath. It was the absolute essence of Fire—the roar that devours ancient forests and the gentle hum that keeps a traveler from freezing. It was heat, light, and hunger.
Ash opened himself to the flame. It licked at his skin, whispering its true name into his mind. He closed his eyes, let the power fill him to the brim, and spoke the syllable back to the world.
A scream tore through the cabin, so loud and agonizing it sent the birds screaming from the nearby trees. Long after the farmer was gone, the birds lingered in the canopy, gossiping in their own tongue about the young man who had finally learned the name of the fire.
The winds of change began to stir, and for the first time, the nameless world felt the heat of a new sun.