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The scars on my back don't hurt anymore. That's the funny thing about pain—eventually, your nerves just give up.
But I remember.
I remember the taste of iron in my mouth at seven years old, kneeling on broken glass because I accidentally let a spark of my flame escape during dinner. My father's boot on my neck. My mother's cold eyes watching from the doorway, saying nothing.
"You're a curse, Flame Fire," she finally whispered. "A stain on this family's name."
That was the first time I realized parents weren't supposed to look at their children like that. Like we're something to be scraped off the bottom of their shoe.
The City of Neonia floated above the wastelands like a dream made of steel and light. Sky bridges connected gleaming towers where the elite lived, untouchable, breathing filtered air while the rest of the world choked on ash below. My parents were among them. Respected. Powerful. They had a son who manifested Shadow Flame—a rare mutation of fire affinity mixed with shadow essence—and they were disgusted.
Dark blue flames with veins of black. Beautiful, they called it in public, showing me off at galas. Monstrous, they called it in private, locking me in the basement when the guests left.
I was fourteen the night they finally broke me.
I'd trained in secret, you see. Found an old man in the lower sectors—a retired dual sword master named Kaelen who didn't care about my flames, only my will. He taught me to move like shadow, to let the darkness embrace me rather than fear it. For three years, I snuck out every night, learning to teleport through shadows, to wrap myself in stealth, to fight with two blades singing in my hands.
But secrets have a way of surfacing.
My father found my training swords. Found the burn marks where I'd practiced my flame control. Found the journal where I'd written my dreams of leaving, of becoming something more than their shame.
He didn't say a word. Just waited until I came home.
The beating lasted three hours. I don't remember all of it. Just fragments—the fireplace poker glowing red, the screams I tried to muffle, my mother's silhouette in the doorway again, watching, always watching.
When they were done, they dragged me to the edge of the city. The Council was waiting, called by my parents to witness my "exile for dangerous and unstable behavior."
"Flame Fire," the Council Leader announced, reading from a scroll with bored eyes, "you are hereby banned from the City of Neonia for life. Your powers are deemed a threat to public safety. Your family has renounced all connection to you. May the wasteland claim what the city no longer recognizes."
My mother wouldn't look at me.
My father spat at my feet.
And I fell.
Literally fell—they dumped me off the platform edge, and I tumbled through clouds and smoke, crashing into the wasteland below. Bones broke. Skin tore. I lay in the dirt for three days, bleeding into the poisoned earth, waiting to die.
But the shadows spoke to me there.
Rise, they whispered. Rise, little flame. Burn brighter. Burn darker. Become what they feared.
On the fourth day, I stood up.
Flame Fire was dead.
I was Draēker.
---
The wasteland doesn't forgive weakness. I learned that fast.
My first week, I killed seven men who tried to eat me. My second week, I killed twelve more who thought my scars meant I was prey. By the end of the first month, word spread: there's a kid in the wastes with dark fire and shadow blood, and he doesn't lose.
But surviving alone wasn't living. And somewhere in the back of my broken mind, a thought took root: Neonia threw me away. Maybe I should show them what they discarded.
First, though, I needed people. An army. A family.
I found Jennifer during a raid on a supply caravan.
She was leading a group of wasteland survivors—maybe twenty of them, ragged but fierce—attacking a warlord's transport. I watched from the shadows as she commanded the field. Calm. Precise. She pulled her wounded behind cover while simultaneously directing fire that decimated the enemy. When one of her people fell, she carried them herself, screaming orders that brooked no argument.
But when the fight ended and she found their supplies were contaminated? She didn't panic. Didn't blame anyone. She just knelt beside her people, held their hands, and said, "We'll find another way. We always do."
I stepped out of the shadows.
She had a blade at my throat before I could blink.
"You've been watching," she said. Not a question.
"I have."
"Here to kill us? Rob us? Enslave us?" Her eyes were ice. But underneath, I saw something else—exhaustion. Grief. The weight of carrying people who depended on her.
"I'm here to offer you a choice," I said. "Keep surviving day to day, waiting to die in this wasteland. Or come with me, and help me build something that fights back."
She studied me for a long moment. My scars. My flames, barely flickering at my fingertips. The twin swords strapped to my back.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Draēker."
"And what's your plan, Draēker?"
I looked toward the distant lights of Neonia, floating above the clouds like a judgment.
"Take that city. Burn it down. Build something better from the ashes."
She laughed. Actually laughed. But it wasn't cruel—it was the laugh of someone who'd forgotten how to hope, suddenly remembering.
"You're insane," she said.
"Probably."
She sheathed her blade. Extended her hand.
"Jennifer. And if we're doing this insane thing, I'm your second. I keep the army in line. I keep you in line. Deal?"
I took her hand.
Deal.