The square was fire.
Chains lashed, spears split the air, and the halo rained down cinders that burned through stone as easily as flesh. Kael staggered backward, shadows flaring instinctively, but they melted before the Flamebearers' light. The forge roared inside him, demanding blood, demanding he feed.
The mysterious woman stood between him and the storm, her scars burning brighter with every strike she caught. When the chain-bearer snapped her glowing links forward, the woman caught them barehanded, flames eating her skin—yet her grip did not falter. With a twist, she hurled the chain aside, gouging a canyon into the ground.
Kael's voice broke, raw and furious. "I can fight—"
"No," she snapped, her eyes never leaving the Flamebearers. "Not yet."
The spear-bearer lunged, white fire trailing his weapon like a comet. The woman lifted her hand, and sigils flared across her arm, forming a shield of seared light. The impact shook the ruins, the sound like two worlds colliding. Kael stumbled as rubble rained, his wounds tearing wider.
He felt it then—her strength. Not like his forge, hungry and wild, but disciplined, tempered, as though she had been burned a thousand times and learned to wield the fire instead of being consumed by it.
The halo-bearer whispered, a sound like ash sliding over bone. The cinders thickened into a storm, swallowing the square whole. Kael coughed as fire filled his lungs, choking him. His knees buckled.
The woman appeared at his side, gripping his arm. Her eyes burned with command. "Move."
Before Kael could protest, she dragged him into the collapsing ruins. Chains shattered walls behind them, the spear's fire carved through rooftops, and the halo's storm swallowed every shadow they tried to cling to. The city was no longer stone and ash—it was a furnace, alive and hunting them.
Kael stumbled, fury boiling in his chest. "I don't need saving!"
Her laugh was short, sharp, cutting through the fire. "You're not being saved. You're being stolen."
She kicked a fallen beam aside, pulling him into a narrow causeway where the storm's glow couldn't reach. For a heartbeat, silence returned—then the walls behind them exploded, a spear of fire piercing through. The woman shoved Kael forward, the blast searing his back.
Pain blinded him, but he forced his legs to move, his breath ragged.
The Flamebearers' voices echoed through the city, layered and inhuman:
"Run as far as you like. The fire consumes all."
Kael's rage cracked through his exhaustion. He spun, shadows tearing from his arms in jagged blades. "I'll kill you! Do you hear me? I'll—"
The woman slammed him against a wall, her hand at his throat. Her face was inches from his, eyes like molten silver. "Survive first. Kill later."
Her grip released, and before he could snarl another word, she dragged him again into the labyrinth of ruins.
Behind them, the city glowed brighter, the Flamebearers advancing with unhurried certainty. The hunt was not over—it had only begun.
Kael's body screamed with weakness, but the forge inside him blazed hotter than ever. Rage, hunger, shame—they all fed its fire.
He would remember this.
The woman's words.
The Flamebearers' voices.
The taste of helplessness burning on his tongue.
He would survive.
And one day, when the ashstorm burned with his own fire, he would make them kneel.