---
The war came on a morning like any other.
Kaelen woke to gray light filtering through the leather flap, to the sound of his mother stirring broth, to the ordinary weight of another day in Ash Valley.
Nothing felt different.
Nothing was different.
And yet—as he sat up, as he rubbed sleep from his eyes, as he reached for his worn tunic—something cold settled in his stomach. Something that whispered today.
Stop it, he told himself. Nothing's going to happen. Nothing ever happens.
But the cold stayed.
---
The village was wrong.
Kaelen noticed it as soon as he stepped outside. The way adults walked—faster, heads down, not meeting each other's eyes. The way children stayed close to their huts, their games subdued, their laughter absent. The way the air itself felt thick, heavy, like before a storm.
Something's happened. Something's—
He started walking.
First to the sorting pits, where his father worked. But Harren saw him coming and turned away, his back a wall Kaelen couldn't climb.
"Father—"
"Go home."
"But I—"
"Go home."
The words snapped like dry wood. Kaelen flinched. Backed away. Turned.
He walked to the kiln yard, where Elder Venn usually sat. She was there, but her eyes were fixed on the mountain, her lips moving in words he couldn't hear. When he approached, she didn't look at him.
"Elder Venn? I—I w-w-wanted to ask—"
"Not now, child." Her voice was distant, hollow. "Not now."
He walked to the storehouses. To the cinder track. To the homes of families he barely knew. Everywhere, the same thing: adults who wouldn't meet his eyes, who waved him away, who spoke in whispers that stopped when he approached.
What's happening? What's wrong? Why won't anyone tell me?
He found Mina near the old storehouse. She was sitting alone, her knees drawn up, her face buried. When she heard his footsteps, she looked up—and for just a moment, he saw something raw in her eyes. Something terrified.
"Mina—"
"Go away, Kaelen."
"I j-just want to kn-know—"
"I said go away." Her voice cracked. "You don't—you shouldn't be here. Just—just stay home. Please."
She stood and walked away before he could respond.
He found Dorn next, near the practice grounds. The older boy was hitting a post with a stick, over and over, his face set in something that might have been anger or might have been fear. His knuckles were bleeding.
"D-Dorn?"
The stick stopped mid-swing. Dorn turned. His eyes were red.
"What do you want?"
"Wh-what's h-happening? Everyone's—everyone's a-acting strange, and n-nobody will t-tell me—"
Dorn laughed. It was an ugly sound, nothing like the mocking laughter Kaelen was used to.
"You really don't know? They really haven't told you?"
"T-told me what?"
Dorn stared at him for a long moment. Then his face hardened.
"Nothing. Forget it. Go home."
"Dorn—"
"Go home, stutter-boy." The old words, but they landed differently now—heavier, sadder. "Just... just stay inside. Please."
He turned back to the post and started hitting it again.
Kaelen stood there for a long moment, watching. Then he walked away.
---
He found Ruk near the river.
The bully was alone—no Dorn, no Mina, no audience. He sat on a rock, staring at the water, his shoulders slumped in a way Kaelen had never seen.
For a long moment, Kaelen just watched him.
He looks smaller, he thought. He looks... scared.
He stepped forward.
Ruk heard him. Turned. For just an instant, his face was open—young, terrified, real.
Then the mask slammed down.
"What do you want?"
"Everyone's—everyone's a-acting like s-something's wrong. Like s-something's going to h-happen. And n-nobody will t-tell me—"
"Nothing's wrong." Ruk's voice was flat. "Go away."
"You're l-lying. I can s-see it. You're all—"
Ruk stood. His hands curled into fists. But his eyes—his eyes were wet.
"I said go away, stutter-boy. You want to be useful? Stay home. Stay inside. Don't come out for anything. You understand?"
"I d-don't—"
"Do you understand?"
Kaelen stepped back. Nodded.
Ruk stared at him for a moment longer. Then he pushed past, shoulder-checking hard enough to send Kaelen stumbling, and walked away without looking back.
Kaelen watched him go. His shoulder ached. His chest ached worse.
What's happening? What are they hiding?
He found Mira last.
She was walking toward the village center, her pace quick, her face set in something Kaelen couldn't read. When she saw him, she stopped. Just for an instant.
"Mira—"
"I don't want to see your face, Kaelen."
The words hit like stones. He opened his mouth—to ask, to beg, to understand—but she kept going.
"Don't make me laugh again." Her voice was sharp, but her lips trembled as she spoke. "Get lost. And don't you dare show your face in front of us again."
She marched forward, past him, not stopping, not looking back.
The others followed—Ruk and Dorn and Mina, emerging from nowhere, falling into step behind her. They passed him without a word, without a glance, as if he were already ash.
Kaelen stood alone in the path, watching them go.
Why? he thought. Why are they—
But he knew.
They're protecting me. They're pushing me away because they're trying to protect me.
The realization didn't warm him. It made him colder.
Protect me from what?
He looked toward the mountain. Toward the smoke rising from its peak.
From whatever's coming.
He walked home with the cold in his chest and didn't look back.
---
The knights arrived at midday.
Kaelen didn't see them at first. He was in the hut, sitting in his corner, trying to make himself small. His mother had left hours ago—to help at the kiln, she'd said, but her eyes had said something else. His father hadn't come home at all.
Then the screaming started.
It came from the village center—high and thin and wrong. Kaelen's body knew before his mind did. He was on his feet, at the flap, peering out before he could tell himself to hide.
Smoke. Fire. Not the clean fire of the kiln, but something darker, thicker, hungrier. Huts burning. People running. And through it all, figures on horseback, dark against the flames, moving with a purpose that made his blood freeze.
The war, he thought. The war is here.
He should have run. Should have hidden. Should have done what everyone told him and stayed inside.
But his feet were already moving, carrying him toward the village center, toward the screams, toward them.
---
The world had become nightmare.
Huts that had stood for generations collapsed in sheets of flame. Bodies lay in the ash—people Kaelen had known his whole life, people who had smiled at him, ignored him, mocked him—now nothing but shapes in the smoke. The air itself seemed to scream, thick with heat and horror and the stench of burning flesh.
Knights moved through the chaos like gods of destruction. Their armor gleamed black and red in the firelight. Their swords moved in arcs that left nothing alive behind them. They didn't fight—they harvested, cutting down villagers who tried to run, who tried to fight, who fell to their knees and begged.
And among them, watching it all, a figure on a massive black horse.
The leader.
He wasn't fighting. He didn't need to. He sat mounted at the edge of the destruction, his helmet tucked under one arm, his face split by a smile that made Kaelen's stomach lurch.
He's enjoying this, he thought. He's—he's enjoying it.
The knight's eyes scanned the chaos, bored almost, like a man watching ants burn under glass. When they landed on the village elders—gathered near the kiln, making their last stand—the smile widened.
"Look at them," he called to his men, his voice carrying easily over the screams. "Look at these crawlers. These ants. They actually think they can fight."
His men laughed. The sound was worse than the screams.
Elder Morvath stepped forward. His hands raised—flame flickering around them, pathetic against the knight's armor.
"Goddess protect us," he whispered.
The knight laughed.
"Your goddess isn't here, old man. And even if she was—" He gestured, casual, dismissive. "She couldn't save you."
He nodded to one of his soldiers.
The soldier moved.
Elder Morvath fell.
Kaelen watched it happen from behind a collapsed hut, his hand pressed over his mouth, his body shaking so hard he thought he'd fly apart. He wanted to run. He wanted to scream. He wanted to do something.
But his legs wouldn't move.
I'm frozen, he thought. I'm frozen again. I'm watching them die and I can't—I can't—
A hand grabbed his arm.
He spun—
Ruk.
The bully's face was streaked with soot and tears, his eyes wild, his grip iron-tight.
"You're alive," Ruk breathed. "You're alive, you stupid—" He pulled Kaelen upright. "Run. Run. Don't look back. Don't stop. Just—"
"M-Mira—Dorn—"
"Running. Everyone's running. You need to—"
A crash behind them. Another hut collapsing. Ruk shoved Kaelen toward the path leading out of the village.
"Go! Follow the river! Don't stop for anything!"
"But you—"
"I'll find you. Just go."
Kaelen ran.
---
The path twisted between burning huts, through smoke so thick he couldn't breathe, past bodies he tried not to see. He ran until his lungs burned, until his legs screamed, until the world became nothing but movement and terror.
Behind him, the screams continued.
He didn't look back.
---
The river.
He reached it somehow—stumbled out of the smoke, fell to his knees on the bank, gasped for air that wasn't thick with death. The water hissed and steamed, too hot to touch, but it was different, it was away, it was—
Movement behind him.
He spun.
Ruk stumbled out of the smoke, dragging Mina. Her face was white, her eyes glassy, her lips moving in words that didn't sound. Behind them, Dorn half-carried Mira, whose leg left a trail of blood in the ash.
They collapsed on the riverbank, gasping, crying, alive.
Kaelen stared at them. Four children he'd known his whole life. Four children who'd mocked him, excluded him, pushed him away.
Four children who had just saved his life by telling him to run.
"M-Mira," he managed. "Your l-leg—"
She looked at him. Her eyes were empty.
"Doesn't matter," she whispered. "Nothing matters."
"We need to—" Ruk coughed, spat black. "We need to keep moving. They'll search—"
Another sound. From the smoke.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Measured. Coming closer.
Dorn was on his feet first, pushing Mina behind him, putting himself between the sound and the others. His hands shook, but he raised them anyway—flame flickering, weak, useless.
"Run," he said. "All of you. Run."
The figure emerged from the smoke.
It wasn't a knight.
It was a child. A boy Kaelen knew—barely, just a face in the crowd, someone who'd been there when Ruk mocked him, when the others laughed, when—
The boy's eyes were open. His mouth was open. His chest—
His chest wasn't moving.
He stumbled forward two steps, three, his body moving on something that wasn't life. Then he crumpled, and behind him, walking through the smoke as if it were morning mist, came the knight.
The same knight. The leader.
His smile was gone now. In its place was something worse—interest.
"Well, well," he said. "Little ants, running from the fire." His eyes moved over them, counting, assessing. "Five of you. Five little sparks, waiting to be snuffed."
Dorn's flame flickered brighter. "Stay back."
The knight laughed. "Or what, child? You'll burn me?" He spread his arms, inviting. "Go ahead. Show me what a crawler can do."
Dorn's face twisted. The flame in his hands grew—impossibly, impossibly—and for just a moment, Kaelen saw something like hope in his eyes.
Then the knight moved.
One step. One swing. One sound—wet, final, wrong.
Dorn fell.
His body hit the ash. His eyes found the others—found Kaelen—and his lips moved, forming words that took a lifetime to reach them.
"J-ju... run..."
Then nothing.
Mina screamed. A high, broken sound that went on and on. Mira grabbed her, pulled her, tried to move—
Ruk was already running toward the knight. His hands blazed—real fire, more than Kaelen had ever seen him make—and his face was something not quite human.
"RUK NO—"
The knight caught him with one hand. Lifted him. Looked at him like a curiosity.
"Brave," he said. "Stupid. But brave."
He threw.
Ruk hit a rock and didn't move.
---
Kaelen's world stopped.
He stood on the riverbank, watching his tormentors die. Watching the children who had made his life misery for as long as he could remember. Watching Dorn's body. Watching Ruk's stillness. Watching Mina cry and Mira bleed and the knight smile.
This is it, he thought. This is where we die.
But something else stirred in him. Something that had been growing for days, for weeks, for his whole miserable life.
No.
The word wasn't thought. It was felt—a pulse, a beat, a flame.
No.
Mina was frozen, her screams turned to whimpers, her eyes fixed on Dorn's body. Mira was trying to stand, her leg useless, her face gray with blood loss. The knight was already turning toward them, already raising his sword, already—
Kaelen's mouth opened.
"C-COME HERE!"
The shout tore from his throat, raw and broken and loud. His stutter fought him, twisted the words, but he didn't stop.
"C-COME TO M-M-ME! NOW!"
Mina's head snapped toward him. Mira's too. For just an instant, they stared at him—this boy they'd mocked, this boy they'd pushed away, this boy they'd tried to protect by hurting.
Then they moved.
Mina ran first, dragging Mira, half-carrying her across the ash. The knight's sword swept through the space where they'd been—missed by inches—and he turned, surprised, amused.
"Running?" He laughed. "Running won't—"
The ground shook.
Not from the knight. Not from the battle.
From behind them.
Kaelen looked past the knight, past the burning village, past everything he'd ever known.
The mountain was erupting.
A column of fire shot toward the sky—not smoke, not lava, but something purer, something that burned with a light that hurt to see. The ground shuddered. The air itself seemed to scream.
The knight turned. For the first time, his face showed something other than amusement.
"What—"
Mina reached Kaelen. Mira collapsed beside him. The three of them huddled together on the riverbank, watching the mountain burn, watching the sky turn orange, watching the knight's silhouette dark against the fire.
The goddess, Kaelen thought. The goddess is—
Then the world ended.
Not really. But it felt that way—the heat, the light, the sound of something ancient waking from a sleep too long. The knight stumbled, cursed, raised his sword—
And the mountain's fire reached for the sky and didn't stop.
Kaelen grabbed Mina's hand. Grabbed Mira's. Pulled them toward the river, toward the only escape he could see.
They ran.
Behind them, the knight screamed something—orders, curses, prayers—but the mountain's roar swallowed everything.
And as Kaelen ran, as he dragged two broken children toward a future he couldn't imagine, he felt something in his chest.
Not fire. Not yet.
But warmth.
---