The sky wept ash as Evelyn stepped from the kiln.
It was faint, falling in slow spirals, a ghost of some long-cooled firestorm—but every flake stung the lungs with memory. Dust Village had no guards, no walls, no songs to mark its heartbeat. It lived because it had hidden.
Now, that quiet was cracking.
Children ran down the slope from the western rise, breathless, crying. A chorus of alarmed voices echoed through the ribs of the ancient beast. Evelyn turned sharply, her shard pulsing before her heart like a slow drumbeat. Torren emerged from the nearby hut with Vareth close behind.
"What is it?" Torren barked.
One of the elders met them at a run, clutching a crooked staff. "A cave-in," he panted. "Old southern shaft. The boy… Kaim… he was scavenging with his brother. The pit went soft."
"And they went with it," another muttered behind him.
A hush fell over the gathered villagers—not mournful yet, but preparing for it. Everyone knew the risks of the deep ash paths. The bones below the beast weren't stable. Echoes whispered through the hollow places. Collapses were fatal more often than not.
But Evelyn was already moving.
"Show me," she said.
An older woman grabbed her sleeve. "It's suicide. The tunnels down there haven't held in decades."
"I'm not going to trust the tunnel," Evelyn said. "I'll bring light."
She didn't know what she meant until she said it.
They reached the edge of the southern shaft within minutes. The opening was small, a broken mouth beneath a half-buried rib. Smoke curled faintly from the hollow. Not fire-smoke—something colder, chemical.
Vareth dropped to one knee, listening. "The boy's breathing. Faint."
Evelyn stepped forward.
"Hold," said Torren, grabbing her arm. "If you're going to do something with… with it, then let me go first."
She looked at him—really looked. His face still bore the bruise from the beast-swipe two days past, and his limp hadn't healed. The strength in him was raw, desperate. But not ready.
"No," she said gently. "This is mine."
She dropped into the shaft.
The fall wasn't far, but the air turned sour halfway down. Darkness clung to the walls—not the absence of light, but the presence of something deeper. Evelyn landed in a crouch, boots splashing into loose dust and broken rock.
"Kaim?" she called.
There was no answer—until her shard pulsed. Then she felt it.
Not a voice, but a vibration—a cry without sound, made from the memory of pain. She followed it down a crumbling slope until she saw a foot protruding from the rubble. Small. Still twitching.
"Kaim," she whispered. "Stay still."
The rocks over his torso were too heavy to move by hand.
She closed her eyes. Called the fire.
At first, it resisted. The ember in her chest flickered, uncertain. It was one thing to burn. It was another to shape.
But Evelyn didn't try to force it.
She listened.
To the heartbeat of the stone. To the shape of heat under pressure. And then she guided the flame—not outward, but through herself. The shard responded, unfolding like a molten blossom.
Her hand lit.
She pressed it gently to the rock, and the fire did not burn—it softened. Ashstone peeled away like paper beneath her palm. She wasn't melting it. She was undoing it, unmaking its memory of being solid.
The rocks hissed and sighed. Kaim's body was revealed, bruised and limp—but breathing.
She lifted him.
And as she carried him back up the shaft, fire lit the tunnel behind her—like a second sun, following in her wake.
They broke the surface in a bloom of light.
The villagers gasped as Evelyn emerged, the boy in her arms, her robes scorched with glowing veins of firelight. Kaim whimpered once, then opened his eyes.
His brother ran forward to take him.
A cheer rose—not loud, not exuberant, but full of shock and something more dangerous:
Recognition.
"She touched the ember," someone whispered.
"She's one of them," another hissed.
"Or something else," muttered a third.
Torren stepped protectively between Evelyn and the crowd.
But the elder woman from the hall raised a hand. "She carries memory. And she used it to save a child."
The murmurs fell to silence.
Vareth met Evelyn's gaze with a guarded look.
"You've shown your light," he said quietly. "And now every shadow will want a taste of it."
Evelyn said nothing.
But the fire in her chest was calm. And for the first time, she felt less afraid of it.
That night, alone beside a broken ribstone, Evelyn stared at the stars above Dust Village. Her hand still trembled faintly from the channeling. She could feel the shard inside her—alive, awake.
"What do you want from me?" she asked aloud.
And in the stillness, something answered—not a voice, but a presence.
Not hostile.
Not kind.
Just there.
Waiting.