Burning

The smell reached him first.

He dressed slowly, methodically, his fingers buttoning his coat with the same deliberate care one might show when preparing for a funeral.

The plaza was still burning when he arrived.

Not the roaring inferno of fresh destruction, but the slow, sullen smolder of something that had been given hours to eat its fill. The wooden stalls he'd commissioned from the finest carpenters in Vetia were now blackened skeletons. The silk awnings—imported at ruinous cost from the eastern markets—had melted into grotesque shapes, their vibrant dyes reduced to ashen streaks.

Aidos materialized at his elbow, breathing hard. "You shouldn't be here."

Hanno stepped forward. His boot sank into a pile of sodden ash. Somewhere beneath the wreckage, the ledger containing all his investments was turning to pulp.

Hanno shook him off. His boots crunched through a carpet of broken glass as he advanced. Heat pulsed from the wreckage in visible waves, distorting the air like a desert mirage.

The crowd had been waiting.

They lined the square in uneasy clusters - merchants clutching singed ledgers, laborers with forearms blackened from futile attempts to salvage their tools, wide-eyed children hoisted onto hips to witness the spectacle. None approached. None spoke.

The crowd parted before him like water around a stone. Their faces were carefully blank, but their eyes burned with something between shame and triumph. A woman clutched her child closer as he passed. A merchant spat into the gutter.

Aidos grabbed his arm. "They'll kill you."

Hanno shook him off. The heat from the still-smoldering beams pressed against his face like an open palm.

"Ask them," he said quietly.

Aidos hesitated, then turned to the nearest cluster of onlookers. The Vetian words rolled off his tongue, sharp and guttural. A man with soot-stained hands answered without meeting Hanno's eyes.

"They say..." Aidos swallowed. "They were protesting. The foreign man and his cursed beliefs." His throat worked. "They say the fire started near your accounting house."

Hanno nodded absently. His gaze was fixed on the heart of the blaze, where the flames still licked greedily at an overturned cart. The wood popped and hissed, the sound uncannily like laughter.

In the shimmering heat, he saw himself kneeling. Begging. The vision was so vivid he could taste the ash on his tongue, feel the blistering heat on his outstretched hands.

Aidos was saying something. The crowd was murmuring. None of it mattered.

The fire had taken everything.

And Hanno—

Hanno was still standing. "Tell them to take what remains." Hanno gestured toward the smoldering warehouses. "The cloth. The tools. Whatever the fire spared."

Aidos blinked. "You're giving it away?"

"It's already gone." Hanno turned his back on the ruins. The motion sent a fresh wave of murmurs through the crowd. "Have the steward draw up—"

The first stone struck the fountain behind them with a sharp crack.

Aidos whirled, his body instinctively positioning between Hanno and the crowd. More projectiles followed - chunks of broken masonry, half-burned timber. None came close, but their intent was clear.

"Now we go," Aidos hissed through clenched teeth.

Hanno allowed himself to be steered toward the side alley, his boots kicking up small cyclones of ash. At the edge of perception, he heard the crowd's mutters- a low, buzzing anger that needed only the right spark to ignite.

The narrow passageway offered temporary refuge. Brick walls pressed close on either side, blocking the worst of the smoke. Aidos kept one hand on the dagger at his belt as they moved.

"You knew this would happen." It wasn't an accusation, merely observation.

Hanno examined a blistered patch on his glove. "I knew they hated me."

"Then why stay here?"

"Because hatred is honest." A broken crate crunched beneath his heel. "I prefer it. Kindness comes along with it."

They emerged onto a secondary square where the smoke hung less thick. Here, the city continued as if nothing had happened - fishmongers arranging their wares, water carriers making their morning rounds. The ordinary rhythm of a day untouched by fire.

Aidos stopped abruptly. "Your hands."

Hanno looked down. His gloves were smoking. Tiny embers eaten through the fine leather where he'd unconsciously gripped a burning beam. He peeled them off, revealing angry red blisters already rising across his palms.

The pain arrived in a sudden, nauseating wave.

Aidos cursed and reached for his water flask. "We need to—"

"Later." Hanno stuffed the ruined gloves in his pocket. His voice sounded very far away. "First, we see the magistrate."

"But your—"

"Pain is just a message." Hanno flexed his fingers, watching the blisters stretch. "If I stop listening, it will go away."

They walked on, past staring eyes and whispering mouths. Behind them, the plaza continued burning. Ahead, the magistrate's house loomed - its marble facade pristine, its heavy oak door firmly shut against the smoke and the stink and the inconvenient truth of what their city had done this morning.

Hanno climbed the steps without hesitation. The brass knocker was cold against his wounded palm.

Somewhere in the distance, a church bell began to toll. Not the steady rhythm of prayer, but the sharp, staccato alarm that signaled fire.

Too late, he thought.

And knocked again.

...

Hanno stood before the massive oak desk, his burnt palms resting lightly on its polished surface. The blisters had broken during his walk, leaving faint pink stains on the wood.

Magistrate Orso looked up from his papers with the weary expression of a man who had spent too many mornings listening to complaints he couldn't remedy. His fingers, soft and unblemished, toyed with the twin-headed eagle seal of office.

"Signore Galloway," he sighed, "you must understand—"

"I understand my warehouses are ashes," Hanno said softly. "I understand the crowd watched them burn."

Orso's jowls quivered as he shifted in his chair. "These are... complicated times. The people's faith runs deep."

Hanno studied the magistrate's face—the carefully trimmed beard, the faint wine-stain birthmark along his jawline. A man who had built his career on compromise.

"And justice?" Hanno asked. "Does that run deep as well?"

The magistrate spread his hands. "Justice must consider the peace of the city. These protesters... they are fathers, mothers. Good Vetians."

"Who destroyed property worth five thousand quill."

"Property can be rebuilt." Orso leaned forward, his voice dropping to a confidential murmur. "But trust, Signore... once burned, that is harder to restore."

Hanno flexed his injured hands, watching the fresh blood bead along the cracks. "So I should do nothing?"

"I did not say that." The magistrate selected a quill from his stand, rolling it between his fingers. "A donation, perhaps. To the temple district. A gesture of... goodwill."

Hanno's mouth twisted. "You want me to pay for the privilege of being attacked?"

Orso's eyes flickered toward the window, where smoke still darkened the skyline. "I want this city whole. Surely you—"

The door burst open before he could finish.

The priest filled the doorway like a scarlet storm, his robes billowing with perfumed air. "Ah! My son!" he boomed, arms outstretched toward Aidos.

The magistrate's face smoothed into practiced neutrality. His quill snapped between his fingers, unnoticed.

As the priest embraced a stiff-backed Aidos, Hanno caught Orso's eye. The magistrate gave the faintest shrug—a silent apology.

The game, it seemed, had changed players.