Cinders Lit

It took only a handful of seconds to get out of the apartment building, but by that point any pretense of subtlety was gone. Gerred tore headlong down the street, shoving people aside without hesitation, heedless of the yelps of protests this received. He clutched the keystone to his chest like it was a precious child, and was even slightly hunched over it. Ash sprinted after him, often bumping into the same people all over again. If Gerred had started it, she figured she may as well.

Thankfully, Ash had two advantages in the chase. First, Gerred’s line of work rarely called for athleticism, whereas Ash needed to move to survive. Second, although he was an adult, the dwarf was nonetheless roughly the same height as Ash. Without a larger stride, he could rely only on his own speed, and Ash had him beat there. Thus, it was a matter of moments before Ash caught up to Gerred, and tackled him.

She was nowhere near big enough to actually bring the dwarf to the ground, of course, but the impact at least brought him to a stop. The keystone slipped from his grip, hit the street with a dull thud, and rolled to a stop in the cobblestones a few feet away. The moment he recovered, Gerred scooped it up and made to run.

“Gerred, wait!” Ash shouted, holding out her hands as if that would calm the man down. “What is going on here? Who were those people?”

“You shouldn’t have gotten involved with this, girl. You seemed like a decent one, but they’ll never let anyone else have the stone.”

A small crowd began to form around the Ash and Gerred as a handful of people stopped to investigate the commotion. Although these people were watching out of little more than idle curiosity, but Gerred’s eyes flicked between them, Ash, and nothing in particular. He held the keystone tight, as if it were the most important thing in the world.

“I don’t care about that stupid stone,” Ash said. “But you are in danger. I saw them try to kill you. Well, those were Valkyries back there. If anyone can protect you, it’s them.”

“Not this time. Not from them. It’s my mistake for getting tangled up with them, but you can still get out of this. Just run.”

Ash ground her teeth in frustration. Gerred just sounded resigned, like everything was already decided. A lot of things had been decided for Ash that day, and she was rather sick of it. Even more so, though, Ash really, truly, needed someone to actually explain what was going on.

“What are you talking about?” Ash snapped.

Gerred blinked, plainly unsure what to do with this outburst. That was better than scared and running, Ash supposed.

“How are five random guys in cloaks scarier that two legendary heroes, anyway?” Ash demanded. “Or are they really just promising you that much money?”

“It’s not like that, girl.” Gerred shook his head sadly. He sounded like he was talking to a wayward child. “I can’t defy them, not now. You don’t know who they are. They’re every—”

Something whipped right past Ash’s ear and lodged itself in Gerred’s chest. Only when blood spread out over the dwarf’s clothes did Ash realize that it was a dagger. Gerred coughed up more blood, and then fell forward to the ground. The keystone rolled out of his limp hand and stopped against Ash’s foot.

Then, people started screaming. Ash might have, too. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t aware of much in that moment, aside from the man dying in front of her. For a few seconds—or maybe hours—Ash simply stood still, staring at Gerred’s unmoving form as crimson liquid filled gaps in the cobblestones. People around her were running.

Ash turned around, and saw what those people were running from. One of the cloaked men was stomping down the street towards her. His hood had fallen back at some point, revealing a human with a face seemingly made entirely from scar tissue and anger. Hard, blue eyes were locked on keystone.

Ash knew she should be running, knew she should be anywhere but here. She knew that she did not belong here. Instead, she was completely frozen. Her brain was running at top speed, burning through every conceivable thought and plan as quickly as they arose. All this accomplished was to overwhelm her. She was still frozen when the man reached her.

He didn’t so much as look at her. He had no reaction to a fleeing bystander brushing past him. He ignored everything but the stone. He even ignored the sword point that emerged from his left shoulder.

Ash didn’t know what the appropriate response to getting stabbed was, but she suspected it was not ‘nothing.’ Blood pooled around the blade, but the man didn’t so much as flinch. After a long, surreal moment, the man finally twisted to look behind him, revealing Tienne. The younger Valkyrie was still holding her sword but, from the look on her face, had not been prepared for the man’s total lack of reaction. All she could do was stand there, staring lamely.

Then the man spun fully around, swinging his arm into Tienne with terrifying force. Tienne let go of the sword just in time to raise her arm in defense. Flesh hit armor with a crack as etchings on Tienne’s forearm flared to life, creating a momentary barrier of light around her. Even so, the force of the blow sent her reeling. Her foot caught on the cobblestones, and she fell.

The man had not gone unscathed. The force of hitting metal and Tienne’s magic had left his arm limp and unnaturally twisted. With the sword still lodged in his shoulder he had to have been in terrible pain, but his face had yet to shift from its impassive glare. Certainly, his condition did nothing to stop him from advancing on Tienne. The Valkyrie was recovering quickly, but not quickly enough.

Ash would never be able to adequately explain what she did next. Obviously, she needed to do something to help Tienne, but she had no good options. If getting impaled wasn’t enough to slow this man down, then surely there was nothing Ash could do to stop him. She knew this all with perfect clarity and yet, even as the certainty that she and Tienne were doomed settled into her mind, Ash was running.

Not to Tienne, or even at the man, though. Rather, Ash’s attention was focused entirely on the cloud of orange specks left in the wake of Tienne’s magic. Ash had no idea what they were. Probably, they were nothing. But those orange specks called to Ash in a way that defied easy understanding. It was something deep and primal that tugged at her very being. She did not know what the specks were, but she did know what she had to do next.

Ash reached out for the specks, and grabbed them. They were insubstantial as air, and yet they burned Ash’s hand with the fury of a star. Ash screamed, but it was more than just pain. Raw power filled her, flowing down her arm and spread to the furthest reaches of her body. It was impossible for her small body to contain all that energy, and so she didn’t try to.

Ash planted her foot, and drew back her clenched fist. It trailed a constellation of sparks. This, at last, drew the man’s attention, but it was too late. Ash threw her hand forward, and released.

The world exploded.

A spike of pure, blazing fire erupted from Ash’s hand and speared right through the man. The impact carried him up and away, hurtling him as if weightless into a nearby house. Blinding energy tore through the house, obliterating most of the second floor and room. Only the sheer mass of the building-cliff surrounding the neighborhood finally stopped the blast, and then only in a shower of stone. When it was done, the man was nowhere to be seen.

When at last the all consuming roar subsided, silence fell over the street. It was a silence of shock and horror, the stillness of incomprehension. It took a long while for Ash to realize she had been knocked onto her rear. The moment dragged on, punctuated only by the clatter of settling rubble.

Eventually, a figure walked out of Gerred’s house, and walked calmly down the street towards the epicenter. Solenia reached Ash and Tienne without anyone daring to challenge her. Her armor was badly dented, and her sword bore crimson evidence of its use, but the elf only looked mildly perturbed. She looked first and the ruined house, then at the cobblestones scorched by the blast, and finally at Ash.

“Well, isn’t this interesting.”