Training began at dawn.
Kairo stood in the clearing, saturated with golden light that poured through the trees, as dew steamed off the mossy earth underfoot. The campfire had reduced to glowing embers, and the members of the Ember Circle moved with quiet purpose, their steps precise and practiced.
He, though, stood awkwardly in the center, arms folded, forehead creased.
"I don't feel anything," he muttered.
"That's because you're thinking too hard," Sera replied, circling him like a hawk. "You're trying to control it with your mind. The flame doesn't live there. It lives here." She tapped the center of his chest, directly over the mark.
Kairo shifted uncomfortably. "You keep saying that. 'The flame.' What even is it?"
"Your core," she informed him. "Your spark. Your site of Awakening. Not something you _do_, mind you, the way you conjure spells or read books. Something deeper. Older. Not that you contemplate the flame—but that you are it."
Chopping wood on his right hand with unnerving intensity, Jorran scoffed. "She sounds like one of these priests again."
Sera turned a piercing eye on him. "And still I'm teaching."
Jorran scoffed and resumed chopping.
Sera turned back to Kairo, softer now. "It's like breathing, Kairo. Or instinct. You've already done it—back at the ruins. You just didn't know how."
He remembered the fire—how it had erupted out of the ground, how it had filled his arms with impossible strength. How it had nearly torn him apart.
"It felt like. drowning in lightning."
Sera nodded. "Good. That is, you found the truth. Now say it—without letting it overwhelm you."
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
The world around him grew quiet. Birdsong vanished. The wind died down.
He reached inside.
At first, there was darkness. Then. a spark. A tiny ember, buried beneath layers of fear and confusion. He focused on it—nourished it, like shielding a candle from wind.
It pulsed.
And then it flared.
A heat swamped his body, not painful, but intense. The symbol on his chest pulsed in gold light beneath his shirt. His breath was taken, but he stood resolute.
"I see it," Sera breathed. "Don't let it go."
But quicker than it had come, the flame guttered—and went out.
Kairo gasped, reeling backward. Steam wisped off his skin, and sweat dripped down his temples.
Sera had caught him before he could have fallen. "That was good. Better than I had hoped."
He looked up at her, his eyes blinking. "Why do I feel as if I've run miles?"
"Because your body isn't used to channeling that kind of energy. It's like calling down a storm through a broken gate. It overpowers you. Drowns you. But with practice." She kept him upright on his feet. "You'll learn to master it."
"Or it'll master me," he growled.
That too," she said, not unkindly.
---
Later, as the others cleaned up from training, Kairo sat on a boulder at the clearing's edge, looking out across the misty distance. The trees below them rocked to slow rhythm, and for the first time since they arrived, he felt something like peace.
Tenn appeared quietly and offered him a flask. "Water," he said.
Kairo took it gratefully. "Thanks."
The older man sat beside him. They said nothing for an instant.
Finally, Kairo asked, "What was it like? When you woke up?"
Tenn's jaw creaked shut. "Painful. Violent. I was captured by the Order. Held in a cell with other of my kind. Coerced the waking through torture."
Kairo turned around. "They coerce it?"
"They try. Sometimes, it works. Much more often, it kills." Tenn looked at him tiredly. "You were fortunate, Kairo. You woke up by yourself. That isn't common anymore."
Kairo wrapped his fingers more tightly around the flask. "Why do they hate us so much?"
"Because the Awakened can't be controlled," Tenn answered. "And the Order wants control above all else. They want obedience. Not power that they can't bind."
Kairo remembered the circle of hooded heads, the power in his veins, the city burning in his head.
"They're coming, aren't they?"
Tenn nodded. "If they picked up on your awakening—and they probably did—they'll send someone."
Kairo stared at the trees. "So what do we do?"
Tenn stood up. "We prepare."
---
That night, sitting by the fire, the Circle shared stories.
Virella told of the First Empire—the golden age when the Awakened built cities in the air and healed the earth with their own hands. She told of the Sundering, when jealous kings allied themselves with the Order of Null to bring down the Awakened, using dark artifacts and forbidden sorcery.
Jorran told of the Order's assassins—silent blades in the night, masked in silver, whose eyes burned with unnatural fire.
And Sera… Sera spoke of her brother.
"He awoke two years before me," she breathed. "He was kind. Brave. Stronger than ever I was. The Order seized him before the Circle did. No trial. No hope."
Kairo didn't inquire as to whether he'd lived.
The answer resided in her eyes.
Later, after the tales, Kairo walked some distance off from camp, wide awake. The stars overhead sparkled like shards of broken memory. He thought of Sister Elira. Of the peculiar books she used to keep hidden beneath floorboards. Of the time she whispered, "Your destiny is older than this world, child."
Then he remembered thinking she was merely dramatic.
Now he was not so sure.
The snapping of a twig startled him behind him.
Kairo turned around, his heart faltering.
A figure between two trees—tall, in gray, face hidden behind a porcelain mask. Its eyes glowed faint orange, the hue of smoldering coals. On its hand sparkled a curved sword, inscribed with strange symbols.
Kairo stepped back. "Who—?"
The figure moved like smoke.
In time to breathe, it stood before him.
The knife struck—Kairo dodged, just in time. His belly screamed. He threw up his arm just in time to deflect a second slash with a flash of golden flame from his hand.
The masked man spat, retreating slightly.
Kairo took advantage of the moment and ran.
He ran through the trees, racing heart, flame fading weakly in his fingertips. Behind him, the killer followed, quiet and fast.
He burst into the clearing, shouting, "They're here!"
Sera moved first. In two seconds, she had a dagger in each hand, burning eyes. Jorran grabbed a massive axe, Virella spoke a gentle spell, and Tenn vanished into the underbrush.
The murderer walked into the clearing.
Sera attacked.
Steel clashed on flame as sparks flared in the dark. The assassin parried, writhed, struck. Sera leaped away with deadly ease, but she was retreating.
Kairo stood, panic rising. The flame inside him shifted—wild, formless.
He took a step forward.
He did not think.
He felt.
A burst of golden energy exploded out of his chest, flashing toward the assassin like lightning. It struck hard, sending the figure in the mask crashing back into a tree, cracking bone and bark together.
The mask cracked.
The assassin vanished in a puff of smoke.
There was silence.
Sera turned to him, breathing hard. "That," she said, "was not bad."
Kairo breathed out, knees folding.
He didn't fall—but it was close.
Jorran rapped him on the back. "You're still a twig. But a twig with fire."
---
Later that evening, while the others slept lightly with weapons within reach, Sera sat across the fire from Kairo.
"They'll send more," she said. "That was a scout. A Shade."
He nodded. "I figured."
"You'll need to grow stronger. Faster than we planned."
"I want to," he said.
Sera looked at him. "You're afraid."
"Yes."
"Fine." She stood up. "Only fools fight without fear."
As she left, Kairo looked up toward the sky—at the stars, the smoke, the darkening horizon.
The war had already begun.
And he was no longer watching from the sidelines.