“Once we load you into the capsule, you will wait until you hear the buzzer to start the process. You will not do it any sooner if you do not want more punishment.” The bastard says.

Yesterday, they moved my cage once more. This time loaded up on the train behind the rail-carriage with the capsule. I travelled on the flat train-car with nothing but the bars of my cage blocking the wind until I was unloaded here, amongst thousands of roaming Henosis soldiers.

The man standing over my cage, Colonel Heisenberg, is the leader of the silver armour wearing people. I recognise his voice as the one I always hear within the capsule when they have me doing the menial fire manipulations.

I hate all the tasks they give me, but I can’t help but be surprised by the difficulty of the challenges they lay before me. Ever since I managed to control my flame without a connection to my body, I never considered I could improve my control in any way that wasn’t pushing the distance of separation. But the tasks I am forced to do for these people require a level of control I’m barely able to manage.

Controlling ten different threads of fire at specific individual temperatures is far harder than separating a ball of flame from my body. Begrudgingly, I have to admit that the tasks they’ve set for me have grown my control in these few weeks far more than I could have hoped for by doing my own practises.

Teine’s passing is a reminder that Henosis hasn’t only caused disaster for me and my tribe. Many tribes were killed or captured for whatever sake they think legitimises their cause. They brought tragedy to New Vetus, transforming the people once welcoming to spiteful.

I’m not the only one whose life Henosis destroyed. Leal lost her father, lost her home and education to them, and I went and destroyed her second home. Teine lost so much she wasn’t even willing to continue living.

I just can’t imagine anything but evil causing so much tragedy. They are the true definition of the word.

“Ah, so this is the one that caused us so much trouble, is it?”

My head snaps to the voice. So lost in thought, I didn’t even hear the man approach. He is tall for an albanic. With wide shoulders and a straight back, he stands tall over my cage. The confidence he exudes surprises me, considering he stands before me without protective metal armour.

I could burn him in an instant, before the water mages can react, and it would be so satisfying to get some retribution for all the pain they’ve caused me. But I hold myself back. Burning him won’t give me an escape. At most it will be momentary gratification, before I’m punished.

The mages around my cage seem rather prepared as well, tense to jump in at an instant. It’s hard to say if I’ll be able to kill the unprotected man before I’m stopped.

The speaker is old. Age lines wrinkle his forehead and a neatly trimmed white beard adorns his jaw. The man stands there for a moment, inspecting me. I stare right back, not wanting to show weakness to this man who doesn’t show a hint of wariness at being near me without protection.

“General Mudra, you shouldn’t be so close to the subject. They tend to be rather temperamental if you don’t have the proper protection.” Heisenberg steps up beside the man. “And yes, the subject has proven adequate to enact the required process. We are ready to send the weapon at a moment’s notice.”

Weapon? Is that what the capsule is? I don’t have a clue how it might possibly be one, but maybe I can use it against them.

“You best hope so. You understand what will happen to you should this fail? Your ineptitude so far has cost us greatly, far too many of my mages were lost in the wasteland expedition. Mages invaluable to this invasion.” The man glares at Heisenberg. “Luck is the only reason the war is going so well. I’m sure you’ve been taught the impact an elite warrior can bring to the battlefield. They have been holding back, I’m sure of it.”

My fists clench and I have to hold back my flames from lashing out. These two are the cause of everything?

“How can you be so sure, General? They have all but lost already. Would they not have sent out their best soldiers long before the war reached this point? It would have been the best opportunity to send them in during the stalemate of the isthmus.”

Is that all they hunted us down for? They killed so many áed for a weapon they don’t even need. They’ve won this war already, even from my cage, I can tell. Flehullen is their next target. The capital of New Vetus. If moving on the heart of the nation doesn’t count as a victory for them, then I don’t know what would.

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“Call it a hunch built upon experience.” General Mudra turns to the capsule train. “I’ll be sending one of the new railway-guns. Use it as bait when the time comes. You have only one chance at this. Don’t fuck it up.”

One chance? Will I die using the weapon? He not only took away my family, but now he wants me to kill myself for his goals? No! I won’t do it!

Flames erupt around me. In barely an instant, they engulf the evil General in front of me. Strengthened by my fury, the flames burn hotter than I’ve ever managed. Every portion of my consciousness pours into incinerating this albanic in front of me.

I try to increase the intensity of my flames as much as I can, raising the temperature and exploding the amount of fire that circles the man. My only goal is to burn this man to ash before the mages can put a stop to it.

The General takes a calm step towards me and before I know it, I feel a crushing pain through my head. My flames redirect to the hand gripping my head through the bars, but they barely seem to do anything. I try to crawl away from the pain, but the man holds me in place.

“You will stop or the pain will only get worse.” The voice enters my ears, calm but clear.

As if to emphasise his words, the man squeezes harder and I can’t handle it. I cut my flames, hoping for an end to the crushing pain.

He lets go and I scuttle backwards, cradling my head and glaring daggers at the man between my arms. He looks unhurt. Much of his uniform is scorched, but not a single point on his body is damaged. His skin doesn’t even look red. I had the opportunity, but wasn’t strong enough to do anything to him.

“You two!” I hear the General’s commanding voice, but he’s looking at the mages beside him. “Your reaction speed is lacking. Because of your clear incompetence, your squad can expect a thorough re-discipline exercise in the coming days.”

I try my hardest to kill him and he barely acknowledges me. It’s infuriating. The inferno roiling within me wants nothing more than to obliterate the General from existence, but it’s impossible. I can’t hurt him. I’m not strong enough. Glaring at him is the only thing I can do. Anything more would just get me punished or killed, so I push the fury churning within me through my gaze.

When the General turns back to me, he raises an eyebrow. “Are her eyes supposed to be smoking like that?”

At his words, Heisenberg’s armoured body faces my cage once again. “No, at least I haven’t seen that in any of the other áed. I’ll have to look into it.”

“Do as you will. Just make sure the weapon is ready for the offensive. Infantry corps are expected to commandeer all rail to Flehullen within forty-eight hours. Be prepared to move out.” The General then marches out of sight.

Heisenberg waits until the General is out of sight, before commenting. “Subject twenty two, if you had done that to anyone else, I’d have you bathing till every inch of you is charred. Fortunately for you, General Mudra is a grumpy old prick and needs to be taken down a step or two. Don’t do it again.”

I just glare in return to his words. If Heisenberg wasn’t wearing that annoying armour, I’d have tried to roast him too.

Besides those few words, he pays me no mind, and walks off, leaving me alone

Even up to this point, caged and unable to escape, I’ve never felt this helpless. After failing to hurt the albanic around me, I blamed it on their metallic armour and told myself I’ll be able to hurt them when they don’t have it to rely on. Just wait for the perfect opportunity. That had been my plan.

But even without that defence, I was unable to hurt the root cause of all of this. I placated myself after the first tests in that capsule because I wanted to wait for a chance to escape. Escape and get back at those who’ve caused so much misery, but primarily I just wanted to give myself an opportunity to escape. And yet, I threw that away in anger to avenge everyone, only to fail.

They spoke over me as if I’m not a person. They don’t care what I know, as long as I’m forced to do as they want, and I realise there is no escape now. I believed there would be the chance. That if I am patient, if I wait for the right moment, that I could escape and then an opportunity will fall in my lap to take my vengeance.

My opportunity came, at least to avenge my family’s deaths, but I was powerless to do anything. Maybe I’ve become arrogant because of how everything burns so easily outside the wasteland that I just assumed I can get through any problem by burning through it. I can’t. Facing that brute of a General washed away all pretences of strength I thought I had.

There will be no escape. I am still not as strong as an adult and even they weren’t able to escape the Henosis, Teine’s despair is enough proof of that. An escape through my cage, assuming I can actually melt through the metal, would just result in me dousing myself in the water within the tubes. Should I somehow avoid the water, getting through the mages guarding this military outpost would have me dead in moments.

And now, the only solution I thought I had; patience, is destined for my death as well. I haven’t the faintest idea what the weapon will do when I’m forced to operate it, but the General specified there would only be one chance for it to work. The only reasons I can think that might be the case would be operating the weapon will kill me or the response from the ursu army will kill me.

It’s hopeless. I can’t see any way to get out of this. My only possible hope is that Heisenberg never gets the order to send me in that death capsule.

My knees pull to my chest and I hug them tight. Why can’t everything just go back to the way it used to be? It was so great when I didn’t have to worry about anything but how to not disappoint my elders. The desert is boring, but it’s so much better than this. I wish I can just open my eyes and wake up from this nightmare.

I can only thumb Mum’s marble tied around my neck and be glad they haven’t taken it away from me.