Too Bright

The first sign something was wrong came three days after the Brand. I woke to find my pillow smoldering.

Not burning, exactly. The fabric had developed a series of small scorch marks where my head had rested, each one glowing faintly with residual heat. When I touched them, they felt warm but not painful.

"That's new," I muttered, examining the damage in the morning light streaming through my window.

Downstairs, Karin was already at the stove, attempting what might charitably be called breakfast. Smoke rose from the pan in a way that suggested she'd discovered a new method of turning eggs into charcoal.

"Your cooking is getting worse," I observed, taking the spatula from her before she could inflict more damage on the food.

"My cooking is fine," she protested. "The stove is broken."

I glanced at the perfectly functional stove, then at the cremated remains in the pan. "Right. The stove."

Kaguya wandered in, already scribbling in a fresh notebook. She'd filled three since the Brand incident, documenting every change in my condition with the obsessiveness of someone who'd stumbled onto the discovery of a lifetime.

"Sleep well?" she asked without looking up from her notes.

"Apparently I'm setting things on fire in my sleep now," I said, flipping salvageable portions of egg onto a plate. "The pillow didn't appreciate it."

Her quill stopped moving. "Show me."

I led them upstairs to my room, where the pillow sat innocently on the bed, betrayed only by the constellation of burn marks across its surface.

Kaguya immediately pulled out her analytical lens, examining the damage with the intensity of someone studying ancient scripture. "Fascinating. The burn patterns suggest controlled release rather than random discharge. Your body is venting excess energy during sleep."

"Excess energy from what?" I asked.

"The Brand." Kaguya circled the bed, taking notes from multiple angles. "Your soul was rewritten to contain light, but human bodies weren't designed for this. The energy has to go somewhere."

She paused in her writing, looking at me with something that might have been concern. "Ken, are you feeling alright otherwise? Any headaches, dizziness, changes in appetite?"

"I'm fine, Kaguya. Same as always."

"That's what worries me," she muttered, then louder: "We should set up monitoring equipment. Temperature sensors around your sleeping area, maybe some of Father's old energy detection runes."

"So I'm going to burn down the clinic in my sleep?"

"Possibly," she said, but her usual cheerful tone was strained. "We should monitor this closely. Maybe move you to the basement until we understand the pattern."

"How the hell does Ulric manage this?" I muttered, then stopped. The memory hit me like cold water. Ulric's warning echoed in my mind: No one has survived it in over a century. The power consumed them eventually.

Maybe this was how it started. Little things. Burned pillows. Energy discharge during sleep. A gradual loss of control until...

"Precisely," Kaguya said, noticing my expression. "The compatibility factor doesn't apply to you since you're special. Your regeneration allows you to survive the Brand, but it also means the energy has nowhere to go. It just builds up."

Karin snorted. "Maybe the best way to release that energy is more sparring rounds? Let's go, Ken."

"Now?" I asked.

"Right now. You need to burn off that excess power, and I need to make sure you can still fight properly with your new abilities."

◇◇◇◇

Ten minutes later, we were in the small courtyard behind the clinic. Karin had strapped on her training gauntlets, the padded ones with blunted edges. I held my usual crowbars, though I wondered if they'd even be necessary anymore.

"Training gauntlets?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "What, worried about damaging your good ones?"

She paused in her stretching, then gave me a look I couldn't quite read. "Maybe I should use the real ones."

"Maybe you should."

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She unbuckled the training gauntlets and walked back into the clinic. When she emerged, she was wearing her combat gear, the ones with the razor edges and flame channels.

"Same rules as always," Karin said, rolling her shoulders. "No holding back."

She never held back. From our first training session, Karin had fought me like an equal.

She came at me fast, flame wreathing her fists as she aimed a right hook at my ribs. I blocked with the crowbar, feeling the impact jar up my arms. The force would have shattered bone in a normal person. With me, it just meant I'd be sore for the thirty seconds it took to heal.

I swung back, aiming for her shoulder. She ducked under the strike and swept my legs, sending me sprawling. Before I could recover, her boot was inches from my face, stopped only by my raised crowbar.

"Too slow," she said, backing off to let me stand. "You're thinking about your new power instead of the fight."

She was right. Part of my attention was on the light humming in my chest, wondering if it would activate automatically, if I could channel it through the crowbars like I had during the Brand ritual.

"Again," I said.

This time I focused purely on the physical fight. Crowbar work was about leverage and timing, using the tool's length and weight to create openings. I feinted high, then swept low, catching her ankle and sending her stumbling.

She recovered faster than I expected, spinning with the momentum to throw a backhand that caught me across the jaw. Fire flared from her gauntlet, burning away skin that immediately began regenerating.

I should have retaliated harder. Should have put real force behind my next strike, enough to give her the same kind of feedback she was giving me. But I couldn't quite do it.

Even knowing she was tough, even knowing she could take it, something in me always held back that final measure of strength. Maybe because she was Karin, and hurting her felt wrong in ways I didn't want to examine too closely.

She noticed, of course. She always did.

"You're still pulling your punches," she said, breathing hard but grinning. "What's the point of sparring if you won't hit me properly?"

"I hit you properly."

"You hit me carefully. There's a difference." She wiped sweat from her forehead, leaving a small streak of soot. "I can handle whatever you can dish out, Ken. You know that."

I did know that. Karin was one of the strongest people I'd ever met, physically and otherwise. She could take any hit I gave her and come back swinging harder. But knowing something and acting on it were different things.

"One more round," I said.

A knock at the front door interrupted our discussion. I went downstairs to find Reika standing on our doorstep, looking uncharacteristically nervous.

"Captain," I said, surprised. "What brings you by so early?"

"I need to talk to you," she said, glancing around as if checking for eavesdroppers. "About your new... abilities. There are people asking questions."

◇◇◇◇

We gathered in the kitchen, where Reika accepted a cup of tea but didn't drink it. Her usual composure had cracks in it, and she kept fidgeting with her uniform.

"The guild is calling it a miracle," she began. "Baron Wilhelm is telling everyone who'll listen that you cured plague corruption with a touch. Word is spreading fast."

"That's good, isn't it?" Karin asked. "Proof that Ken's methods work."

"It's complicated." Reika finally took a sip of tea, making a face at the temperature. "Some people are calling you blessed. Others are calling you dangerous. The council is split between wanting to study you and wanting to contain you."

I leaned back in my chair. "And what do you think?"

"I think you saved Wilhelm's life and probably a dozen others," she said firmly. "But I also think you need to be careful. Power makes people nervous, especially power they don't understand."

Kaguya looked up from her notes. "What kind of questions are they asking?"

"Where the power comes from. Whether it's contagious. If it has limits." Reika met my eyes. "Whether you're still human."

The kitchen fell silent except for the gentle bubble of the kettle on the stove.

"Am I?" I asked quietly. "Still human, I mean."

"You're still you," Karin said immediately. "You still make terrible jokes and burn breakfast."

"I don't burn breakfast. You burn breakfast."

"See? Still you."

Despite everything, I smiled. But the question lingered. The Brand had rewritten my soul. My regeneration worked differently now, faster and more complete. I was setting things on fire in my sleep. At what point did "enhanced human" become something else entirely?

"There's something else," Reika said, her voice dropping. "Two new Executors arrived in the city yesterday. They're asking specifically about you."

My blood went cold. "What kind of asking?"

"The kind that involves very sharp questions and very sharp blades," she said. "They want to meet with you. Today."

◇◇◇◇

The new Executors were waiting in the council chamber when we arrived.

The first was a petite woman with short-cropped blue hair and eyes like winter sky. She wore the traditional black leather of the Executors, but something about her seemed coiled, dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with her size. Blue flames danced lazily around her fingers as she examined her nails.

The second stood by the window, tall and elegant with silver-white hair that caught the morning light. Everything about her screamed predator, from the way she held herself to the calculating look she gave us when we entered. She was beautiful in the way a blade was beautiful: perfect, deadly, and designed to cut.

"Ken," the petite one said without preamble, her voice carrying a musical lilt that somehow made it more unsettling. "I'm Nia. This is Sable. We've heard interesting things about you."

Sable didn't speak, just continued studying us with those pale eyes. It felt like being examined by something that was deciding whether we were prey or merely inconvenience.

"Interesting how?" I asked.

Nia's blue flames flared briefly. "Divine light. Soul-deep modification. The kind of power that hasn't been seen in centuries." She tilted her head, smile sharp as glass. "The kind of power that tends to corrupt people."

"I'm not corrupt," I said.

"Of course not," Nia purred. "They never think they are. That's what makes corruption so delicious."

Sable finally spoke, her voice carrying the weight of winter. "Show us."

"Show you what?"

"The light," Sable said simply. "Prove you can control it."

I looked at the sisters, then at Reika, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Slowly, I raised my hand and let gentle radiance flow from my palm. Not the harsh, destructive light I'd used against the Sephis, but the warm, healing energy I'd discovered I could channel.

Nia's eyes lit up with something that might have been hunger. "Beautiful. And so controlled. Tell me, have you tried to see how much you can channel at once?"

"That's enough," Karin said firmly, stepping closer to me. "He's not a performing animal."

"No," Sable agreed, her gaze never leaving me. "He's something much more interesting."

The tension in the room was thick enough to cut. I could feel the sisters flanking me, ready for a fight despite the massive power difference. Reika's hand rested casually on her sword hilt.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

Nia's smile widened. "Nothing, for now. We're just... observing. Making sure the city's newest miracle doesn't become its newest disaster."

"And if I do?"

Sable's expression didn't change. "Then we'll handle it."

The threat was clear. I was being put on notice. One wrong step, one sign that my power was becoming problematic, and these two would step in to solve the problem permanently.

"Understood," I said.

Nia clapped her hands together, blue flames sparking. "Wonderful! I do so love clear communication. We'll be in touch, Ken. I'm sure we'll see each other again soon."

They left without another word, but I could feel their presence lingering like the memory of cold steel against skin.

"Well," Reika said after they were gone. "That was ominous."

"They wanted to intimidate me," I said.

"Did it work?" Karin asked.

I thought about Nia's hungry smile and Sable's predatory stillness. "Yeah. It worked."