Sarien woke with a start and gritted his teeth. His whole body hurt. No, that wasn’t it. Hot pain shot through his arms and his chest. It was just powerful enough to radiate throughout his entire body.

Someone was poking him. “Come on!”

Sarien blinked. “Tre?”

“You have to go!”

“Go where?” Sarien ran his hand across his chest. He felt rough stitches under a thick layer of bandages. His skin was tender. He suddenly remembered Madge looming over him with the knife clutched in one small hand.

“Shit!” He stood, groaning as the movement pulled at his stitches. “What’s going on?”

A light flickered to life in the dark room. Tre held a small flame in the middle of his palm. They were in Sarien’s room. “You’ve been summoned to the old man, Bjorn.”

“But it’s the middle of the night,” Sarien said, looking around. “Isn’t it?”

Tre nodded. “I should be sleeping, but I’m apparently everyone’s errand boy! You’ve been out for a full day already. The director is impatient.”

Tre turned to walk out of the room, but Sarien grabbed his arm. “Hold on. What happened?”

Tre grinned weakly. “Some guards were blabbing about Madge and some boy they found in the dungeon. Figured it was you, but her door was locked when I came to check. Got a bad feeling about the whole thing so I went to get the old man.”

“You saved me?”

Tre straightened. “I’m a hero!”

“My hero,” Sarien agreed.

The boy fidgeted. “They wouldn’t let me in to see what happened, so you’ll have to tell me later. It’s best if you hurry to the old man now. He doesn't like to be kept waiting.”

Sarien knocked on the door and slipped inside the chamber on Bjorn’s command.

“Sit,” the old man said. “It was a terrible thing the director of research did.”

“It was,” Sarien agreed. He was tempted by Madge’s promise to fix his spark and for information about his father, but when he saw the glint of madness in her eye as she cut down into his chest, Sarien quickly realized her intent. She would gladly throw his life away for the answers to her theories.

“If it was up to me, the outcome might have been different, but as it stands, it was decided that you would be retroactively stripped of your ember status. Since Madge could not help you with your spark, you never should have been allowed to be entered into the books.”

Sarien frowned. “You are saying that Madge nearly killing me wasn’t what was wrong, but it was the fact that she did it to an ember?”

The old man’s gaze hardened. “The directorship has yet to come to a decision regarding what to do with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tensions were high when I ordered Madge to release you. In truth, it was beyond my authority to do so. She is arguing that she should be allowed to resume her studies.”

“No!” Sarien shouted. “If I’m not an ember anymore, I’ll go!”

“If it was up to me, you would be thrown out of here right away.”

“I am a free man, not a criminal,” Sarien argued, glancing at the door.

The director of embers scoffed. “Remember where you are. The only law here is that of the firemagi.”

“So, you’ll let me die on that table?”

“The decision has not been made. Not yet. Rest assured, I will continue to argue your point.”

“And if they decide that Madge is right?” Sarien asked.

“Then your life will hopefully serve to provide us some knowledge about your condition.”

“Burn this!” Sarien shouted, knocking over his seat as he sprinted for the exit. A wall of fire roared into existence, engulfing the door. The heat drove Sarien back.

He turned and manifested his white flame, stoking it with all the power he could muster. It burned cold and bright, its size growing taller than Sarien himself.

“Let me go.”

“No,” Bjorn said. The wall of fire burned brighter.

An anger rose inside Sarien’s chest. The audacity of these firemagi knew no bounds. To think that his life was just something to be used and discarded. He wouldn’t stand idly by and let their flames consume him.

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Sarien clawed at the darkness inside him, pleading for it to wake up, but it was all in vain.

The white flame was all Sarien could bring forth. He took a step toward Bjorn, holding up his hand.

Concentrate, he needed to concentrate. Make it burn. The other embers were able to manipulate the power inside them, Tre into an explosion and Ylette in what looked like a reaching branch. If they could do it, so could he. Sarien angled his hand so his palm faced the old man, willing the white flame to attack. Nothing happened.

“If you could do anything with that, we would not be in this predicament,” Bjorn said, his voice tired. “Let that pitiful thing go and accept what is coming.”

“No!” Sarien screamed. He ran to the desk and leapt up on it, scattering books and parchments in all directions as he dove for Bjorn with the white flame still dancing silently in the palm of his hand. He was inches away from Bjorn when something hard crashed into him, sending him flying through the air. The stench of burnt cloth was the last thing he remembered before hitting the stone floor.

Sarien woke in complete darkness. His head throbbed and his body ached.

“Hello?” The word hung in the air and then dissipated without a reply.

Sarien felt the metal bars dig into his back. He was in the cells. With a sigh, he lit the pale flame in the palm of his hand for light. Unfortunately, after his encounter with Bjorn, it had become obvious to him that it was all his cold fire was good for.

What a fine mess he found himself in. Holding the white flame to the cell’s lock didn’t do a thing and the bars were similarly unimpressed with Sarien’s broken magic. He kicked the door and swore as pain reverberated up his leg, mingling with all his other injuries. At least flying through the air and crashing into a stone wall hadn’t opened up the wounds he received from Madge. The thought of that old crone made the anger rise up inside him again.

Light or dark made no difference as he looked around the chamber and noticed that he was alone. He extinguished his flame. Using his magic was draining, he may need it all soon enough even if he didn’t know how to use it properly. There was no way they’d take him without a fight. He wouldn’t go meekly to that horrid woman’s operating table to live out his last moments as a piece of meat to be studied. Better to be burned away fighting until his last breath.

He woke to darkness, sat in darkness, and eventually drifted off in the dark again. The passage of time distorted and Sarien couldn’t tell how long he’d been down in the cell. His throat burned from thirst and his stomach gnawed on itself in hunger. He felt weak and dizzy. For a moment, he panicked and wondered if they had forgotten about him.

When he called upon his flame, the shadows dancing along the walls made the room spin around him. He swallowed, willing the nausea to pass.

Only once more did he try to conjure it, when he thought he heard whispers in the dark, but it didn’t come. Instead, he fell unconscious. When he came to, the voices were gone.

Then, a sound. Sarien blinked, unsure if he’d actually heard it. His cracked lips tried to form a word, but it was useless. Another sound reached his ears, the loud groan of a door opening, followed by a gust of wind that chilled him to the bone. He curled into a ball on the floor, trying to shield himself from the new sensations. All he wanted was to sleep. The thud of feet on the cold stone floor echoed loudly, deafening him.

“Sarien?”

Yari? Sarien tried to sound the question out loud, but he couldn’t move his mouth.

“What in scorched earth are you doing here? Did they catch you down here?” Sarien’s back was to the door and stairs, but he heard Yari approach on quick feet.

“Sarien? Hold on lad.”

The light from Yari’s lantern stung Sarien’s eyes, but he forced himself to open them and with tremendous effort, he rolled over.

Yari’s eyes went wide and frightened, but Sarien’s gaze shot to the floor where he saw a tray with a cup on it. He pointed and Yari followed.

“Water? Of course. You’ve been down here three days. You must be going mad with thirst.” Yari took the cup and passed it through the bars. He held it to Sarien’s lips.

Sarien drank greedily. His throat burned, but he didn’t care. Life returned to him with each sip and when he’d emptied the cup, he lay there panting.

“I knew there was a prisoner, but they said I couldn’t deliver food until they’d settled on some decision.”

“They’ve decided?” Sarien croaked.

Yari shook his head. “Not yet. Someone finally remembered you perishing down here and they sent me to make sure the prisoner wasn’t dying too soon.”

“Near enough,” Sarien said. “Do you have any more water?”

“Sorry, lad. I have some bread.” He handed it over. “What happened? From what I heard, they’re talking about you like you’re scum.”

“Anyone without the spark is scum to the firemagi,” Sarien muttered. He felt well enough to sit. That water had rejuvenated him. “Can you get me out of here?”

Yari sighed. “Sorry, lad. Even if I did have the key to the cell, which I don’t, they would know it was me. Got people depending on me, and the mages would burn me to ash in an instant.”

“I understand,” Sarien said, nibbling on the bread. “What about Tre? Could you bring him here?”

Hope had swelled when seeing Yari, but it was quickly ebbing away. Tre was his last chance. The young boy saved him once before, perhaps he could do so again. How? Sarien had no idea, but the boy liked playing the hero and Sarien desperately needed a hero.

“The embers aren’t allowed down here, but I’ll see what I can do.” Yari stood and brushed dust from the knees of his pants. “I’ll leave the lantern with you.”

“Thank you,” Sarien said.

At some point, Sarien must have dozen off again. He woke in complete darkness. If it wasn’t for slight quenching of his thirst and the crumbs on his tunic, he might have thought Yari’s visit was a hallucination.

Sarien reached around blindly and found the lantern in the spot where Yari left it. The oil had burned out. He didn’t know how much time had passed since the visit. Tre would be coming, Sarien was sure of it. He just hoped it wouldn’t be too late.

All Sarien could hear was his own breath and the beating of his heart. He paused, blinking against the darkness. Something was different from before. The skin of his arms and back prickled. At first, his conscious brain couldn’t make heads or tails of what his body was telling him, but then it occurred to him.

Breathing. Someone else was down here with him. He wasn’t alone.

Suddenly, the dark was filled of terror. With a startled yelp, he called forth his white flame to light the stone chamber.

At the base of the staircase, Madge stood still, staring at him. Her eyes were opened wide and Sarien saw his flame reflected in their glassy surface. Her mouth was set in a hungry grin and her fingers twitched at her side.

“Sarien,” she whispered, tasting the word and then running her tongue across her lips.

He hastily crawled backward until his back was against the stone wall. “Get away from me!”

“You poor boy. Delirious and misguided.” She took a step closer. “With you, the secrets of the worlds will finally be in my grasp.”

“You’re crazy!” Sarien shouted, the loud words echoed in the bare chamber.

“I just need your flesh,” she said. “The pieces of you that makes up the whole. Soon, they will be mine.”

She turned and walked for the stairs, looking back over her shoulder. “Soon.”

Sarien kept his white flame burning long after she’d left, his body trembling with fear.