---
Kaelen woke to the sound of his father leaving.
The leather flap fell closed, and footsteps crunched away toward the sorting pits, and Kaelen lay in the dark corner that served as his bed and tried to remember what safety felt like.
He couldn't.
Something was wrong. He'd felt it for days now—a tightness in the air, a heaviness in the way adults moved, a silence that wasn't really silence but the absence of laughter. His parents barely spoke. When they did, it was in fragments, half-sentences that died before they reached him.
They're hiding something.
The thought sat in his chest like a coal that wouldn't cool.
Something bad. Something coming.
He wanted to stay home. Wanted to curl into his corner and pull the blanket over his head and wait for whatever it was to pass him by.
But staying home meant being alone with his mother's sad eyes and his father's silence. Staying home meant sitting in the dim hut, listening to his own breath, feeling the walls press closer with every hour.
He got up.
---
Outside, the village was already awake. Smoke rose from cookfires. Children ran between huts, their laughter sharp and strange—too loud, too bright, like they were trying to outrun something.
Kaelen walked toward the river, away from the noise.
The flame technique.
Months ago—had it been months?—Elder Venn had gathered all the children in the village square. She'd shown them something Kaelen had never seen before: fire that moved at her command, not just burning but flowing, curling around her fingers like liquid gold, dripping to the ground where it sizzled and cooled into beads of volcanic glass.
"This is the gift of the goddess," she'd said. "The fire in our blood. The flame that sleeps in every child of the mountain."
She'd called it something. A word Kaelen couldn't quite remember.
Lava mimicry. No—flame weaving. No—
He stopped walking, pressed his palms against his eyes.
Why can't I remember? Why can't I—
Because he hadn't asked. Because when the other children crowded around Elder Venn, asking questions, demanding answers, Kaelen had stood at the back, silent, afraid that if he opened his mouth the stutter would ruin everything.
If I'd asked, she would have answered. If I'd spoken, I would know.
But he hadn't. And he didn't.
Worthless. Worthless. Worthless.
The word beat in his skull like a second heart.
He reached the river. Sat on his rock. Stared at the steam rising from the water.
Try anyway. Try even if you fail. Try even if—
He raised his hand.
Feel the fire. That's what she said. Feel it in your blood. Feel it in your bones. Call it.
He concentrated. Pictured warmth. Pictured flame. Pictured the lava he'd seen dripping from Elder Venn's fingers, beautiful and terrible.
Nothing.
His hand stayed empty. His blood stayed ordinary. The fire in him—if there was any—slept on, undisturbed.
Of course. Of course nothing happens. Why would anything happen for me?
He lowered his hand. Stared at the river.
I'm ten years old. I can't speak. I can't fight. I can't even make a spark. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to be?
The river didn't answer.
But somewhere behind him, carried on the wind, he heard voices.
---
Kaelen moved before he thought.
His body knew the rhythm of hiding—crouching low, moving quiet, finding shadow. Years of avoiding bullies had made him good at it. Maybe the only thing he was good at.
He crept toward the voices, keeping to the rocks, until he reached a ridge overlooking a shallow depression in the ash.
The children were there. All of them.
Ruk stood at the center, his hands raised, his face screwed up in concentration. A thin flame flickered around his fingers—barely there, more heat than light, but real. Kaelen's breath caught.
Dorn sat nearby, watching. Mina crouched beside him, her eyes wide. And Mira—Mira stood apart, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
"—and then you push it out," Ruk was saying. "Like Elder Venn showed us. You feel it in your chest first, then your arms, then—" The flame flickered, steadied, grew. "Then your hands."
Dorn shook his head. "I can't feel anything. Just—warm. Like I'm sick."
"Keep trying. It took me three weeks."
Three weeks. Kaelen's stomach twisted. They'd been practicing for three weeks, and he hadn't known. Hadn't noticed. Hadn't been included.
Of course not. Why would they include you?
Ruk lowered his hands. The flame died. For a moment, just a moment, his face lost its usual swagger—looked tired, looked young, looked afraid.
Then he saw Mina watching and the mask snapped back into place.
"What?" His voice sharper than it needed to be.
"Nothing." Mina looked away. "Just—do you think it'll be enough?"
Ruk didn't answer.
Dorn did. "It won't be enough. You know it won't. The knights have—" He stopped. Swallowed. "They have real fire. Real fighters. We have kids playing with sparks."
"We have the elders," Mina said weakly.
"The elders can't fight. They're old. They'll die first."
Silence.
Ruk's hands curled into fists. "Then we die. What else is there? Run? Hide? Let them burn the village and everyone in it?"
Mira spoke for the first time. Her voice was quiet, but it cut through the air like a blade.
"There are seven stages."
Everyone looked at her.
She didn't look back. Her eyes were fixed on the mountain, on the smoke rising from its peak.
"Elder Venn told me. Before—" She stopped. Started again. "There are seven stages of fire. Crawler. Sensing mana. Awakener. Ascended. Transcendent. Supreme. Sovereign."
Ruk frowned. "I've never heard of—"
"Because nobody in this village has ever passed sensing mana." Mira's voice was flat. "Not in living memory. Not in a hundred years. We're crawlers. All of us. Playing with sparks while the real fire burns somewhere we'll never reach."
Dorn's face went pale. "Then what's the point? If we can't even—"
"The point is we try." Ruk's voice was fierce. "The point is we don't give up before we start."
Mira finally looked at him. Her eyes were old in a way that made Kaelen's chest hurt.
"Trying won't save us. You know that. The knights have Awakeners. Maybe Ascended. They've trained for years, fought real battles, killed real enemies. We're children. We're ash. And when they come—" She shrugged, small and broken. "We'll burn."
The word hung in the air like smoke.
Mina started crying. Quietly, without sound, just tears sliding down her cheeks.
Dorn put an arm around her. It was awkward, uncertain—he was eleven, he didn't know how to comfort anyone—but he tried.
Ruk stared at the ground. His jaw worked. His hands shook.
And Kaelen, hidden in the rocks above, felt something crack open in his chest.
Seven stages.
He'd never heard of them. Never known there was a path, a ladder, a way to grow. The other children knew. The other children had been told.
Why not me? Why does everyone know except me?
But he knew why. He'd always known why.
Because he was weak. Because he was worthless. Because telling him would be like telling the ash at the bottom of the kiln that it could become flame again.
Crawler. Sensing mana. Awakener. Ascended. Transcendent. Supreme. Sovereign.
He repeated the words in his head, over and over, memorizing them like a prayer.
Crawler. Sensing mana. Awakener. Ascended. Transcendent. Supreme. Sovereign.
Below, Ruk spoke again. His voice was different now—quieter, less certain.
"Even if we can't win," he said, "even if we all die—we have to try. Because if we don't, then what were we? What was any of it for?"
Mira looked at him. For a long moment, she didn't speak.
Then she said, "You sound like your father."
Ruk flinched. "Don't."
"He said the same thing, didn't he? Before he—"
"I said don't."
Mira nodded. Said nothing else.
The silence stretched, heavy as stone.
Kaelen watched them—these children who had mocked him, excluded him, made his life a misery—and for the first time, he saw something he hadn't expected.
They're afraid. They're all afraid. Just like me.
But they were doing something. Practicing. Learning. Preparing.
And he was hiding in the rocks, watching, worthless.
No.
The word came from somewhere deep. Somewhere that had been listening to his father's voice for ten years and had finally, quietly, decided to fight back.
No. Not worthless. Not yet.
He slipped away from the ridge, moving silent as shadow, and made his way back toward the river.
He had seven stages to remember. Seven steps on a ladder he might never climb.
But for the first time in his life, he knew the ladder existed.
That was something.
---
At the river, he raised his hand again.
Crawler. That's what I am. That's what we all are. Crawling in the ash, reaching for something we can't touch.
He closed his eyes.
But if I crawl long enough—if I keep trying, keep failing, keep getting up—maybe someday I'll stand.
He felt for the fire.
Nothing.
He felt again.
Nothing.
He felt until his hand ached and his head pounded and tears leaked from his closed eyes.
Nothing.
Seven stages. Seven steps. And I can't even take the first one.
He opened his eyes. Stared at his empty palm.
But I know they exist now. I know there's a path.
That's more than I knew yesterday.
He lowered his hand.
And somewhere, deep in his chest, something that might have been a spark flickered once and went dark.
---
Back in the hollow, the children had stopped practicing.
Ruk sat alone, his back against a rock, his face hidden in his hands.
Mina had stopped crying. She leaned against Dorn, exhausted, empty.
Dorn stared at nothing, his arm still around her, his mind somewhere far away.
And Mira—Mira stood at the edge of the hollow, looking toward the rocks where Kaelen had been hiding.
She couldn't see him. He was long gone.
But something made her stare anyway. Something made her frown.
Were you there? Were you watching?
She didn't know.
But as she walked home through the gathering dark, she couldn't shake the feeling that someone had been listening.
Someone who wasn't supposed to hear.
---
At the edge of the village, Elder Morvath sat on his bed of stones and watched the mountain.
The smoke was thicker tonight. The flicker he'd seen—had he seen it?—haunted his dreams.
Seven stages, he thought. Seven steps to the goddess's heart. And we've never passed the second.
He thought of the children practicing in secret. He thought of the parents pretending not to know. He thought of the knights marching toward them, each one stronger than anyone in Ash Valley had ever been.
We're going to die.
The thought was calm now. Peaceful, almost.
We're going to die, and the goddess will watch, and nothing will change.
He looked at the mountain.
Unless.
The flicker came again.
Brighter this time.
Longer.
Morvath's breath caught.
Unless she's waking up.
He sat on his stones, watching the mountain, feeling something he hadn't felt in seventy-seven years.
Hope.
---