I sat alone beneath moonlight, and with dreary, half-awake eyes, I sat before my gentle flame, working away with my hands. With a chunk of flint and my knife, I slowly scraped again and again, pouring sparks into a mixture of tinders and leaves placed in the chalice that rested in the safety of my lap.

I used my own body to guard the chalice all while sparks flew, igniting the tinder only for the flame to extinguish moments later. I tried again and again, scraping away at the edge of my now dulled blade.

My shadows crawled up the walls of the dilapidated temple, warping when my limbs moved, when my hands scraped steel upon flint. Even after hours, there was nothing I could do to light the flame. A sane person would walk away and give up. I was unfortunate enough to continue, clinging onto a false hope of fire.

I scraped again and again, my mind dulled as I listened to the wind — how it cut through the broken ceiling, occasionally dragging in snow that slowly melted in the presence of my undying flame. My hands moved slower and slower until the knife fell out of my grasp, sticking into the moistened planks beneath me. I slumped over, curling around my flame and the chalice that refused to light.

I didn't ask why, I didn't argue with the flame, and I didn't complain. The flame refused to light, and at that point, I accepted what I had to do.

I was alone once more with nothing but an ember in my grasp. I could hear the sputtering of an engine followed by the slamming of car doors, and hearing that, I sat up once more, bringing the flame close to my chest.

Footsteps crunched through the snow — the footsteps of four people. I knew that Valery could easily betray me. The only thing I didn't account for was how fast his treachery would arrive.

The doors of the temple opened behind me. I sat, one leg tucked in, looking behind and past my shoulder to find a pair of soldiers and a familiar couple who stepped inside.

"Sold me out, huh?" I asked. "You made your choice, and I don't blame you for it."

Valery stepped forward, a hint of guilt and shame in his eyes.

"I made my choice. I prioritized what was important to me."

"I can tell," I said. Seeing the two soldiers step into the temple, I stood up — my coat slipping off my shoulders, leaving me standing in nothing but a thin woolen sweater and pants.

The soldiers stood in awe at the sight of my flame, how it flickered gently in my hand. The soldiers weren't normal soldiers, though. I had encountered the occupational army before, but this time I stood face to face with plainclothes officers — the secret police. The secret police stood, armed with mancatcher spears designed to capture people alive.

"Come with them quietly," Isara said, blocking off the entrance. "If you come quietly, they might let you live. Who knows? If you're good, they might welcome you into the empire and give you a better life than the flame rebellion ever could."

"Maybe they could," I argued, "but I'm not stupid enough to place my life in the hands of the empire."

In the face of twin spears, I took my hands — enveloped in flames — and swung. Weak embers flew like fireflies, a beautiful and distracting sight, forming embers that touched the firecrackers that hung from the ceiling like vines.

Sparks flew. Scattering lights blinded my enemies, shooting out sparks and embers. When the police recovered, they looked up to find me atop the pillars and support beams of the temple, watching as I escaped through a hole through the roof.

"Go!" I heard Isara shout. "Capture him!"

Valery, with his swords at his sides, sprinted forwards before leaping up — grabbing onto the support pillar above. He scaled up onto the roof where I leapt off and fled into the forest. I turned to see Valery jump, catching himself with a roll, all while the temple behind him was lit ablaze.

The two policemen were left in the dust. Sprinting through the forest, he chased after me — following my trailing boot prints as branches scraped my face.

"Flameseeker!" Valery shouted. I sprinted through the snow, wielding my flame like a torch.

I turned — swinging that flame like a whip and spreading embers onto a tree. The flame leapt from pine needle to pine needle, turning the snow-covered trees to torches. Valery pulled out his twin blades and hacked apart a brush of burning rose thorns, charging forward and after me.

"There's no escaping me!" Valery cried, shouting through smoke-induced coughs.

I ran until I found myself standing on the edge of Priscilla's Peak with the brilliant ocean as my backdrop. Looking off the edge, I saw the churning sea — a drop that would kill anyone.

I stood, my back to the cliff, facing forward towards my enemies with nothing more than a flame-licked hand.

"You're cornered. Give it up," Valery said.

"Cornered?" I asked. "There are no walls trapping me."

I stepped back towards the cliff. Seeing that, Valery returned his swords to his sheath.

"Jumping won't do you any good," he told me. "You've got a chance here, flameseeker. The empire can give you a good life, one you deserve."

"What sort of life is that?" I asked, a hint of sarcasm in my voice. "How am I, a pureblooded Nordborne like you, supposed to live knowing I bent my knee before the empire?"

Valery couldn't help but wince at my comments, all while I stood — my heart filled with a strange enthusiasm that came with the confrontation of death. For the first time in my life, I felt genuinely alive.

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Valery, though, grew more and more exasperated as he dealt with an impossible problem. I could feel the ground beneath me shift. For the first time in his life, Valery looked genuinely worried.

"Scared?" I asked with a smirk. "Afraid you'll fall?"

"Of course, dammit! I'm at my wit's end here!" Valery confessed. "How could I possibly convince you to come with me!?"

I froze. The promise of being listened to and treated like a human being for the first time in my life was alluring. For a brief moment, I contemplated it — the possibility of joining the empire.

I was the flameseeker. The ember in my hand had potential — enough to gain favor with the imperial court. If I helped them, there was a 50/50 chance that I'd either be rewarded or killed off.

A 50/50 chance was the best deal I had ever gotten in my whole life. For the first time, I saw a worthwhile offer.

"Can you promise me a future with the empire?" I asked him.

He opened his mouth to speak. Unfortunately for the both of us, his answer came in the form of a speeding truck.

The snow truck sped, turning when the driver noticed the cliff edge — barreling ahead and stamping itself down between Valery and me. The car swiveled itself just right, positioning the side of the vehicle next to me, allowing the shotgun seated policeman to take his pronged spear and pin me to the ground.

It was like a snake constricting around its prey. The jaws of the mancatcher were clasped around my neck as the policeman lifted me up — leaving me to struggle as I kicked my legs and pulled at the metal jaws.

"We caught the flameseeker!" the policeman said, dangling me from the end of his spear. With a scowl, the officer dragged the spear in, pulling me in close like a caught fish, grabbing me by my chin.

"I got you, you little bastard," the officer said, a sadistic grin growing on his firecracker-burnt face. "Those were some cheap tricks you pulled back there. You did a real number on my face."

I froze when he pulled out a knife, asking, "How are you gonna repay me for these burns, huh?"

"Repay you?" I asked, panicking when he brought the knife up to my face — to my cheek where the officer suffered a light burn.

"You've got a lot of nerve for a Nordling. Putting a dent on a Southsummerian man's face is a crime punishable by death, you know that?" and he placed the knife against my face. Without an ounce of remorse or hesitation, the officer dragged the blade down my cheek, leaving what would become a permanent scar if I made it out alive.

The flame in my hand was an ember compared to his dagger. Burning hot blood ran down my chin. The wound stung worse than the freezing wind.

Valery watched as I bled, as the officer laughed to himself — proud of his success and of his new scars. The driver turned and waved to Valery with a smile.

"Well done," the driver said, preparing the truck to turn and leave — to bring me to the emperor in fetters and chains. "Detective Alfman will reward you handsomely for your good decision making. We guarantee it."

"Will he really?" Valery asked, a hint of skepticism shining through.

The other officer, who was done carving a wound on my face, shot him a smirk.

"Don't worry. You did good, even for a Nordling. The empire's gonna reward you, I guarantee it. You and that woman of yours are in safe hands."

"Are we really in safe hands?" Valery asked, "or are we just pawns? Pieces for you to throw away?"

"Look," the officer said. "You picked your side. You betrayed your own kind. It's not like you can take back what happened." and he grabbed me by the chin, turning my face to show off the wound. "After all, you made the hard decisions. You'd rather we cut the kid than leave a scar on your woman, don't you?"

"You made the right choice — the choice I'd make if I were in your shoes," I told Valery, forcing my words through a jaw clenched in the officer's hand.

"See?" the officer said, his smirk growing to a wide smile. "Even the kid agrees."

Valery stood, his morals and beliefs tossed aside in the face of persecution from the empire. The twin blades lay sheathed by his side, all while the enemy he was meant to slay sat before him, laughing and cheering — treating him as nothing more than a pawn, a piece they took control of.

Valery's Nordborne spirit, however, was indomitable.

"Flameseeker?" Valery asked. "Why do you think you were unable to kindle the flame?"

I smiled. "Because I wasn't worthy."

"No," Valery answered. "It's because I wasn't."

The two officers paused. Their smiles vanished. Valery's cold exterior melted away — not out of kindness but out of wrath for himself. His wrath burned, and with his twin swords, he directed that hatred at his real enemies.

I looked up, raising my jaw-clenched head to see Valery standing there, a firecracker in his hand.

"Embers dream of wildfire," Valery told me, "but a flame can't be tended to alone."

"Valery?" I muttered.

"I've made many bad decisions in my life, but this won't be one of them," Valery said. "I won't let the fire die."

"Valery, now's not the time to make stupid decisions," the officer snapped.

Valery smiled. "You're right. It's not."

He took that firecracker and threw it. In a flash, he unsheathed his twin blades and leapt forward — dashing towards the truck like a berserking bull. The driver panicked, grasping the shift-stick to try and pull the truck in reverse. The other officer bit down bitterly as he unsheathed a sword of his own.

Valery, however, was nothing more than a distraction. Before they knew it, I had caught that flying firecracker like I was stealing the very stars from the sky.

With a snap, the cracker blew, and Valery knew to cover his eyes with his arm. The two policemen were caught in the blinding light, and with his twin blades, Valery made sure it was the last thing they saw.

Blood spilled and heads flew. In a single stroke he lopped both heads off their shoulders.

The policemen laid dead. Valery stood, swinging the blood off his swords before returning them to their sheathes in one smooth motion. I fell to the ground, the jaws unlocked, freeing me from their grasp.

"You saved me," I said, "and in violent fashion, too."

"They laid a finger on a fellow Nordborne. It was the least I could do to apologize, letting him cut you like that."

I took a handful of snow and wiped the blood away. With a smile, I shrugged it off, telling him, "I'll be fine. It's nothing but a scratch."

"Even after all that, you're smiling," Valery said.

I scoffed. "Speak for yourself."

Valery paused, put a hand to his face and realized that he was, indeed, smiling. Realizing that, he could only nod, accepting the truth for what it was.

"I guess it's my reward for doing something good for once."

"No, you didn't," we both heard. Behind us stood Isara, sword in hand, a blade pointed straight at my throat.

"You've done it now," she said. "We had this once in a lifetime opportunity and you threw it away, and for what? A random kid?"

"Isara," Valery said. "It doesn't matter how much we give to the empire. We're Nordborne — nothing more than cannon fodder in their eyes. If we became an inconvenience, they'd get rid of us without a second thought."

"I know they would, but now you've given them more than enough reason to hunt us down." and she pointed her sword towards my throat, telling him, "We still have a chance to make things right. Even if we failed to capture him, so long as the flame scourge is dead, they should be satisfied."

I looked down the sword towards Isara. The look in her eyes said it all. The knife-wielding officer's cruelty was nothing compared to a woman who wanted nothing more than to protect the one she loved.

The secret police weren't fighting for their lives but for a promotion. Isara — in the face of total desperation — revealed just how ruthless she was willing to be.

"Isara," Valery said, but she snapped back at him.

"Don't," she told him. "You've done enough harm, not just to yourself but to the both of us. I'll make things right, I promise." and she grasped the sword with both hands, telling me, "I have no choice but to kill you where you stand."

"I know," I answered, and I stepped back, my feet touching air.

Valery watched as I fell like snow. Isara stood, frozen in place — dumbfounded by my decision. I fell, embers scattering behind, leaving trails in the sky before plunging into the sea below.