Ch 26: Through the Fire and the Flames

  The heat hunted them like a patient predator. It slithered into Makori's lungs, thick and tyrannical, turning each breath into a bitter memory of what the village had been.

  His clothes clung to his skin, damp with sweat and soot. The fire wasn’t near them, not yet, but the wind carried its breath—hot, biting, promising to devour everything if they didn’t move.

  Ahead of him, the last of the villagers stumbled forward, coughing as they struggled past the ruined outskirts. Some clung to each other, steadying their weakened steps, while others carried the wounded. Makori kept close, eyes darting back every few seconds, scanning the collapsing village behind them.

  “We—we almost there, yeah?” wheezed Old Jeb, a wiry man who looked as if he had more years behind him than bones in his body. He had an arm thrown over another villager, his steps slow but determined.

  “Almost,” Makori lied.

  They weren’t close at all. The road back to Ny’Kelos was long, and in their current state, it would feel endless. But stopping wasn’t an option. If the fire didn’t feast on them, the mercenaries would.

  A woman stumbled beside him, her breath ragged. Tali. She was younger, maybe in her late twenties, but exhaustion made her seem twice that. “You’re coming with us, right?” she asked, glancing at him with worry. “Once we clear the ridge?”

  Makori hesitated.

  Ahead, the valley stretched out in the distance—a path leading away from the ruin and chaos. Safety. He could already see some of the earlier evacuees disappearing into the tree line, moving as fast as their battered bodies allowed.

  But they were still inside.

  Ishar. Soren. Ayola.

  People he barely knew. People he shouldn’t feel tied to.

  ‘Why am I even considering this? The smart choice is clear. Follow the others. Live. But then what kind of living would that be? The kind where I see their faces every time I close my eyes, wondering if I could have made a difference?’

  But Ishar had helped raise him, and had been there as long as he could remember. And the other two—outsiders, Maybe, but they’d fought for Ny’Kelos when they could’ve just walked away.

  Makori swallowed, glancing back toward the village. Smoke curled higher, swallowing the sky. The sound of distant fighting still rang out—clashing steel, raw screams, the sickening crunch of bodies breaking.

  “They’re still in there”

  A long silence.

  The villagers exchanged uneasy glances. A few shifted their weight, as if trying to decide whether to argue.

  “That’s madness,” Jeb muttered. “Ain’t nothin’ but death back there, boy. You go runnin’ back in, might as well dig your own grave.”

  Makori squared his shoulders. “I can’t leave them.”

  Another silence.

  Then, Tali, wiping soot from her forehead. “Damn it.” Her voice softened. “You’re sure?”

  Makori nodded.

  Jeb grunted, shaking his head. “Boy’s got rocks in his skull.”

  "Maybe I do," Makori said, a wry smile cracking through the soot on his face. "But sometimes rocks are what you need to build something worth keeping."

  Jeb's expression softened slightly. "Ain't nothin' back there worth dying for, boy."

  "That's where you're wrong," Makori replied. "There are people back there. And people are always worth it."

  One of the younger men—Arlen—stepped forward, worry etched deep in his face. “At least let me—”

  “No,” Makori cut in. “Get everyone back to the village. Make sure no one turns back.”

  Arlen hesitated, but eventually gave a tight nod.

  Tali reached out, squeezing Makori’s shoulder. “Don’t be stupid, kid. If things go bad—”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  She searched his face, then sighed, letting go. “Be safe, then.”

  The others murmured their own farewells—some reluctant, some resigned—before turning back toward the valley.

  Makori watched them dissolve into the haze of distance, a solitary monument against obliteration. Behind him, smoke devoured the sky, fire consumed memories, and battle sang its iron dirge—patient predators awaiting his surrender.

  The logical part of his mind screamed at him to turn away, to follow the path to safety. But logic rarely won against something deeper. Something that had nothing to do with debt or obligation. Something that felt strangely like the person he wanted to be rather than the person he'd been.

  He turned.

  And walked back into the inferno.

  The heat thickened the deeper Makori went. It was no longer just a distant presence—it wrapped around him now, suffocating, pressing against his skin like a living thing. The wind scattered embers like dying stars, each one winking out before it could land. The village was breaking apart.

  The air tasted of endings—copper, char, and something older, like the earth itself was burning away its memories.

  The flames roared in deafening silence, a cold inferno that consumed without satisfaction.

  Buildings confessed their mortality with trembling frames, Time itself warped in the inferno's presence, stretching moments into eternities, collapsing hours into heartbeats.

  Their wooden bones incandescent with fever, their facades sloughing away in translucent sheets of flame.

  The streets, once arteries pulsing with life's commerce—had transformed into open-air tombs where broken weapons served as headstones, abandoned possessions as offerings, and the too-slow as permanent residents.

  Makori kept moving.

  His boots crushed soot and ash beneath him, each step heavier than the last. The deeper he went, the harder it became to breathe. His lungs burned, his throat a wasteland of ash. Every few steps, he lifted the collar of his tunic to his nose, trying to block out the worst of the smoke, but it didn’t help much.

  He needed to find them.

  ‘Where are they?’

  A sudden shift in the wind sent the fire roaring down a side street, forcing him to halt. He lifted an arm, shielding his face as the flames raged. When they settled, he caught sight of movement ahead—something small, slumped in the street.

  Makori’s stomach twisted.

  He moved before thinking, sprinting toward the figure.

  A body.

  No—two bodies.

  Ayola. And beside her—Aedor.

  The coppery tang of blood mixed with the acrid bite of smoke, creating a taste at the back of his throat that speak of mortality in ways words never could.

  Makori skidded to a stop, pulse thundering against his ribs . Ayola was sprawled out, her clothes stained with blood, her body half-curled in the dirt. Aedor was still. Unmoving. A pool of red glistened beneath him, soaking into the earth.

  Makori dropped to his knees beside them. “Ayola—” He pressed his fingers against her throat, searching—there. A pulse. Weak, but there.

  Relief flooded through him.

  Aedor, though—

  Dread pooled in his stomach, glancing at the older man’s wound. It was bad. Deep. The kind that didn’t leave survivors. His eyes flickered to Ayola again. Did she kill him? No. That didn’t make sense. If she had, she wouldn’t be passed out beside him.

  Makori didn’t waste time trying to figure it out.

  He shifted, gripping Ayola beneath her arms, hoisting her onto his back. Her weight was awkward, but he adjusted quickly, wrapping her arms over his shoulders, securing her against him. She was still breathing. That was all that mattered.

  ‘I’m not too late but where are—’

  His head snapped up.

  Something else moved beyond the burning buildings. Not fire. Not stone. Something that breathed.

  Makori turned toward the noise, adjusting his grip on Ayola.

  Ishar. Soren.

  They were still alive.

  His jaw clenched. He should leave. Take Ayola and get out before the fire swallowed them all. But his feet wouldn’t move toward the exit.

  He turned toward the voices.

  He moved fast, slipping through the ruined alleys, avoiding the worst of the flames. The voices grew clearer, clashing words and steel echoing between the crumbling walls.

  Then, through the smoke—he saw them.

  Soren. Ishar. And someone else.

  A man, tall and draped in tattered dark robes, wielding a long-bladed polearm that gleamed against the firelight. His stance was poised, effortless, his presence wrong in a way Makori couldn’t place. He wasn’t just fighting them—he was toying with them.

  And he was speaking.

  Makori’s gut twisted as he closed in, catching the words slipping from the man’s lips—

  “…You should be honored,” the stranger was saying. “I’ll give you a preview of the new world.”

  Makori pressed himself against the remnants of a crumbling wall, breath shallow as he listened.

  Something was wrong. The air thickened—not with smoke, but something heavier, denser, curling at the edges of his lungs like unseen fingers.

  The battlefield did not fade. It collapsed inward, folding into itself like paper burning from the edges

  The fire had thinned in patches, but the heat still gnawed at the air, thick with smoke and embers. The ground cracked under their boots, the scorched earth beneath them splitting apart in jagged veins of smoldering ruin.

  Soren cleared his vision of sweat and swoot,the battlefield coming into sharper focus. He rolled his shoulder, sore from the last fight but still capable. Steel sang beneath his palm, hungry for truth.

  He wasn’t wrong.

  “Ishar?”

  A pause—then footsteps, careful but deliberate, crunching against the debris-strewn ground. Soren turned, catching sight of the towering figure making his way toward him.

  Ishar looked just as wrecked as he felt. His hair was matted with sweat, soot smeared across his jaw and neck. His breathing was even, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed how much energy he had spent.

  They both took a moment to assess each other, neither one speaking.

  Then, in sync—

  “You look like shit.”

  Soren snorted. Ishar huffed a short laugh. The exhaustion was bone-deep, but humor was easier than acknowledging the reality of what they had just been through.

  “Where’s Ayola?” Ishar’s gaze flickered around the battlefield, scanning the charred remains of the town.

  "Haven't seen her since the eastern square," Soren said, eyes still scanning their surroundings. "You think she—"

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Ayola can handle herself," Ishar cut in, but his tone lacked conviction.

  Soren nodded. "Assuming any of us can handle... whatever this is."

  "You having second thoughts about tagging along?" Ishar asked.

  "Only about a thousand of them," Soren replied with a grim smile. "But it's a bit late for that."

  “Ah, so the mongrels have survived.”

  It wasn’t just the words—it was the way they curled in the air, thick with dry amusement and something deeper. Something that clung like oil in the lungs, something that turned breath to stone.

  They turned toward the source.

  A figure stood at the edge of the wreckage, the heat warping his shape, making him shift in and out of focus like a mirage. He didn’t move, but the fire around him did—bending away, recoiling as if it, too, knew better than to touch him.

  Raekor.

  His absence filled the space more completely than his presence ever could, The very boundaries between his form and the world seemed uncertain, as if reality itself couldn’t decide to accept or reject him.

  His smirk was sharp, effortless, as if he had been expecting them. The firelight caught in the angles of his face, deepening the shadows under his eyes. His robes barely shifted in the heat, untouched by the embers licking at his boots.

  “Krenja, Varik, Aedor…” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “Honestly, I should be thanking you. They were becoming such a burden—always complaining, always posturing. Dead weight, the lot of them.”

  He sighed, stretching his arms overhead, rolling his shoulders as if the mere memory of them had been weighing him down. Then, with a casual tilt of his head, his gaze flicked to them—not in fear, not in anger, but in idle curiosity.

  “Still, I do wonder,” he mused, voice curling at the edges with something dangerous. “At least one of them must’ve handled the other, right? That’s how it works, doesn’t it? Predator and prey.”

  The words slid between them like a knife, casual, effortless. He didn’t need to say names. Didn’t need to specify who had fallen and who had lived. The uncertainty was the blade, and he was content to let it twist.

  He exhaled, slow, deliberate, as if tasting the air.

  “But then again… maybe neither of them did.”

  His smirk deepened.

  "Tell me," Raekor continued, voice honeyed with false concern, "which one matters more to you? The woman or your pride? I'm genuinely curious which loss would cut deeper."

  Soren’s eyes flicked to Ishar. Ishar’s gaze stayed locked on Raekor.

  Neither of them moved.

  Raekor chuckled, low and amused.

  “Ah,” he murmured. “You don’t know, do you?”

  Ishar’s jaw tensed.

  Soren’s contempt was palpable. “You remind me of a teacher I had back in the day.”

  Ishar raised an eyebrow. “Philosophy?”

  Soren made a vague motion with his hand. “Something like that.”

  Raekor’s smirk twitched, something ugly flickering behind his eyes, but he let out a breathy chuckle. “Ah, the wit. Always so amusing.” He stepped forward, slow, measured. “But that won’t save you.”

  “We weren’t really looking to be saved,”

  "After all," Raekor continued, "an Augur sees far more than just the present moment."

  Soren's brow furrowed. "Augur?"

  “An Augur,” Ishar said, the word itself carrying weight. He exhaled, rubbing a thumb over the grip of his spear. “They don’t just see the future. They shape it.”

  "So he's crazy," Soren muttered. "Great."

  Raekor's smile stretched wider. "I'm something far more consequential than that.

  Ishar drawled. “We were actually just about to leave.”

  Soren nodded. “Yeah. You’re kind of in the way.”

  Raekor’s expression darkened. “You really don’t grasp the weight of what’s happening, do you?”

  “See, that’s where you lose us,” Soren said, shifting his stance slightly, blade still sheathed but his fingers twitching. “The moment you start acting like your words mean something.”

  A flicker of irritation crossed Raekor’s face, but it melted into something worse—something eager. “Ah, you should be honored.” His fingers twitched, and the air rippled.

  “I’ll give you a preview of the new world.”

  The fire inhaled, slow and deep, like a beast waiting to exhale.

  A pulse, slow and deliberate, a thing with its own rhythm.

  The battlefield wavered—not all at once, but in pieces. The sky above stretched too far. The ground curled at the edges, a ripple in the fabric of reality.

  A susurration slithered into their minds—not words, not language, but a force older than speech, seeding darkness in its wake.

  The blade became an extension of Soren’s will.

  The spear responded to Ishar’s will vibrating with uncertainty.

  The fire bent wrongly—suspended midair, stretching and recoiling like a wounded thing. The embers flickered too slowly before they fell, as if unsure of where to land.

  Soren took a step. The earth beneath his feet felt too soft. Not ash, not stone—something else.

  His stomach twisted.

  Ishar inhaled sharply beside him.

  Something shifted. Like a step forward had become a step back. Like the world had turned inside out in a blink.

  The battlefield didn’t vanish—it collapsed into memory.

  And then—

  Everything changed.

  The heat, the screams, the fire—gone.

  A candle flickered, casting long, stretched shadows against stone.

  Soren exhaled sharply, his heartbeat drowning out all thought.

  No.

  Not this.

  His sword felt heavier than it should. Not from fear. But from the part of him that still wanted to believe.

  His father sat at the far end of the room, hunched over, hands folded neatly. The candlelight barely touched his face, leaving half of it swallowed in darkness.

  “You always ran from your failures.”

  The words slithered into his ribs. Not a voice. A presence.

  Soren’s hands clenched at his sides.

  He should not be here.

  His father’s voice—not quite right. The words fit inside his mouth, but something else spoke beneath them, stretching the syllables like old, worn leather.

  Soren’s pulse spiked.

  Move.

  But his body didn’t listen.

  His father shifted, reaching for something beside him. A slow, deliberate scrape. Steel dragging against wood.

  His axe.

  He rose to his feet—not with effort. With certainty.

  Like he’d known this would happen.

  Like he’d always been waiting.

  The room felt smaller. No—not smaller. Closer.

  Soren’s breath sharpened. His hands sought the comfort of steel.

  This wasn’t real.

  But his father stepped forward.

  “You’ve never been enough.”

  Memory and deception became indistinguishable, the past weaponized against the present.

  The words curled against his throat, soft, gentle—wrong.

  And then his father moved.

  The axe cleaved toward him.

  Soren didn’t block it.

  Not right away.

  His breath caught, his mind stuttering over the moment.

  ‘If I don’t move, what happens? If I just—’

  His father’s face didn’t change. No recognition.

  Only the inevitability of the blow.

  The illusion didn’t care.

  The axe whispered its deadly hymn.

  And Soren moved.

  His blade snapped up, steel catching steel.

  The force of the impact jarred his arms.

  Then the world cracked.

  His father should have faltered. Should have drawn breath. But there was no breath. No hesitation. Only inevitability—like a script he had no choice but to follow.

  His blade met flesh—but there was no blood.

  ‘This isn't memory. This is something else—something using memory as a weapon. But knowing the blade is false doesn't make its edge any less sharp.’

  His father’s image wavered, like heat rising from summer stone.

  Reality melted into falsehood even as falsehood crystallized into truth, the boundary between them as substantial as smoke and just as toxic.

  Soren’s sword met steel. This time it didn’t flicker. It ripped.

  The room wrenched, warping, shattering in the firelight. A silhouette stood before him, blade raised.

  That was definitely not his father.

  “You can’t even see it, can you?”

  Bitter recognition coursed through him, gripping his sword tighter. His muscles burned from the force of the blows, but his mind burned hotter.

  The whispering grew louder, threading through his father’s voice like poison.

  Raekor.

  A single breath between words, a shift in the tone, a curl in the edge of his father’s smirk—

  And suddenly, he wasn’t just fighting his father anymore.

  The voice was warping, deepening, twisting into something wrong.

  Soren’s stomach turned.

  Think.

  What were you doing before this? Fight…Who were you fighting?

  The walls of his home flickered, the floor beneath him trembling like an illusion stretched too thin.

  A wrongness crawled beneath Soren’s skin.

  The fire vanished.

  The battlefield was gone, swallowed in an instant.

  The world shifted—cool air, damp earth. The scent of rain, fresh but laced with something sharper.

  Blood.

  Not the village. Not the ruins.

  The forest air carried scents that shouldn’t exist anymore—fresh pine, morning dew, the subtle floral notes of Saethis’s hair when she moved past him at dawn.

  Time froze in Ishar’s lung. His surroundings were too familiar.

  The towering trees stretched high, their dark trunks reaching toward the sky, shifting in the wind like silent sentinels. The ground beneath him was not scorched earth, but wet soil, littered with leaves that clung to his boots. Somewhere in the distance, water trickled—a stream, faint, winding through the underbrush.

  This place…

  His heart ached before his mind could catch up.

  This was home.

  But home was gone.

  A shadow flickered between the trees.

  Ishar turned sharply, instinct snapping into place. His fingers curled around his spear, bracing—

  Then he saw her.

  And everything else ceased to exist.

  She stepped forward, light on her feet, her movements smooth, effortless. Not a warrior’s calculated grace—something softer.

  Something he hadn’t seen in years.

  Her fingers moved with that same deliberate grace—the way they would brush against herbs in their garden, the way they'd rest against his chest in quiet moments. A healer's hands that could mend wounds but never her own sorrows.

  Her hair was long, dark with an undertone of violet, cascading down her back in waves unmarred by war or hardship. It shimmered where the light touched it, catching glimpses of moonlight that filtered through the canopy. Her face—softer, younger, untouched by time—held the quiet confidence that came from knowing exactly how much pressure would close a wound. Eyes like forest pools after rain—deep, still, with flecks of amber light. And when she almost smiled, he saw their daughter in the gesture, a ghost of memory too painful to fully form.

  Exactly how he remembered her.

  No scars. No battle-worn hands. No hardened eyes.

  His pulse staggered.

  “Saethis…”

  The impossible stood before him, wearing the face of his greatest regret.

  She carried the scent of juniper and sage—the herbs she'd gather at dawn, saying they held the night's secrets and morning's promises. The scent he'd searched for in every market, every forest, every stranger who reminded him of home.

  The name left him before he could stop it.

  She tilted her head slightly, unreadable. Her expression—gentle, expectant.

  “Ishar,” she said softly.

  She said his name the way she always had—like a question and answer in one breath. Like she knew him better than he knew himself. The slight lift at the end that had once made him feel seen in ways no one else could manage.

  His breath caught.

  Gods, it was her.

  But it couldn’t be.

  It couldn’t.

  ‘My mind knows this is false, but my heart... my heart is a traitor willing to believe any lie if it means seeing her face one more time’

  Her eyes still held that knowing look—the one that had settled arguments before they began, that had seen through his carefully constructed walls since they were children. The look that reminded him she knew every promise he'd made. And broken.

  “You left.”

  The words struck like physical blows.

  A chill slid down his spine.

  Saethis’s voice hadn’t changed, but the air had.

  Ishar’s throat tightened. “No, I—”

  “You abandoned us.”

  The ground beneath him shifted. The air crackled.

  Something was wrong.

  His fingers tensed around his spear.

  “Saethis, this isn’t real.”

  She didn’t move.

  Didn’t blink.

  But her gaze darkened, the softness draining from her eyes.

  The weapon in her hand turned hostile, foreign as a stranger’s touch.

  But she did not move.

  Saethis stared at him, and for the briefest moment—there was hesitation.

  Not his.

  Hers.

  As if even she wasn’t certain she was real.

  A flicker of something deep in her gaze.

  Something unreadable.

  Something wrong.

  Realization crashed through Ishar.

  No.

  No, this wasn’t real.

  He forced himself to breathe, to think, to pull himself out of it—

  But then—

  She bled.

  Not a wound. Not a strike.

  Blood trickled from where he'd first seen her wounded—that night when she'd returned from the northern forests, clutching their daughter, refusing to say what had happened. The night before everything changed. The night he'd promised to never let her face danger alone again.

  She didn’t collapse. Didn’t fall. She unraveled, thread by thread, until nothing remained.

  A cut opened across her cheek. Another along her arm. Deep, dark, endless.

  Her expression never changed.

  She stared at him, speaking words that did not belong to her.

  “Did you even try to find her?”

  The ground shifted.

  The forest darkened.

  The trees stretched, their trunks too tall, their leaves shifting between green and ash-covered black.

  For just a moment—

  Just long enough to break him—

  Ishar saw fire.

  Not the forest.

  Not Saethis.

  Something else.

  And his body moved on instinct.

  CLANG.

  The impact sent a shock through his arms.

  Reality fracture in Soren’s perception.

  Ishar’s grip faltered.

  Not because of exhaustion. Not because of the fight.

  Because Saethis’s movements were wrong.

  She swung without effort. Too light. Too easy.

  Like she wasn’t even there.

  His spear lashed out, but there was no resistance. No weight behind her body.

  A flicker—not of Saethis, but something else.

  A silhouette in the flames.

  Soren’s pulse slammed against his ribs.

  No.

  Saethis’s face twisted—Raekor’s voice spilled from her mouth.

  And then she wasn’t Saethis at all.

  A breath. A crack in reality.

  Ishar’s next strike met steel. Real steel.

  And suddenly—

  Everything was wrong.

  The certainty of the world unraveled for the swordsman. The fire flickered—not behind Ishar, but through him. A blur. A ripple. A shape that wasn’t entirely solid.

  This wasn’t the illusion breaking.

  This was something else.

  Ishar’s spear.

  Soren’s blade.

  Contact.

  But not where they expected.

  The impact jarred through Ishar’s arm, but the resistance wasn’t right. Too sudden. Too heavy.

  His mind refused to place it.

  This wasn’t the illusion breaking.

  This was something else.

  Did I—?

  But before the thought could finish—

  The world wrenched beneath them.

  The fire swayed.

  Or maybe it was his vision.

  Makori inhaled. The air didn’t reach his lungs. It caught somewhere deep in his chest, thin and distant, as if his own breath was slipping away from him.

  He had been moving forward—hadn’t he?

  But now his legs felt unsteady, his balance just a fraction off, like the earth itself had shifted underfoot.

  Something wasn’t right.

  His fingers twitched at his sides, distant, as if they no longer belonged to him.

  The fire flickered ahead, shifting in strange patterns, colors bleeding at the edges in ways that weren’t real.

  Had it always burned like that?

  A voice—fractured, scattered, slipping through time. His? Someone else’s? No, neither.

  ‘Move.’

  He stepped, but the ground recoiled. Shifting. Slipping. Uncertain.

  Everything felt too slow. Too far away.

  Something blurred at the edges of his vision. Not fire, not ruin—something else.

  His mother’s voice.

  “Are you even worth fighting for?”

  The weight in his chest spread. Slow. Creeping.

  His fingers twitched. What was he trying to do?

  He should keep moving. He knew that. But—

  Had he stopped?

  He didn’t remember stopping.

  Didn’t remember why his breath was coming too shallow, too slow.

  The fire whispered against his ears, crackling like laughter.

  A thread inside him snapped.

  Not a pull. A yank. Like something had reached into his ribs and wrenched him forward.

  Shapes curled in the smoke. Moving. Reaching.

  A voice whispered. Not his mother. Not his own.

  Or maybe it had always been there.

  The heat collapsed inward, curling around his skin, sinking into his bones.

  The world pulsed, tilting sideways, as if reality itself had lost its balance.

  The flames flickered.

  Clarity and confusion married within him, birthing a terrible understanding that enlightened and blinded in equal measure

  And then—

  Nothing.