Young Flame

We don’t stay long in the village. Despite their words of thanks for putting out the fire, it is clear our presence makes them uncomfortable. No words of insult are thrown our way, but they do not trust us.

As most of the village treks up and down the hill, stripping trees and carrying the long branches back to their homes, half a dozen do nothing but stand around, watching us. It’s almost as if they believe we’ll start the fire again the moment they look away.

In a way, I can understand it. To them, we are outsiders. For a village of only khirig, any race other than their own stands out like a lake in the desert. Adding that most of their interaction with other races comes from the heqet raids, Leal and I are rather lucky they didn’t chase us away immediately.

Still, the two of us shouldn’t delay, and as much as I’d be interested in learning more about their culture of rapid rebuilding… the village itself isn’t all that impressive. It’s not like they’ve dug a network of tunnels between each hut. No, they are just bunkers with clay hardened walls that hide the khirig a few metres below the surface.

So we don’t linger. Leal and I take to the skies again — much to the awe of our spectators — and continue our flight along the coast. Maybe it’s not the best thought to have, but the revelation of a heqet raid is encouraging; the more frequent they are, the closer we are to the Warring Isles.

The heqet ship is long gone by now, so we’ve missed the opportunity to chase them down and ask for directions. Not that I would have been happy taking that route. Just seems like a bad idea to approach raiders and thieves with any expectation of cooperation. Even if I could convince them with how outmatched they are, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were directed toward some sleeping Titan.

We are only flying for an hour or so when we come across a river cutting through the land as it flows into the ocean. The river itself isn’t any different from the many we’ve seen before — the geography of the mountain-ranges makes them rather frequent — but what is new is the graveyard of boats along the riverbank.

For kilometres, the long forgotten remains of ships scatter along the shores. So many are of differing designs, from wooden masts to the familiar iron propellers of the Henosis. The broken remains may not be large enough to be one of the massive ships I’m familiar with, but there is no doubt it is the Empire’s design.

While all boats sit scrapped of parts, many remain intact enough to identify the cannon emplacements and other such evidence of weaponry. These ships were not defenceless, but they all found the same fate.

“Is this the heqet?” I ask. Surely if the people of the Warring Isles are dangerous enough to take on ships of Henosis design, they would stop sending ships down this river.

“Look.” Leal points to a dark piece of timber. “They’ve clearly been here. Lost plenty of ships, too.” It is as she says; all along the riverbank, the recognisable black wood scatters throughout the other wrecks.

I fly down to pick up a section of the heqet ships. Theirs are much less recognisable as ships because of how shattered the pieces are. Not wanting to land so close to water, I reach a swathe of flame down to pick some up, but the moment my blaze touches the black wood, it ignites. Fire spreads all across the plank. I extinguish it with little delay, but it is still surprising.

“They lather their ships in an incredibly flammable substance,” I tell Leal. “Tar and oil or something.”

Leal looks at the slightly charred lump of wood before shaking her head. “Well, at least we won’t have to worry about them much if all their ships are like this,” she says, then snorts.

“Timber already burns incredibly quickly,” I ponder. “Why would they want their ships to burn quicker?”

“You know they live on the ocean, right? I doubt fires are much of a concern. And I find it unlikely they have to deal with fire mages often, not to mention áed.” A light smile graces her lips as she inspects my burning wings. “If I had to guess, the tar makes their ships watertight. And a lot quicker to build.”

That makes sense, I guess. Still, if the number of shipwrecks here, alone, are this high, then there is no questioning the high frequency of use this river sees. So why are there no heqet in ambush? Unless all this damage isn’t from them… It is a hotspot, but I cannot see any undamaged ship nearby. Are they further up the river, or have they left for some reason?

Well, it doesn’t really matter if there’s any heqet around. We’re not here to put a stop to their piracy, nor do I care if they sink a Henosis ship or ten. All we want is to know when it’s safe to cross the ocean, and the presence of all these ships — broken or not — means the crews believed they had a chance to reach outside the heqet controlled waters from here. We must already be beyond the trail of islands that touch the mainland.

“Think we should start crossing now?” I ask, glancing to the southern ocean, where no island is visible. Leal knows more about the maps of the region, anyway.

“Might as well,” she agrees.

Not seeing any reason to linger, I dive again, burn away a section of steel from a half dismantled ship for later consumption, and fly south. The chunk of metal is heavy and slows us, but it doesn’t hurt to take something to resupply my energy. We don’t know how long we’ll be flying over the ocean, after all.

Well, it’s probably unnecessary, but nobody’s going to miss the length of steel. This isn’t the wasteland, after all; resources are hardly scarce. I can nibble away at it while we fly. Feels great to not have to worry about being restrictive of my energy consumption.

Right now, I’m a whole lot larger than the forms I used to take. While the extra size does help with lifting Leal’s extra weight, that is not entirely the reason for growing my wings the length of a building.

Ever since I surpassed the threshold of binding, I’ve found it feels so much better to spread my flames wide. It’s not necessary, nor do I experience any consequences by suppressing my energy expenditure, but I cannot deny that the more I burn and the further I spread, the more comfortable I feel. I would spread as far as possible if I didn’t need to consume to support my inferno.

Even as the mountains of the Mrtyuñ Coast fade into the distance, I imagine how it might feel to spread and burn away kilometres of forest. I know I can. It would be easy. But to do so would be a worse waste of resources than I would dare cause.

In my time back amongst my kind, I realised that there are some morals and thoughts that have changed in me; where I differ from any other áed. But I would never be so wasteful to destroy such a vast wealth of fuel by my lonesome.

Well, not unless the reason was convincing.

“Say, Solvei…” Leal starts, hesitating.

I hum in question; the sound rippling through my flames so that I needn’t form a mouth and lungs to speak.

“I was doing some experiments with some… alternate mage markings, and I made some notes of things I noticed. Do you mind if I ask about your fire?”

I gaze at her oddly, forming a body besides her so that she can register my expressions. It gets surprisingly annoying to communicate without the subtle gestures and body language I’m so used to using.

She’s asked about my fire and how my control differs from a mage’s plenty of times in the past, but I’d thought she learnt all she could. I mean, the way I control myself isn’t exactly as methodical as the operation of inscriptions or markings. What kind of experiments did she run?

Wait… she mentioned alternative markings. Exactly what type? I glare at her suspiciously. The way she turns away to avoid locking eyes is an answer in itself.

“Leal!”

“It’s not like I needed to burn myself,” she immediately defends, not denying that she has, in fact, allowed herself to become a fire mage. “I just switched to take notes from what that version of myself knew of fire hyle. I did the same for every mage type that was possible.” Her excuses come out rapid fire, but my concerns don’t let up.

“So you didn’t have fire hyle flooding your veins?”

“Not my veins.” She still doesn’t meet my eye.

Fire and lightning mages are infamous for their elemental hyle constantly burning away flesh along their markings. The types, while somehow the only elements that form us high binding races, are contradictorily antipathetic to most life. There is no safe way for the fleshy races to wield them; that’s why those that do are considered insane.

It annoys me that Leal would hurt herself for this research of hers. Doesn’t help that my only interaction with one of these fire mages didn’t leave a good impression.

I sigh loud enough that Leal cannot miss my displeasure. “Fine. Ask away.”

“How do you feel fire that is not your own? Is it an indirect interaction with your fire, as with the way large quantities of lightning hyle can affect other markings of the same type, or is it something else, independent from the quantity of fire?”

As the last remnants of land disappear over the horizon behind us, I can’t help but stare at Leal’s expectant gaze. “You tried lightning hyle too?” I ask, before shaking my head. Maybe it’s better I stay ignorant of her questionable experiments for now. “I don’t know. I can just feel when fire and heat are within a certain distance, though not when blocked by thick rock. If it’s hot enough, it can sometimes pierce any distance.”

“The Eternal Inferno, for instance.” I point to the intense light rising in the early morning sky. “I could feel well before my thermal sense was as distant as it now is. It isn’t clear exactly how hot it is, but considering even children can feel it, we know nothing else compares. I don’t know if that helps.”

Of course, Leal wastes no time diving into her next series of questions, barely giving any indication to whether my answer was satisfactory or not.

I try to answer what I can, but on her fourth, I wave at her to stop. A subtle series of pops hit my ears. As I listen, I notice the sound repeats, if barely audible.

There is no more time to sate Leal’s curiosity. I recognise that sound. After I’ve spent so much time on the battlefield, there’s no way I couldn’t.

Gunfire.

Specifically, the constant peppering of artillery cannon-fire. Somewhere out over these waters, a battle wages. And by the frequency of those little pops, it isn’t a small one.