Flo had learned early that fire did not roar.
It whispered first.
The night her village burned, the wind carried the scent of smoke long before the flames reached the outer huts. Thick. Bitter. Wrong. Flo woke with it lodged in her throat, eyes snapping open to darkness painted orange by distant light.
For a moment, she thought it was a dream.
Then she heard screaming.
Not panic. Not confusion. Screams that ended too quickly.
Her mother was already awake. She grabbed Flo's wrist, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt. "Don't look back," she said, voice steady in a way that frightened Flo more than shouting ever could. "Run to the treeline. No matter what you hear."
Flo wanted to ask why. She always asked why.
The hut wall exploded inward before she could speak.
Men poured through the opening—iron masks, bone charms, blades humming with crude enchantments. One of them laughed as if this were sport. Another set the thatch roof ablaze with a casual flick of mana.
Her father was outside already, shouting orders that no one obeyed. He moved like a storm, claws tearing through armor, demonic blood answering the threat with instinctive violence. He was strong. Stronger than anyone Flo knew.
It didn't matter.
Her mother shoved her toward the back of the hut. "Go!"
Flo ran.
She ran barefoot over dirt already warm from spreading fire, past bodies she refused to recognize, past homes collapsing into sparks and screams. The forest swallowed her just as something massive struck the ground behind her, shaking the earth.
She did not look back.
She ran until her lungs burned and her legs shook, until the sounds of slaughter faded into nothing but the night insects and her own sobbing breath. Only then did she stop.
She waited.
Minutes stretched into hours. Dawn crept in pale and cold. Flo told herself her parents were strong. Her father always said strength was protection. That power meant safety.
When the sun fully rose, she turned back.
There was nothing left.
Ash covered the ground like snow. The village was gone—flattened, burned, erased. Bodies lay where they'd fallen, twisted and broken. She found her mother near the well, eyes open, hand reaching for nothing. She found her father farther out, kneeling even in death, chest torn open by something far stronger than him.
Flo screamed until her voice broke.
She buried them with her hands. No rites. No prayers. Just dirt and shaking fingers.
That was the day her father's words became chains.
He had always pushed her to grow stronger. Harder. Faster. "Weakness is death," he said. "You must never hesitate." Flo had wanted something else. A life where strength wasn't the only answer.
That night, as she curled beneath a burned tree and stared at the stars, she made a decision.
She would run.
She would leave, get stronger somewhere else, then come back. A few days. Just enough to survive.
She never made it back.
Another raid swept through the region before she returned. Different banners. Same cruelty. Flo watched from the hills as the last traces of her home were erased completely.
That was how she became someone who never stayed.
That was how the demon king's blood learned to hide.