Chapter 4: When FIre Fails

The blade missed his throat by inches.

Riven dropped to the sand, rolling beneath a crumbling stone slab as heat singed his cheek. The stench of scorched flesh clung to the air, thick and suffocating.

He exhaled once — shallow. Blood welled beneath his ribs where a spear had grazed him earlier. Not deep enough to kill. Just deep enough to remind him he wasn't invincible.

A scream tore through the night.

"Left flank!" Torren's voice, hoarse. "They're circling again—fast!"

Kael's sword rang against a rogue's axe. "They're testing us. Drawing blood, not death."

"Yet," Riven muttered.

His blade was gone — lost somewhere behind him, half-buried in ash. But the rogues feared something far worse than steel.

His magic.

Riven gritted his teeth and drove one hand into the ground. Heat surged up his arm — wild, immediate. Fire licked his skin like it knew him, like it wanted him.

From the dunes, shadows stirred. Curling. Watching. Waiting.

Flame and darkness. Two halves of a curse he never asked for.

One burned. The other consumed.

No time for doubt.

He slashed his hand forward.

A torrent of fire roared across the ridge. Rogues scattered as flame caught their cloaks, their skin. Screams echoed, some too short to finish.

But the shadows hit harder.

They moved without form or mercy — slicing through the battlefield with quiet finality. One moment a rogue stood. The next, only ash.

"DOWN!" Kael barked.

Too late.

A scout dropped beside Syrina, chest split clean through. Blood bubbled from his lips. Syrina moved before his body hit the ground, spinning, striking.

Her blade found the rogue's throat. Twice. Then silence.

When it was done, she stood between both corpses, breathing hard.

She didn't cry.

She didn't speak.

But her eyes — when they met Riven's — burned cold.

Kael landed beside him, panting. "You're bleeding."

Riven didn't answer.

Kael pressed cloth to the gash. "Damn it, you're cracked open."

"I've had worse."

"That doesn't make it smart."

Riven met his eyes. "You want to lead next time?"

Kael stared, jaw tight. "Someone has to be the voice of reason."

"Then shout louder."

Above them, Idris loosed another arrow. Then another. Each paired with a muttered prayer.

On the fourth, his hand trembled. The arrow veered wide, harmless.

He didn't curse.

He just lowered his bow and stared into the dying firelight, like it had failed him too.

From beyond the rocks, Theron's roar split the chaos. "They're retreating!"

A beat.

Then silence.

Not peace. The kind of quiet that followed something worse.

Kael helped Riven up. His hands were steady, but his mouth was a grim line. Riven leaned on him — barely — as they climbed the ridge.

Behind them, smoke choked the stars.

Camp was built on high stone, where wind still carried heat from the day's last breath. Torren and Malen moved among the wounded. Malen muttered every curse he knew under his breath as he worked, a hand always near his belt knife.

Theron sat apart, fists clenched, blood drying on his arms. His left hand twitched now and then — muscle memory, or something darker.

Riven collapsed against a boulder, vision swimming. Shadow still coiled in his veins, restless. Fire flickered at his fingertips once, then faded to embers.

Exhaustion had teeth sharper than any wound.

Syrina knelt beside the fallen scout.

He couldn't have been more than seventeen.

She wiped blood from his brow with a torn piece of her own cloak. Her fingers didn't shake. But her breath caught once — sharp, brief — before vanishing into silence.

Idris approached slowly.

"Malrik," he said, voice hollow. "Quick hands. Quicker heart."

Syrina didn't respond.

Kael watched them both. "We burn him before dawn."

No one argued.

---

Later, Kael redressed Riven's wound, his voice low.

"This wasn't random."

"No," Riven said.

"They hit fast. Hit smart. Like they knew where we'd be. How many we were."

Syrina straightened. Her mouth was a thin line. "Then someone told them."

"From inside?" Idris asked, face unreadable.

She nodded.

Kael glanced at Syrina — too long, too sharp. Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.

Riven caught it. Filed it.

Kael met his gaze. "Then we've got a traitor."

Riven didn't blink. "We always did."

The fire crackled low. Beyond it, Syrina rinsed blood from her hands. Her blade rested across her lap — untouched since.

Riven watched her in the corner of his vision.

Earlier, when he'd summoned flame — it had shifted. Only for a moment. Turned gold. Not his color. Not his magic.

Warmth had flooded his chest. Not heat. Warmth. Familiar and strange.

Something had answered his call.

Somewhere far from this blood-stained ridge.

"You ever think the gods left us?" Idris asked quietly.

The others glanced over.

Kael didn't pause in sharpening his blade. "If they had, we'd be dead already."

"Maybe," Syrina murmured. "Or maybe we're just too stubborn to die."

Riven opened his eyes.

He didn't speak loudly. But every word landed like steel.

"And that's exactly why we'll win."

But he didn't sleep.

Not even when the wind cooled.

Not even when the blood stopped.

He stared at the stars.

And in the quiet between his breaths, his fire whispered louder than it ever had.

Across the sands, across the dark, something stirred.

Not a vision.

Not a ghost.

A heartbeat.

And it didn't belong to him.