I remembered how I sat there, beneath the shelter of the temple roof, slowly chipping away again and again with my flint and steel. No amount of effort could ignite the chalice. I had realized too late the reason why the flame wouldn’t light.
All embers dream of wildfire. Even if Gawain was a mad knight trapped in chains and a blindfold, there was a hint of truth behind his words.
I laid, half awake — half conscious as I sank beneath the ocean’s waves. Half alive and submerged, I watched as the flame I grasped shuddered and shook, reacting violently against the water before extinguishing entirely.
Bubbles escaped my lips, flowing up to the surface while I vanished into the depths of the sea.
I slumbered in the darkness of the ocean, disappearing into the black mist. Every drop of heat in my body was drained by the waters that surrounded Nordsummer — trapping both Nordborne and Southsummerians on the frozen island.
That’s when I heard a voice cut through the dark.
“The Goddess rained fire from the sky, and when the wildfire died down, a single undying flame was left behind.”
I saw a hand reach through the dark. Despite the suffering I was guaranteed to experience, my body, frozen and immobile, reached out to grasp that hand.
Light seeped in, the ice melted away and spring came. I opened my eyes to find myself underneath an unfamiliar roof. I heard the gentle howl of a giant wolf and the winter winds that I normally blocked off with walls became my tailwind — pushing me forwards.
I woke up on a tent-sled pulled by a giant wolf, a black mass of fur that sped across the snow. I sat up to find myself laid out bare, my waist wrapped with bandages and medicinal moss.
“Rest,” I heard. A pair of pale yet toned and calloused hands reached down, gently spinning a bundle of bandages around my broken ribs. The fall was less than kind to me, the sea harsh as ever. I looked up to see another mass of fur, a hood pulled over my doctor.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice weak, my lungs barely able to push out anything more than a pained whisper.
The doctor pulled up their hood. Beneath it, behind her toned, pale arms, behind a tribal tomahawk that lay beside me and before the tundra frontier ahead of me sat a familiar smile.
“I am Anise of the Razed Hollows.” and she unfurled my hand, revealing the flame that rested in my palm, saying, “You must be the flameseeker.”
“Flameseeker," I muttered under my breath like a curse. "Just call me Emil."
“Well, I'm glad to see you're alive and well.” and she put a hand to her chin while she sat cross-legged, reaching to her side for a gourd bottle. She took a wooden bowl and poured a pale, cloudy drink. She took that drink, knelt forward and placed it by my chin.
“Flameseeker,” she said. “Drink. It will soothe your wounds.”
“That’s no medicine,” I said, recognizing the harshness of alcohol.
“No, it’s not, but it’s better than nothing.”
I shrugged. She had fished me out of the sea and tended to my wounds. The most I could do was accept her request and drink. She helped me drink by lifting my head before laying me down on the wooden sled. Anise grabbed a strip of dried flesh off the wall, chewing and softening it before tearing off bits with her teeth, bringing chunks to my mouth.
“Eat,” she told me. “Falling from the Heavens is one thing, but landing in the sea is another.”
“I didn’t fall from the Heavens,” I answered, but she ignored that — leaving me a bundle of dried meat to eat. It was better than eating fish raw, and from the spices and salts rubbed into the jerky, I tasted flavors I had no idea existed.
She watched over me, catching every expression and detail on my face. “You’re not from here, are you?” she asked, and I sat up, sitting opposite of her with a look of suspicion on my face.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. Her response was to take a finger and point up towards the mountains above.
“I’ve heard stories of the people of the wind chimes, how they live — cowering in their homes, hiding away from the winds of winter.”
“Wind chimes? You mean weathervanes?”
Hearing that, Anise perked up — leaning in close to ask, “Weathervanes?”
“They’re technology that harnesses the wind, creating electricity that heats our homes. You say we cower away from the winds of winter — and while that’s true, it’s not exactly like the cold is doing us any favors. To us, the cold is nothing but a plague that freezes people to death, even while they sleep."
“You don’t know the wind like I do,” she answered. It was all she had to say, all while the wolf dragged the tented sled across the snowy landscape.
I sat silently on the dog sled, and despite wearing nothing but pants and bandages over my chest, I stared off to the horizon— my body filled with a gentle, protective warmth. Anise sat, reins in hand, gently watching the horizon, watching as the black wolf came to a pause.
“Dreihander?” she said, glancing at her hollow wolf. Dreihander sniffed the air, lowering his nose to the snow before he let out a howl.
Distant howls responded. He picked up speed.
“Where are we headed?” I asked, to hurt and injured to talk back and argue more with Anise.
“The Beach of the Depthers,” she answered.
Depthers were tribal peoples who dove into the sea, taking the risk of freezing to death to search for goods in the depths of the ocean. Naturally, imperials and those under imperial occupation didn’t partake in such dangerous and barbaric practices.
To be soaked in river or ocean water was a sign of misfortune in the civilized world. The only time people touched water was during baths, always indoors, with hot water being a luxury afforded only to nobles and the wealthy.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“You’re looking for temples of fire, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I need to spread this little ember,” I answered, allowing the flame to flicker in my palm. Seeing that flame, Anise reached to her side, to a bundle of fish wrapped up in leaves. She took a chunk of white meat and lifted it over the flame, quietly watching as the flame flickered and the meat began to cook.
Droplets of frozen fat turned to liquid, dripping down her fingers. I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the sight. My whole life, I ate fish raw — occasionally having it cooked into a soup over an electric stove. Now, I sat there, watching as the fish cooked till the outside skin turned a nice crispy brown.
“You know, flameseeker. There was a time when anyone could light a flame, when people would gather around a campfire to stay warm. People would lay down under furs and quilt covers, watching the flames dance in a campfire.”
“I’ve heard stories about that,” I answered. “Still, though. As nice as it sounds, I think I’d prefer to stay inside with an electric heater.”
“Oh?” Anise asked. “Well, I’ve heard about the lives of imperials and the conquered slaves — how they live alone in little boxes heated by machines, abandoning and selling their children if they’re lucky enough to have them. For such civilized people they live such backwards lives.”
I couldn’t deny that fact. I couldn’t even remember my own parents’ faces. I wasn't sure if I had siblings, and at this point, they were nothing more than a blip in my fading memory.
Dreihander sped across the snow towards the seaside, towards a village built upon the beach.
Buildings stood atop support beams, protecting them from the tide, all while people worked through the morning, wrapped in moss-woven capes and furs. The people spent their days working like machines, one that pulled fish out of the sea and into the mouths of their tribe.
In a way, the tribal people who lived out here by the beach weren’t too different from the people in Wintermute. The only differences were that they lived in large, yet cramped homes — conical tents built with layers upon layers of fur designed to trap body heat inside. Families lived together in those homes, with each new member being both a mouth to feed and another warm body whose heat contributed to the family’s collective warmth.
Anise strolled into the village with her wolf-pulled sled, only for people to watch her from a distance as if she were an outside threat.
No one welcomed her. Not a single smile came her way.
“Is this how tribal folk greet their fellow man?” I asked. “And here I thought we civilized folk were backwards.”
“They treat me this way because I’m a nomad — a girl with no home to speak of.”
“No home? I thought you were ‘of the Razed Hollows’.”
“What part of razed implies it hasn’t been burnt to the ground?”
I paused. “Razed? As in fire?”
“There’s more to the world than what’s inside the boundaries of civilized society.”
She took a coat off the wall, a fur mass, and handed it to me. “Wear it,” she told me. “In civilized society people may seek to stand out for status, but here, among us tribal folk, you’d do best to dress modestly.”
“Are you telling me tribal folk don’t like fashion?”
“Tribal folk don’t like deviants.” and she stuck a finger into my chest — reminding me I was still shirtless. The coat was a cape of moss hidden beneath a blanket of fur, black fur shed from Dreihander and turned into clothing. Moss felt nice against my bare skin — better than the bitter winds at least.
She passed through the village, her wolf strolling past villagers who ignored her and past dogs who stayed in packs, fearing the giant beast that was Dreihander. She was nothing more than a visitor wandering in a strange land.
To my surprise, she stopped at a particular tent — one marked with coils of woven moss wrapped around the building and up the body like a spire. Dreihander came to a halt, and there, she stepped off.
“Take my hand, flameseeker,” she said, and with a playful smirk she stood by the step of the sled with a hand outstretched — offering me a hand off the sled.
I was too prideful to accept help, leaping off despite my injuries. Hobbled with pain, Anise helped me enter the tent, into the tribe’s warmth — something that was foreign to me.
The tent, without windows, was dim to its very core. Shrouded by darkness, the only source of light was the daylight that seeped in through the cracks of the entrance and a set of glow bugs that buzzed about freely like they were pets. Anise sat on the softened straw below, introducing the owner of the tent to me — an old lady whose skin was as pale as the white sands.
A pair of azure eyes and silver hair peered out from the darkness.
“Shaman,” Anise said, taking my hand, revealing my flame. “I have caught the fallen star — the flameseeker.”
The shaman peered through the darkness before reaching out. A pair of bony hands appeared out of the night, carrying in her grasp a strange, dried twig. I watched as she snapped the twig apart, causing a sudden flush of green firefly light.
“To think, in my lifetime, I’d meet a flameseeker.” and the old shaman took my hand and pressed her thumbs into my palm, reading it with half blind eyes. “I am Nanna, shaman of the silver sands. Tell me, flameseeker. What brings you here?”
“You’re looking at the reason right here,” I answered, patting a hand on Anise’s shoulder. “For whatever reason, she went out of her way to fish me out of the sea.”
Nanna let out a soft laugh. “She always was the curious type.”
“Traveling alone across the snowscape is lonely at first, but after a point, you just get bored,” Anise confessed. “I was lucky enough to witness a falling star — one I caught with my own two hands.”
“I’m not a star and I didn’t fall from the heavens,” I said. “I’m a human being, not some pagan god or spirit or what it is you shamans think I am.”
Nanna nodded. “Flameseekers are always human, for the task of reviving the primordial flame is an inherently human endeavor.”
Being reminded of who I was — a simple human — left me with a strange sense of humility. “I guess I’m just that,” I said. “A normal person.”
“You are human,” Nanna said, “perfectly capable of both improving or ruining the lives of others. It is up to you to decide how to use the flame’s power.”
“But why me?” I asked. “Many people before me have tried and failed. Why did I become a flameseeker?”
“Why you?” Nanna asked, to which she simply shrugged, saying, “I have no idea. All I know is that the gods are fickle.”
The gods were fickle indeed. One moment, I was having my face carved by a sadistic secret policeman. The next moment, I was lying in the warmth of a tent, surrounded by fireflies who served an elderly shaman. The elderly shaman reached above, to a lantern housing fireflies, and freed them.
She took that open cage and reached down to her feet, to wooden bowls filled with strange dusts that shimmered beneath the glow bugs. She pinched silver dust and gold flakes and poured a droplet of quicksilver mercury into a mixture, placing it into the cage of the lantern.
“All embers dream of wildfire, and the greatest fuel for a fire are the remnants of the dead. Sacrifices,” she said. “This mixture is an ancient fuel used by the first Emperor Eckard, one he used to track powerful daemons to slay, whose bodies he burned to fuel the primordial flame.”
“Daemons?” I asked, to which the old shaman smiled.
“The first Emperor of the White Winds was a wielder of flames himself."
“A wielder of flames,” I muttered.
“Ignore the ramblings of this old hag,” Nanna said. She placed the lantern in my lap, telling me, “Burn the mixture and the flame will lead you towards the resting sites of daemons slain. Follow the path of Emperor Eckard, gather the remnant flames he left behind and you will have enough embers to revive the primordial flame.”
I stared at the mixture, a strange fuel with a quicksilver base. “Thank you,” was all I could say, to which the old lady bowed.
“It’s a pleasure serving the flameseeker, aiding him on his quest to revive the primordial flame. May your wildfire purify all of Nordsummer.”
With the mixture in my hands, I left the tent. Anise repaid the shaman with a nugget of gold, one she’d grind into dust, into flakes for her craft.
We returned to the sled and Anise patted Dreihander on the side, tossing him a fish unwrapped from its leaf, her payment to Dreihander for his lifelong loyalty. With her wolf fed, she turned to me with the question of a drifter — of a wanderer.
“Where to?” she asked.
I took a bundle of Nanna’s mixture, staining my fingers a pale, silvery mercury before engulfing the concoction as fuel for my flame. The flame roared, sputtering with quicksilver before calming — growing a tail of flames that blew with a mind of its own.
The wintry winds blew south while the flame pointed north. With a shout, Dreihander pulled us towards where the flame seeked.