There was no mistaking it. Inside the fountain, amidst the layer of black sludge that seemed half water and half ash, there was a boy, lying asleep. His naked body was covered in black ash so that it almost looked like another charred corpse, but his chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm.

As Rylin watched, a slip of blue flame rose up from the boy’s chest. The boy’s body convulsed once, and the flame died, and with it, the burning heat.

Rylin sheathed his dagger and put on a pair of leather gloves. He took off his cloak and wrapped it around the boy. He scooped the boy up in his arms. He was light. Wonderingly so.

Rylin stepped off the fountain and over the pile of bodies. He passed through the square, through corpses and the flaming homes, through the thick yellow smoke, and he carried the boy out of the village.

***

The boy’s hair was a chestnut brown and his eyes were dark, almost black. Somehow Rylin had expected the hair to be silver and the eyes to be blue and was almost disappointed when the boy opened his eyes and blinked against the late afternoon light. The boy sat against a tree with just Rylin’s blanket draped around him; all Rylin’s clothes were in the pack the horse had taken off with.

Rylin had done his best to wash the boy in the stream (the boy did not wake up during the entire ordeal), but he still didn’t look completely clean, though Rylin couldn’t figure out why. Perhaps he needed soap. Soap was also in the pack.

“How do you feel?” Rylin asked.

The boy’s eyes slid down and seemed to gaze past him for some time. Slowly, they came into focus, and the boy seemed to see him for the first time.

“Who are you?”

“Rylin.” The name felt strange on his tongue. When was the last time he had said it? Or heard it? How much of the truth should the boy know? “People call me Nadir,” he said. “I’m a Mage.”

The boy stared at him. “What’s your name?” Rylin asked.

The boy frowned and looked at the ground. There was a long silence. Then finally: “I don’t know.”

The two remained still for some time. Then Rylin stood up and plucked out a fern from nearby with a gloved hand. He held it out to the boy.

The boy looked up at him questioningly.

“Take it,” Rylin said.

The boy looked at the fern, then tentatively reached out and grasped it by the stem. He held it up unmoving for some time and Rylin watched. A leaf caught a beam of light and flashed green. Rylin waited. Nothing.

Rylin sighed. “What do you remember?” he asked.

The boy lowered his hand, still holding the fern. He stared at it, his brow knitted together. Then he raised his eyes in confusion. “I remember something hurting, and I remember fire, and I…”

The boy looked back at the fern again, biting his lip. He seemed to be struggling with something in his mind. Seemed to be on the verge of remembering. And as Rylin waited, he felt that chill come down his arms, and suddenly, he didn’t want the boy to remember.

“Are you hungry?”

The fern in the boy’s grasp turned brown and shriveled, and the boy twitched. He fell forward.

Rylin put his hand to his pouch of mistleaf apples and did not move. And for a long time, neither did the boy. Rylin did not know in truth what this boy was. When he had seen the burning village and the dead bodies and the boy sleeping in the fountain, he had thought of the story. Fiersoul.

It was an absurd thought, but for a moment, he had wondered whether he had been transported to that story. Whether the boy was the Shael–the Soulthief–in that story. And his hands had shook when they lifted the boy out of the fountain and carried him back to the camp; they had shook when they washed him and draped the blanket over him.

They shook now.

Rylin didn’t know what he would do if the boy decided to attack him. He didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t.

But he wouldn’t kill the boy. No, he would never kill the boy.

The boy stood up, holding the blanket around himself. His face was hard, impassive. Even seated, Rylin’s eyes were almost level with his. The boy was small.

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

“I’m a Mage,” he answered.

“Not everyone with a cloak is a Mage.”

“Boy, sit down.”

The boy’s face reddened, and for a moment it looked as though he might lash out. With what? Those flimsy arms?

He sat down.

“Have you remembered your name?”

“Cor,” the boy said. He seemed to spit the name out.

“Cor,” Rylin said.

“I want to go home.” The boy stood. This time Rylin caught his shoulder and pushed him down. The boy struggled and kicked at him, and somehow managed to wriggle away. Rylin leapt after him and caught him by the leg. They fell over each other, but Rylin got his other hand on the boy’s thin shoulder and pinned him to the ground. The boy screamed and thrashed against him.

“You’ve got no home to go back to,” Rylin said. “Your village is burned down, and everyone’s dead. I saw it with my own eyes.”

The boy’s eyes widened and he grew pale and still. “No,” he said, almost whimpering. “That’s not true. That’s not–”

“It is,” Rylin said. “Now promise me something.”

“No!” the boy screamed. “Let me go! It’s not true. It’s not true. It’s not my fault! It’s not my–”

Rylin slapped him across the face, and the boy quieted, stunned, but tears streamed down his face. He stared up at Rylin, not with anger, but with fear. With terror. All too familiar terror.

Rylin released the boy.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

The boy sat up and backed away, but he did not try to escape. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself and rubbed his left shoulder.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, but his voice was unsteady.

Rylin got up and grabbed the two packs off the ground. “Let’s go.”

Cor stared.

“Let’s go to your village,” Rylin said. “I’ll show you.”

Cor hesitated, then slowly got up and followed Rylin out of the clearing.

As he led the way through the forest, Rylin set his mind to the situation at hand. He had his pack of books and his pack of tools with him. But no food. He had enough money in his pouch to last him a few months in the city. Money that was useless until they traversed the forest.

And then there was the boy.

The boy was an unknown in his considerations. Part of Rylin–no matter how absurd it was–believed the boy could be the boy from the story he had read the night before. He did not believe in a Spirit of the World or his ‘servant Myor who gives strength to those who pray to him,’ but strange things happened in the world. Things incomprehensible and sometimes cruel.

The fact that the boy’s powers still seemed latent and half-dormant did not weaken Rylin’s theory. After all, Rylin’s own powers had started off tame, almost innocuous. It was only when he became a teen that his powers became more difficult to rein in, where even the smallest touch could mean death for whatever or whomever he touched. It had taken Rylin years to learn to control that pull when he touched something living. And even then, that control was not absolute.

Yet there was that village. Presumably, it had been the boy who had killed those people. Which would mean that perhaps his powers were not as latent as they seemed.

***

There was still the smell of smoke as they neared the village, but there was no thick smog that choked the air. The boy seemed to grow nervous as they walked along the path, and he looked a little pale. They passed by the earthen wall that in clear daylight was not nearly as large as it had seemed early that morning. It rose about two feet above Rylin’s head.

The smell of herbs was strong and bitter.

The village was no longer burning. Many of the homes were still standing, though most of their roofs had fallen in. With the flames gone out, the village looked like an old battlefield. The burned corpses looked like rot-blackened bodies that had been lying there for several days, perhaps weeks, and there was an eerie silence.

The boy stopped at the edge of the village, and Rylin looked back once before continuing forward. The boy eventually followed him, and stuck closer to him, looking around with huge, disbelieving eyes.

At some point, halfway to the center of the village, the boy stopped and stared at a pair of corpses that seemed to be a man and woman, though their features had been charred almost beyond recognition.

It may have been the boy’s parents.

If they were, the boy showed no grief. He simply stood there, his dark eyes wide and still, and his face very pale. Rylin gave the boy a moment before continuing on.

The boy seemed to have no reaction to the pile of bodies at the fountain in the village square. He simply looked at them like he had been looking at everything else. Quietly. They passed by the pile, and Rylin had to hold his breath at the nauseating sweetness of burnt flesh.

Once they had crossed the square, Rylin noticed that on this side of the village, a few of the homes were still intact, and there were no bodies that littered the street. The boy stopped, and Rylin stopped with him. He seemed to be looking at a house.

The house was squat and sturdily built, but the stone bricks that made up its walls had been cut and mortared with great care. By looking through the windows, Rylin could see that the walls were thick–thick enough for him to hide in.

Ash dusted the roof, but the sky-blue tiles still shone through under the setting sun.

Cor darted forward. He rushed up the cobbled path and up the carved steps to the patio and pounded on the front door.

“Shyla! Shyla!”

Rylin slowly followed him up the path. The boy was looking for something. Or someone. But even without tapping into the Life of the mistleaf apples at his belt, Rylin could tell there was no one here. He could tell by the blankness of the windows, by the way the front door was slightly ajar, the way the wind sang a quiet dirge under the eaves.

The boy stopped pounding the door and put his hand on the knob.

“There’s no one inside,” Rylin said.

The boy looked at him, his lips white and his eyes shimmering. He opened the door and went inside. Rylin sat on the steps and waited.

This southern part of the village looked almost peaceful in the setting sun. The homes were cozy and colorful, each surrounded by a lawn or garden. They were the kind of homes you could only see out in the countryside or in the middle of a forest.

As Rylin sat there, looking at the empty homes and taking in the lingering smell of smoke and death, he felt it begin to sink in: he was not the only one. He had found another Soulthief.

He had found a Firesoul.

A strange feeling rose up in his chest. A thrill, perhaps. It was warm, almost hot. And he found himself smiling despite himself.

The boy shuffled out of the house, his eyes cast to the ground. Rylin rose and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Cor,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

The boy looked up at him.

“You didn’t do this,” Rylin said.

“But–”

“How much of it do you remember?”

“I remember Hylan… and the pool… and then fire…” He trailed off.

“It was a dream,” Rylin said. “A group of bandits were here and they destroyed your village. I only came in time to save you.”

The boy’s eyes grew wide.

“You need to know something,” Rylin said. “Before I tell you, promise me something.”

The boy nodded.

“Promise me that no matter what, you stay with me and do whatever I tell you.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

The boy paused. “May I ask…”

“Why?”

The boy nodded.

“You will die otherwise. The King’s men will find out about what happened here, and when they see you were the only survivor, they will take you and see the power you have, and they will think you destroyed the village. And they will burn you at the stake.”

The boy seemed frightened. But to his credit, he seemed to give it some thought before meeting Rylin’s eyes again. “I understand,” he said.

“Now do you promise?”

“I promise,” the boy said.

Rylin smiled and took the boy’s hand in his own gloved one. “My name is Rylin. If people knew who I was, they would call me a Shael, as they would call you. And from now on, you’re my student.”

The boy was silent, pensive.

Then he looked up. “Are you really a Shael?”

“I am,” Rylin said. And if you stay with me long enough you will see proof. “But I am a man first.”

The boy seemed to take this in.

Rylin held out his hand. “Let’s go.”

The boy looked at the house with unease. “I haven’t found my friend.”

“What does she look like?”

The boy turned to him.

“She’s my height, dark curled hair down to her shoulders. And pretty.” The boy muttered the last bit.

Rylin looked up in thought. “I saw someone like that.”

The boy practically jumped on him. “Where?” He clutched at Rylin’s cloak.

“She was headed south.” The moment he said it, he immediately felt guilty. But he found himself continuing. “She might be headed to the Royal Capital.”

The boy stared at him with his mouth wide open. Rylin turned away, uneasy.

“Of course,” the boy breathed. “Of course she would be going to the Royal Capital. She’s probably going to the King’s University! She said she would.”

Rylin had never felt such an intense mixture of both shame and relief. “Yes, we may find her there,” he muttered. He pulled away from the boy’s grasp and looked around at the houses, wondering if he could find any clothes for the boy.