Chapter Six: The Fire Within

The night air wrapped around me like a shroud, crisp and unyielding, carrying the scent of damp earth and burning wood. My breath came in sharp gasps, every inhale cutting through my chest. My muscles screamed, raw and trembling, but I refused to stop.

Sable's voice rang through the clearing, cold and sharp as steel. "Again."

I gritted my teeth. My hands trembled as I extended them, fingers curling as I reached for something—anything—deep inside me. The power she kept insisting I had. The spark that was supposed to be there.

But I found nothing.

Again.

And again.

And again.

The frustration built, a pressure in my chest, coiling tighter with every failed attempt. My knees threatened to buckle. I had trained for hours, maybe longer. Time had lost its meaning. Only the exhaustion remained.

I gasped, falling forward onto my hands. My sweat-drenched hair stuck to my face.

Sable stepped closer. Her boots crunched against the frost-bitten ground as she circled me, slow and deliberate. I didn't need to look up to know she was watching, judging, weighing my worth.

"You are hesitating," she said. "That is why you are failing."

"I'm trying," I panted.

"You are not trying," she snapped. "You are grasping in the dark like a child. Power does not answer to the desperate."

I clenched my jaw. "Then tell me how to control it!"

Silence.

Then, she sighed, as if she was tired of explaining something that should have been obvious. "Before you harness power you do not have," she said, "you must harness the power you do have."

I frowned. "What does that mean?"

Sable raised her hand. Before I could react, an invisible force struck me in the chest.

I hit the ground hard, the breath stolen from my lungs. My vision blurred for a second, the sky above me spinning.

"You are waiting for something grand," she continued as I struggled to my feet. "For fire. For storms. For something dramatic. But power is not always loud."

I coughed, rubbing my ribs. "So what? You want me to lift a rock instead?"

She gave me a flat look. "If you could, that would be progress."

The frustration snapped inside me. "I can lift a rock," I growled.

"Then do it."

I turned, spotting a smooth stone near my foot. I bent down, grabbed it, and lifted it with ease. "There. Happy?"

Sable didn't even blink. "No. That is muscle, not power. I said lift it."

I frowned.

I looked down at the rock in my palm.

Then I tried.

I focused, willing it to move, to hover, to do something. I pushed, just as I had before, reaching for that elusive force within me.

But nothing happened.

The stone remained in my hand, solid and unmoving.

I exhaled sharply, my jaw tight. "I don't get it."

Sable stepped closer. "That is because you are reaching for something unnatural. Your power is not separate from you. It is you."

I swallowed. "Then why can't I feel it?"

"Because you are afraid."

My breath caught.

Sable watched me, her eyes dark. "Power is dangerous. You know this. You have seen what it can do. What it has done."

A cold chill ran down my spine.

She was right.

I had seen it.

Flashes of memories surfaced—shouts, fire, the scent of blood in the air. The destruction. The fear.

The moment I realized what I was.

Sable's voice softened, just barely. "You cannot control something you do not accept."

I looked down at my hands, fingers curled tightly around the stone. My knuckles had gone white.

I had spent so long trying to contain whatever was inside me. To bury it, suppress it, pretend it wasn't there.

But that wasn't control.

That was fear.

I took a slow breath.

I let the memories come, the fear, the doubt, the anger. I let them settle, not fighting them, not pushing them away.

Then, I reached.

Not outward. Inward.

Something stirred.

It was faint, like a whisper beneath the surface, a pulse buried deep in my core. A thread of warmth, waiting.

The stone in my hand trembled.

My breath caught.

It was small, barely noticeable, but it was real.

Sable didn't speak. She didn't need to. She only watched, waiting.

I focused, holding onto that thread. The warmth flickered, like a spark trying to catch fire.

The stone shifted.

Just slightly. Just enough.

And then—

The warmth was gone.

The rock fell still in my hand.

The exhaustion hit me all at once. My knees buckled, and I barely caught myself before collapsing.

Sable studied me for a long moment, then gave a single nod. "Better."

I exhaled, shaking. My entire body felt drained. "That was nothing."

"That was something," she corrected. "A step. A small one, but a step nonetheless."

I swallowed hard.

She turned, walking away, her voice calm. "You will try again tomorrow."

I let out a hollow laugh, dropping my head back. "If I survive."

She paused at the edge of the clearing. "If you do not, then you were never meant to."

Then she was gone.

I closed my eyes, my heartbeat still thudding in my ears. The rock lay forgotten in the dirt beside me.

A small step, she had said.

But it felt like the beginning of something far greater.

Even in my exhaustion, something inside me had shifted. It wasn't just the power—though that flicker still lingered faintly, like a spark buried in ash. It was something deeper. A thread of belief. The tiniest seed of knowing that maybe—just maybe—I wasn't broken after all.

The stars above blinked faintly, distant but constant. I stared up at them, sprawled in the frost-tipped grass, my chest rising and falling in slow, labored breaths. The cold bit at my skin, but I didn't move.

Somewhere out there, in this vast, fractured world, the rulers of the seven kinds stirred. They had no idea I existed. No clue that my path—fragile, painful, uncertain—was already pulling me toward them.

But I wasn't ready. Not yet.

Tomorrow, I would rise. I would train. I would fall again.

And I would rise again.

Because something in me had finally opened. Not just power—purpose.

And I would learn to wield both.

Even if it killed me.