CHAPTER 3: TORRIN JUNE 6, 873

“You almost finished with that hide? You’ve been working on it all day.” Marius always gave Torrin a hard time, but he knew well enough that Torrin was the most devoted apprentice he’d ever had.

“Just cleaning up the edges.” Torrin was inspecting the last bit of the hide’s edging when Marius snatched it up.

“For Brem’s sake, boy, I thought I gave you deer hide, not silk.” Marius scrubbed Torrin’s hair, which was odd now that Torrin had a good four inches on the man. As Marius continued to check his apprentice’s work, Torrin began cleaning up his tools. He carefully placed the thick needle and coarse thread on the shelf beside the trail of tools he’d been using earlier. When he picked up the stain and brush, he noticed a smudge of that same brownish color splashed onto his wrist. Curiously, he eyed the colored skin. It was on his right wrist, where his Jinura mark would have gone.

At the age of thirteen, Jinura children were tattooed with a black band and a label, specifying which type of Jinura they were. Growing up, Torrin’s mother always insisted she knew he was a Fire Jinura because when she was pregnant with him, he was only settled when she was working at the forges, surrounded by heat. But Torrin’s birthdays came and went. When he turned thirteen and his skin still burned at the touch of a flame, he was dubbed Corridian and left unmarked. The plan had always been for Torrin to work in the forges one day, trained by his mother. But he couldn’t do that if he was Corridian. Working in the forges was servants’ work. Jinura’s work.

“You’re beginning to upstage me, Torrin.” Marius chuckled, laying the finished leather on the table. “We’ll fetch a pretty penny for this. You’ve learned more in two years than I learn in my first six.”

“It’s because I’ve got such a great teacher.” Marius chuckled again and started helping Torrin clean up. Living with Marius wasn’t as good as living back home with his mother, but it was far better than staying at the orphanage he’d originally been sent to on his thirteenth birthday when he’d first become Marius’s apprentice. No, his new life wasn’t as horrible as he’d first thought. The work was long and difficult and he’d seen more animal brains than he cared to count, but maybe one day he’d become successful enough to buy his mother’s indenture. She would be free and Torrin could see her whenever he wanted, instead of just twice a year when he was allowed to tag along on Marius’s trading trips.

As Marius and Torrin were wiping off the countertop, someone outside screamed like death itself was walking into town. Without so much as a curious glance at his master, Torrin rushed outside to find the town councilman’s office sending dark smoke into the air. Flames ate the thatched roof quickly and the sparks began leaping to the neighboring building. Anyone would have assumed it was an accident if a man in the street hadn’t been taking credit for it.

“You have all been treating your fellow man like the dirt you walk on for too long. Jinura are not Corridian slaves, to be bought and sold like livestock.” The man was lean and he stood like he was trying to see over everyone else, which shouldn’t be difficult since he stood on top of a wagon. Corridian townspeople approached the wagon as if to shake the Linian man down, but a handful of Jinura that Torrin didn’t recognize stopped them. The man pointed to the building that was now completely engulfed in flames. “This structure housed the indenture contracts for this town and three nearby villages.” Jinura who worked in town began flocking around him, listening. “You are free now! Free to do as you wish. Stay, leave, join me. Do whatever you’d like. It is your choice.” A few of the gathered Jinura cheered at that.

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“My son!” a woman screeched as she stumbled towards the inferno. “My son is in there!” Torrin finally recognized the woman; she was the councilman’s mother. Torrin started toward her, speeding up when he realized she was about to start tearing through the collapsed, burning doorframe.

“Stop!” he shouted, but she ignored him, still calling for her son. The heat of the fire was strong enough to make Torrin sweat just standing near it. The structure crackled and creaked as flaming pieces of it began raining down on Torrin and the councilman’s mother. She screamed when a beam broke free of the frame with a loud snap, and she was still screaming when Torrin pushed her out of the way.

When the beam fell, Torrin slipped backwards into the burning building. The heat was unbearable. At first, Torrin tried to fight it, but the pain and the stiflingly hot air became too much. Finally, he let go. He let the fire in. Instead of the pain intensifying like he’d expected, it was like taking a breath of air after you thought you were about to drown. The heat on his skin died down until it was a softer warmth, contained inside him. When he opened his eyes, the flames were gone. The smoke was dissipating. And the councilman was crawling out of the charcoaled building, his arms full of ashen papers. The contracts. That was why he hadn’t saved himself? To salvage an armful of papers?

A hush of manic whispers took up in the crowd on the street, everyone watching Torrin instead of the smaller fires still spreading on the rooftops.

“But he’s not Jinura. That’s the tanner’s apprentice,” the butcher said over the whispers.

“That is a Fire Jinura. I’d bet my life on it,” someone else said.

“He’s not registered.” Suddenly, the crowd began closing in on Torrin, who still sat in the rubble, trying to understand how the heat of the fire became trapped inside him like a living thing. They all looked at him like he’d intentionally hidden his Jinura power for two years. Nevermind that they were his friends this morning. Even Marius was looking at Torrin like he was a stranger.

“Leave him be!” a Jinura woman shouted. She’d always looked at him with disdain before. Now, she was the only one on his side.

“Let him alone!” another Jinura yelled at the crowd.

Soon, everyone was shouting and Corridians and Jinura were pitted against each other. In the chaos, a man came to Torrin and pulled him from the charred bones of the councilman’s office.

“How about we let this town sort itself out,” he suggested, brushing off a bit of ash from Torrin’s jacket, though he knew he had to be blackened from head to toe.

“Where are you taking me?” Torrin asked, still confused by all that had happened. “This is my home.” As he said it, he wasn’t sure if it was true anymore.

“They’ll have your head if they think you’ve been pretending to be Corridian.” At first, Torrin thought the man’s hair was covered in ash, but then he realized it was just a muted blonde color.

“I haven’t been pretending anything.”

“I believe you, but I’m not sure they’ll care.” The townspeople still screamed and brawled, but they were farther away now. “You know how they hate unregistered Jinura.”

Little by little, Jinura joined the man as he left the village. He’d only been surrounded by ten or so men earlier, but now there were at least thirty men and women walking beside him.

“Can you take me back to Corignis?” Now that he was Jinura, maybe he could go back to the way things were supposed to be. He’d live with his mother and train to work in the forges.

“We were planning on heading back that way in about three weeks. Can you wait that long?” Torrin nodded. Now that he was an unmarked Jinura, they’d probably be looking for him. Maybe in three weeks, things will have died down. He could get marked and everything would be right again.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Torrin.”

The man smiled like he knew a secret. “My name is Silas.”