She ran through the midnight forest fire. The trail and she had split miles ago. Roots and rocks rolled her ankles. Crackling conifers cast sparks. The air tasted like ash. The backs of her arms stung like sunburn, the worst she’d ever had. The wall of flames—certain death, ten stories high—followed.

Defiance fueled her pounding heart as she jumped a brook that would soon be steam, blocked pain in her blistered feet as the pummeled earth struck back, and held her tongue despite all curses, for not an ounce of clean air could she spare. In peripheral vision abreast, flames danced like hooded figures. She climbed over a fallen trunk, covered her head as she crawled through a nest of thorns, and coughed as the smoky itch spread through her chest. The sky had turned a sickening orange, and nausea corrupted her sense of balance. Afterimage blind amidst bright falling embers, she lost all sense of place and plan; animal instinct put each step in the least intolerable direction until it seemed that gravity’s silent hand, once in opposition to her, was giving assistance—she was now headed downhill, gaining speed.

She reached a long wooden bridge over a ravine and sprinted for the other side, where stars hung untroubled by heat shimmer and the forest air was still cool. The rumbling structure bucked as her steps landed. Dry splintery planks abraded her bare feet, but for a moment, the smoke thinned and the blaze seemed to fall back, as if losing faith in its pursuit. There was hope; between taut breaths, there was hope. She might outrun this inferno, the summed will of all who had ever wished her ill.

She caught in her nose a pale vernal fragrance, a stray odor that brought to mind the nape of innocence... a loss of something young and sweet... a series of crimes that had dug this infernal second sun out of the wood... a parallel self still alive inside her... secret crossings of nerves she would bear if she survived the night. She heard screaming of names she did not recognize. A dead white hand clenched inside her chest. Her knees felt weak; her head, too small for the beating world. In a moment that was not quite hesitation, a careless breeze whistled down the canyon. The crosswind turbulence brought forth a tongue of flame. The bridge's truss and planks blackened. Her throat slammed shut. Her dress caught fire, leaving her no escape but a rolling fall over the railing...

One.

One second, sixteen feet.

Two.

Rushing air restored her sense of weight.

Three.

Sixteen feet times three squared. One hundred forty-four. If into water, a chance...

Four.

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Falling faster than a brakeless train.

Five.

The young witch prayed for God’s clemency.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

A black barrier broke like glass, and her skin burned of frost as it fused with a freezing abyss. If this was hell, it wasted no time. Her nerves became clambering dendrites of ice; the stabbing pain in both ears made her neck quiver. Slime kissed her toes, licked her heels. Her heart doubled over itself, giving her a last pulse of unrest. She must be alive, she reasoned, as this agony does not exist in the dead. She willed her cold-shocked limbs back to sense and command, then kicked off the riverbed, bashing frigid wet space with her thighs, climbing a rubble of nothing as her lungs screamed like torn-out mandrakes. Air. Air. Air. Just one sip, just one bubble, but her kicking... legs... could not... go... fast... enough...

A shudder parted her lips. Breath forced its way in. She had reached the surface just in time.

The bridge was a blinding ruin and the river's current was pushing her away from it. By the fire's awful light, she swam for the bank until the silty ground rose into her heaving chest. She rolled over, made fists, and screamed. Clouds of smoke cast shadowless lightning. This hovel-sized patch of mud, clear of all vegetation by ten yards, was neither comely nor comfortable, but it would not burn, so she would be safe here for the night. Exhausted, unsure whether to laugh or cry, she let her eyes close.

Thousands of acres had burned tonight and thousands more still would. Ash would fall for miles. In the cities east of here, millions would wake under the angry smog of a blaze that would not only blacken the pages of history books, but bear her name—Farisa's Fire.

#

Two days later, the Exmore Register’s front page read:

Cait Forest (28/Apr/94)—At least twenty are dead in a fire set around 1:00 a.m. on April 26 by a young witch named Farisa La’ewind. Half a million acres of woodland have burned, and smoke continues to blow in from the west. Speaking at the Global Company’s headquarters in Moyenne, Vice President of Logistics and Finance Pann Grackenheit said, “The fire is contained, and no important property has been lost.” He refused to name any of the deceased, but confirmed that all of them had been students at Cait Forest’s Macska College.

Farisa was born in Loran to left-wing terrorists Dashi Zevian and Kyana La’ewind, both of whom died in the Jungle Conflict of ’75–77, in which it was widely believed that she had also perished. Under a false identity, Farisa entered Cait Forest in September ’91 and finagled her way into a position as a teacher of ancient languages. Headmaster Barris Sotheby said, “She is a refugee my predecessor hired out of pity. It is not the decision I would have made.”

It is not known whether Farisa survived the blaze. Grackenheit said, “The position of the Global Company is to allocate our human capital into all potentialities, moving forward with every tool in our toolbox, until we can do a deep dive on a specific plan of action that moves the needle.” When asked whether he believed any connection exists between Farisa's recent act of arson and the deaths of her parents, Grackenheit said, “The Global Company’s policy is not to comment. However, I will say that at no time were the Global Company Laws of War, Fifth Edition, violated by the Global Company.”

Mr. Grackenheit has announced a 50,000 Gt reward for Farisa’s capture, dead or alive.