Sparks and Secrets

The forest below the mountains breathed mist into dawn, thin strands of fog suspended among the dark pines like phantom spirits reluctant to leave. Kairo walked in silence, leading the Ember Circle along a winding trail toward their next sign—a village, another whisper of power stirring in one unknown.

Beside him, Elin walked carefully, her steps uncertain but curious. She had barely slept the night before, shaken by what she had seen—and what she had become.

"You alright?" Kairo asked.

She looked up at him. "I thought the fire would go away. After they took me. After what happened. But it's still here."

He gave a small smile. "It never really leaves. But you'll learn to live with it."

Elin stopped. "Do you ever wish it never had come at all?"

Kairo did not answer. His burning house sprang to mind—the screams, the blaze, the pain. But he remembered Sera outstretched hand. The crystal. The Vault. Elin, alive and free because of the fire in him.

"I used to," he answered. "But now… not so much."

As the day stretched on, the terrain changed—rolling hills opened into wide meadows, dotted with broken stone markers and old roads. They stopped briefly to rest under the shade of a lone tree.

Virella sat with Tenn, poring over an old map scorched around the edges.

"There's something you're not saying," Sera said quietly, joining them. "I can feel it."

Virella glanced at Kairo and Elin before speaking. "This number of awakenings, this rapid—it's unnatural. Took years before the last ones were born. Decades between each other. But now they're awakening in groups."

"You think something is driving it?" Tenn asked.

"Or accelerating it," she said strictly. "The balance is shifting. The fire is growing. But we don't yet know why."

Sera folded her arms. "We need to know. Not guesses."

Later that evening, they camped beside a peaceful stream. When the group had settled, Sera approached Kairo with something in her hands—a worn journal with cracked leather.

"This was your mother's," she whispered.

Kairo stopped dead in his tracks. "What?"

"She was with us," Sera said. "Before she vanished. Before the Order destroyed everything. I didn't know her all that well, but she left this behind. I thought you were ready."

He carefully picked up the journal, his hands trembling.

He sat by the fire and opened it.

It was full of fire-glyphs and cursive writing. Energy flow charts. Temple vaults and ancient flame temple schematics. And entries. Dozens of them. In a hand that was somehow familiar to him, even though he had never read it before.

> "They're watching us more closely now. The Order has found another child. We couldn't get to her in time."

> "Kairo is only so small. But already, I see it in his eyes. He carries more than fire. He carries revolution."

> "If I don't return, I hope this finds him. And that he discovers the truth."

He looked at the last line, his heart racing.

Sera sat beside him. "She expected you to be more than a survivor."

"I barely know what I'm turning into," he said.

"But she did," Sera said. "And she risked everything to offer you an opportunity."

Kairo stared at the flickering firelight and clutched the journal.

Dreams engulfed him that evening.

He stood in a charred-out field, lightning seared the sky, ash-filled air hung in the air. He saw others far off—structures surrounded by light, flame, tempest, and stone. Roused. Hundreds of them.

And descending on them, shadow cast a shadow—vast, with wings of smoke-crafted wings and sun-eyed face.

And it spoke a ancient voice.

> "You are not the first to rise. But you may be the last to stand."

He sat up in a gasp, fire still burning, others still asleep.

Except Tenn.

The warrior was standing close by camp, glancing at trees.

Kairo stepped up beside him. "Something wrong?"

Tenn didn't turn toward him. "You dreamed it too, didn't you? That dream."

Kairo slowly nodded. "What was it?"

An echo, Tenn said. "From something very, very old. The Awakened were not always broken. So long ago, they were one. Until the Betrayal. Until the Sundering. Ever since then, the fire hid itself… until now."

Kairo looked at him. "And you think it's coming back?"

Tenn gazed at him at last. "I think you're calling it back.".

By morning, they were on the march again, following the signs—glowing coals in the earth, deformed plants in the woods, a boy who had been seen walking through fire untouched.

But when they reached the next village, smoke met them.

Not the reassuring kind.

The black, choking kind of burned houses and shattered lives.

The Order had gotten there first.

And this time, they had left a message.

Scrawled on the charred earth in scorching runes was a single sentence:

"The fire will be put out."

Kairo stared at the words, his mother's notebook wrapped around his arms.

And for the first time, he did not tremble with fear.

He seethed with rage.

And that blaze inside him?

It hungered to burn.