Jon ran out of fire before he ran out of the strength to wield it. That was only because he’d been able to convince himself to leave the coal bunker untouched. It would have been wasteful to burn it to ash when he didn’t need to, but it was still tempting as he sought to drive the flames of the burning depot ever higher. Even knowing that, though, he almost couldn’t bring himself to let go of the fire when he got to this point. It was such a rare feeling on the surface.

Only the realization that they would need the coal to get the train where it needed to be for the next part of his revolution allowed him to release his grip on the elements. Nothing should be allowed to get in the way of that - revenge could wait a little while longer.

The fatigue hit him in a wave after that. He’d pushed himself more than he should have for four dwarves. He hadn’t channeled the steam engine down to cold steel fighting them, though. They’d perished in the first few blasts of flame. The majority of the fire had been spent fighting the ghosts in his head, but as always, they didn’t burn away nearly as easily as the enemies he could face on the battlefield.

Jon sat down on a crate and watched as the fires started to die down. Now that he was once against focused on the important things, he looked around to make sure that nothing important had caught fire while he got carried away, and absently snuffed a few embers that had traveled too far. The train station had been alone on this side of the street, and no other buildings had caught fire during the battle.

The bad news, of course, was the smokey plume that stretched to the heavens that would be visible for a long ways, and he’d once again be the talk of the town. He sighed as he stood.

“Yeah, I definitely got a little carried away this time,” he nodded as he started walking around the side of the burning to check on his horse.

Jon wanted to believe that the flames of a single building weren’t nearly as threatening as the show he’d put on with the fire dragon or the explosion he’d caused that had killed dozens. After all, buildings burned down, right? Who know what the dwarves had in there that might be extra flammable.

Those excuses died in his throat as he turned the corner and saw the group of townspeople standing there watching the spectacle of the burning building. There was some excitement there, but the overwhelming emotion present was fear. It was plain in several faces.

“What did you do Jonathan,” old Mrs. Wellin asked when he got closer. She was a town gossip and she’d been just as old and just as shrill when he’d first arrived to Dalmarin years ago. “You could have burned down half the village!”

“Only what I had to Mrs. W—” he lied. Even as he spoke, he reached out to the embers and started shunting heat into the ground. It wouldn’t be enough to stop the fire, of course. He wanted the place burned to ashes, but it might be enough to make some people lose interest.

“What you had to? Why are you bringing your war to this peaceful place!” she continued, talking over him. “Good Gods fearing people want none of it, and none of you!”

Jon took the abuse, but he could see the crowd turning at that final line. The people of Dalmarin might fear him, especially in moments like these, but there was a reverence there too, and the old woman had never been especially well liked. Jon stood there, letting the argument devolve a bit as his defenders argued back against her why he was fighting the dwarves.

Some of their arguments were true, and some weren’t but Jon didn’t particularly care. He was tired. Certainly too tired to have this fight again. In the end, when he finally spoke up, it wasn’t even to defend his actions.

“Never you fear, Mrs. Wellin,” Jon said finally, speaking loudly enough to talk over everyone else. "In two days, or perhaps three I’ll be taking that train with me, and I won’t come back to Dalmarin until the troubles are over, and the fighting is done. You have my word on that.”

“Well if you ask me nothing good will ever come of a fire blood,” she spat. “Disaster travels in their wake like night follows day.”

She started talking again almost immediately, but Jon ignored her. He was done with the conversation, and not even her age-old bias was enough to get under his skin just now. The longer he stood there, the more tired he got, and as it was, unless he was actually looking at someone while they spoke, their voice was just one more element of the din that surrounded him.

He approached his horse and tried to soothe it a bit before he unhitched or mounted it. Between the fire and the noise of the crowd, its eyes were wide, but it quickly calmed down as Jon reassured it. Then he rode back to the house. There were still some fire and air bloods, including Claire practicing with the brands, but Jon only stopped by them long enough to tell them to leave the dwarvish wands in the bag he’d left on the porch, and he’d have a servant collect them shortly.

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“What happened, Jon,” Claire asked. “That looked like quite a fire.”

He could hear real sympathy in her voice, and for a moment he was tempted to talk to her. He could have really used a shoulder to lean on just now. Instead, he merely shrugged, and pulled on the reigns of his horse.

“Only what had to happen,” he said as he left her behind. It wasn’t really an answer, but any more than that risked drawing him in, and that was a wound he didn’t want to reopen just now. Instead, he rode to the stable, and after he’d dismount he told the groom to see to the roan and then go and retrieve the weapons from Claire and the others.

“Wands, sir?” the boy squirmed uncomfortably. “I’m not sure that I should—”

“A brand that isn’t loaded is less dangerous than a pitchfork,” Jon said too harshly, venting his frustration. "Just put them in a sack and bring them up to my room, boy.”

“Y-yes sir,” the groom said, as Jon walked off.

Jon entered the house through the back door, and headed for the backstairs rather than heading to the main entrance. He didn’t do this consciously, and he hadn’t realized that he was doing it until he saw Ms. Marne standing in the upstairs hall. She had almost certainly been laying in wait for him, and as soon as she saw him, she fixed him with a stony glare.

“My Lord,” she said coldly, as he approached.

Jon mastered the urge to roll his eyes at that, but only barely, and came to a stop a few feet in front of her, waiting expectantly. She did likewise, and they both stood there for several seconds regarding each other. Her look of cold reproach was met by his look of annoyed exhaustion.

After half a minute of that Jon finally said, “well, if that’s all you have to say then I’ll just be going to bed for a few hours. Please have someone wake me in time for dinner.”

“Jonathan. Bernard. Shaw,” she said slowly, making each word sound like a weapon. “What are you doing? You’ve turned the manor into a killing field and the village into a warzone!” Ms. Marne kept her voice down enough that it wouldn’t carry, but her exasperation was plain, and the way she spoke stopped him dead in his tracks. He hadn’t heard someone use his full name in years, and the effect made him feel like a frightened teenager all over again for a moment before he could shake free of this nostalgia.

“I’m only doing what I have to,” he said defensively. “But I’m not sure that a warzone is the right—” He was caught off guard, and not sure exactly what to say to that charge.

“You have children practicing with brands on the front lawn, and if rumors are to be believed, you’ve just stolen the stone men’s train!” A note of hysteria crept into her voice at the last there. “Isn’t that exactly what your brother did that started this whole mess in the first place?”

“I’m nothing like Marcus,” Jon answered, feeling real anger shoot through the fog of his exhaustion. “Please, never make that comparison again.”

“Why not?” She asked again, egging him on as she took a step towards him. “Is it because you succeeded where he didn’t? Or is it the body count that truly matters in these things. A servant like me could never hope to understand the business of a Warden like your good self.”

Jon clinched his fists as the threads of anger her words had caused momentarily became a red haze of rage before he got control of himself. If his housekeeper had been a man, he was certain that he would have struck her in that moment, and if she’d been anyone else he would have fired her. Instead, all he said was, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. My brother stole for himself, where I fight for a large cause. I’ll thank you not to confuse us again.”

She gave him one more chilling look and said, “This is not a course of action that your father would approve of,” before she stormed off, leaving him alone in the upstairs hall.

Jon couldn’t get too angry at that last remark, even if mentioning his father was a low blow, because she was right. Lord Shaw would never have sanctioned his actions. Not just because he would have rightly said that they would endanger the future of their house, but because he would never have raised arms against the king, let alone the dwarves. He would have thought that the former was wrong, and the latter was suicide.

As Jon flopped into bed fully clothed, though, he didn’t care. The illusion of invincibility was not nearly as convincing as it had once been, and he was certain that both enemies could be beaten, in different ways. He’d had years to think about it, and once his friends arrived, he’d had the manpower to move those plans further along. Hopefully they wouldn’t show up until tomorrow or the next day, though, because Jon really needed the rest.

It wasn’t even two hours later that a servant woke him again with news: Men were seen approaching the palisade. This time it wasn’t more soldiers, either. They had the look of traveling merchants or something, just as Jon had said his friends might have. He sat up grumpily, trying not to tear the footman’s head off.

“You’re sure,” he asked, yawning.

“That’s what the messenger said, Mr. Sh… Your Lordship,” the lad answered, not sure what protocol was at this point. “They just rounded the first curve, a whole mule train. Wagons too.”

“Very well,” Jon said, as he tried to do the math through his addled and fuzzy mind. “They won’t be at the gates for another four hours at least, so come back to wake me up in two, and have a bath drawn, and clothes laid out for me.”

He’d only been laying here for perhaps an hour, and as much as he wanted to see Elise, he didn’t want her to see him like this, and he definitely shouldn’t let Rian see him this way. The bastard had called him ‘your lordship’ for so long that not taking advantage of the moment to add a little pomp would be a terrible disappointment to them both. He wanted to see his friends, but it would be better if he could look and act the part of their fearless leader first.