The night had fallen like a heavy curtain over the forest, swallowing the last light and settling everything into a thick silence. Inside the small shelter, the embers of a dying fire flickered weakly, casting ghostly shadows on the rough curtains and binds that covered them.
Reed lay asleep on the cot Alexandra had offered, the ache in Reed's muscles a dull reminder of the wandering she did for two days. Yet, it was not exhaustion that kept her sleep uncomfortable.
It was there, on the center of her sternum—burning faintly beneath her skin, a secret warmth she had always known but never understood. That night, a scar shone brighter than the two moons above.
The soft light of the sunrise filtered through the thin curtains as Reed's eyes fluttered open. The warmth of the sun outside the tent was fierce, unfamiliar but welcoming—chasing away the lingering chill from her time out there, in the forest, in the trees.
For a moment, she lay still, the weight of confusion pressing down on her chest. What had happened, again? Her memories were shadows, slipping through her fingers like smoke.
Reed stirred, stretching slowly. As she shifted, her shirt rode up, revealing the small and fragile body she has. For the shirt was too loose to cover her.
Alexandra was already awake. She sat nearby, sharpening one of her knives with a slow, deliberate rhythm. When she heard Reed grumbles, as if wanting to sleep more, she couldn't help but to chuckle.
A voice from outside the tent startled Reed, sharp and deliberate.
"Reed? It's me," a steady voice said. It was Alex.
Reed's heart hammered. She scrambled out of the blankets and brushed the curtains of the tent to reveal a woman clad in travel-worn leathers, eyes sharp and stormy. Her presence was commanding yet calm.
"You're finally awake—" the woman was cut off as she stared at Reed's body—on her chest, just below her collarbones, over her heart.
Her eyes widened, Reed was bewildered by her reaction. She traced back what she was staring at and found the scar engraved in the center of her sternum.
Alex's gaze caught the subtle glow of the scar and froze, a shadow flickering across her usually unreadable face. Her stare lingered a little too long.
She then went inside the tent and sat in front of Reed. "What's that?" Alex asked, trying to know the extent of Reed's knowledge of the thing she just discovered.
"Oh," Reed, shyly covering her exposed chest, paused, "It's a scar."
Alex raised her left brows slightly, faintly. A scar, she says.
Alex didn't reply, she just sat there waiting for Reed to say more. And Reed took the bait.
"I had it ever since I woke up in Thornhollow. Looking back, I didn't have any accidents during my time there that could be the cause of this scar." Reed explained, looking down to her hands, still wearing her gloves. "So I guess, I was a little troublemaker in the past—"
"That's a Flamebound Crest." Alex said truthfully, eyes are carefully trudging up and down at Reed.
"Pardon?"
"That thing on your chest," Alex paused, then her brows narrowed as a sigh escaped her lips. "It isn't just a scar or a mark, it's a crest."
"Cover it," Alexandra said quietly, her voice low but firm, carrying an urgency Reed had never heard before.
"Why?" Reed asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Alexandra's eyes darkened. "The Flamebound Crest. . . it only appears on the Chosen of the Inner Flame. It's not just a symbol. It's a burned, crimson spiral, encircling a single vertical line of gold—as if fire is wrapped around a sword or flame around a spine. It binds you to fire—to another."
Reed's breath hitched. "Another?"
Alexandra looked away, her expression tight. "Yes. Another who must anchor you, when the fire turns inward. When the flame threatens to consume you."
Reed traced the faint glow on her chest, suddenly feeling the weight of it in a new way. "Is this perhaps connected to my touch? Is this. . . the reason why—I can't be normal?" A bitter taste to the tongue, and a hand piercely grabbing her heart. Not so gentle, not so kind.
Alexandra's voice softened, but her tone remained serious. "Some truths are dangerous to reveal too soon. You must keep it hidden. Don't show the Crest to anyone you don't trust."
The warning hung in the air like a blade poised to strike.
Reed said nothing more. She nodded, understanding that this was not the time for questions.
Instead, Alex spoke softly, again. "Fix yourself. Come outside after you're done." She left the tent and Reed did what she was told.
Is she nearing the truth? Is this it, really?
As she brushed aside the curtain and stepped outside the tent, the sun quickly recognized her. She turned to Alex who was now in front of a wooden table where an array of knives lay waiting.
"We start with knives," Alexandra said firmly. "Physical skill first. The flame is a force you cannot wield until your body is ready."
— —
The training began that afternoon. Reed found herself standing on a rocky outcrop behind the shelter, wind cutting sharp across her skin. A line of knives was laid out on the ground, each of different lengths and weights, their hilts worn and wrapped in leather.
Alex stood with arms crossed. "Pick one."
Reed hesitated. "Which is best?"
"There's no 'best.' Only the one that feels right in your hand."
Reed's fingers hovered over the blades before settling on a curved one with a pale handle. It felt oddly familiar, like it belonged to her. She nodded.
"Good choice," Alex said. As it turns out, Reed seems to have knowledge about sharps, in her past.
The morning mist curled around the trees as Alexandra began the lesson.
"Stance. Balanced. Ready."
Reed adjusted her feet as instructed, muscles tense with concentration.
"Grip. Not too tight. The knife must flow with you, not against you."
Reed's fingers wrapped around the handle, loosening and tightening as Alexandra showed her.
"Now throw it."
Reed blinked. "At what?"
Alex pointed to a stump across the clearing. A makeshift target, riddled with blade marks. "Let's see if you've got instinct. Or just luck."
Reed took a breath and threw. The knife thudded into the dirt, missing the stump by several feet.
Alex said nothing.
Reed gritted her teeth. "Let me try again." Stubborn, competitive—like the fire she couldn't control.
For hours they trained. Throwing. Retrieving. Throwing again. Her arm grew sore, her fingers blistered, but the knife grew more obedient with each toss.
Alex was relentless. No praise. No reassurance. Only corrections—sharp and swift, like a professional.
"You're treating it like a rock," she snapped. "A blade flies. You guide it. You don't shove it."
By twilight, Reed finally sank a blade into the target—not the center, but deep enough to stick.
Alex gave a single nod, a faint smile hidden behind her face. "Now we can start."
Days passed, the routines sharpening like the knives themselves. Mornings were spent drilling technique. Afternoons in endurance. Reed ran through forest paths, climbed ridges, balanced across streams with knives strapped to her thighs. At night, she collapsed on the cot, bones aching, mind buzzing with frustration and purpose.
Yet something gnawed at her.
Alex avoided every question about the mark. About the fire that sometimes danced on Reed's fingertips. She never spoke of elemental power. Only the blade.
Reed tested her boundaries one evening by asking directly. "Why aren't you teaching me about the mark? About. . . whatever is inside me?"
Alex didn't even look up from her sharpening stone. "Knives don't need magic. They just need control."
Reed frowned. "But I can feel something. When I'm angry. Or scared. It's like the air changes. Like the world holds its breath."
Alex's eyes flicked to her, dark and unreadable. "That kind of power? It always takes more than it gives. Don't chase it."
"But I have to learn."
"No," Alex said sharply. "You have to survive."
The finality in her tone slammed the door shut. Reed didn't press her. But the ember on her skin pulsed a little brighter that night.
The next morning, the mountains rose sharp against the sky, jagged and cold. Reed's breath fogged the air as she climbed a steep trail behind her.
Alexandra moved like smoke through the rocks—silent, precise, impossible to keep up with.
"Keep your feet under you," she called without turning around. "You're not climbing trees anymore, forest girl. You're climbing toward survival."
Reed gritted her teeth and pushed on. Her limbs ached from three weeks of grueling training—morning runs, knife drills, and relentless lectures on balance and focus. Alexandra had yet to say the word magic.
It gnawed at Reed more than she admitted.
When they reached the plateau, Alexandra stopped and drew two curved knives from her belt—blades that gleamed like polished bone.
"Today we spar."
Reed blinked. "I thought we were just working on grip technique."
"You've practiced it. Time to see if you remember under pressure."
She tossed Reed a training blade—dull, but heavy—and before Reed could get her bearings, Alexandra lunged.
Reed barely dodged in time, stumbling sideways.
"Stop reacting. Predict me."
The next strike came low. Reed blocked it, just barely, but her wrists ached from the impact. She retreated, trying to breathe, trying to think.
"You're fighting like a scared child," Alexandra snapped. "You want to live? Then stop flinching."
"I'm trying!" Reed shouted, slashing wildly.
Alexandra parried with ease. "Trying is what cowards say before they fail."
Reed's frustration boiled over. She gritted her teeth and rushed forward, feinting right, then ducking low and striking upward. It was clumsy—but Alexandra's eyebrow lifted slightly.
Progress.
After ten more exchanges, Alexandra lowered her blade.
"Better," she admitted. "But you fight like someone who's always on the run."
"I am on the run."
"Then you'll never win a fight. You have to stop running and start choosing."
Reed lowered her blade, breath ragged. "Choosing what?"
Alexandra turned away, her voice unreadable. "To be more than what they said you were. Or less."
What did she mean by that? Who's they?
But Reed, unable to understand her words, simply passed out because of exhaustion.
— —
The mountains loomed ahead, their snow-laced peaks piercing the clouds like the teeth of some ancient beast. Reed followed the narrow switchback trail, breath shallow in the high-altitude air, each step up the path accompanied by the dull ache in her calves and the sting of cold wind against her cheeks.
Ahead of her walked Alexandra—tall, composed, wrapped in a dark cloak that somehow stayed perfectly in place despite the gusts. There was a sharpness to her gait, like every step was calculated to be untraceable.
She was nothing like the people of Thornhollow. Nothing like Ley or the villagers who had spat her name like it was ash. Alexandra never said any ridicules, any rumors—she simply said, "If you're going to carry a knife, you'd best learn how to use it."
That was a month ago.
Now, Reed could barely remember what it felt like not to wake up aching.
Their makeshift camp was dug into a wind-sheltered cliff ledge. From here, the trees below looked like moss covering the skin of the world. Reed dropped her pack and collapsed onto a flat stone, groaning.
"Still alive, I see," Alexandra said, tossing her a flask.
"Barely." Reed gulped down the icy water and winced. "You always drag your students into the sky to murder their legs?"
Alexandra pulled out a whetstone and unsheathed one of her twin knives—a curved, elegant blade that shimmered with etching Reed couldn't decipher. "They didn't complain."
"Let me guess, they ran away?"
Alexandra's hand stilled on the stone. "No." Alex paused for a moment, "I did."
Reed sensed the end of that subject and didn't press any longer. Alex sounded so vulnerable in that moment—she looked rather lonely.
Later, after their evening meal of dry bread and smoked fish, Alexandra stood and tossed a practice knife to Reed.
"Sparring. Now."
Reed groaned. "I just finished not dying."
"Get up."
She obeyed. After all, the time she spent with her, were the times she felt more normal. More happy.
The air was sharp and dry. Stars blinked above, cold and silent. The firelight cast long shadows as Reed circled Alexandra, holding her practice blade tightly. She'd learned the basics—grip, stance, movement—but Alexandra had a way of turning every lesson into something brutal.
They clashed. Steel rang against dull steel. Alexandra flowed like water, redirecting, deflecting. Reed fought harder than before, but her strikes were still too wide, too emotional.
"Control your center," Alexandra frowned.
Reed parried, then lunged. "Hard to do when you're yelling at me."
"That's the point."
She pivoted, spun, then struck low—Alexandra blocked easily and tapped her on the ribs with the butt of her knife.
"Dead."
Reed staggered back, panting. "You're impossible."
"No," Alexandra said. "You're distracted."
Reed's knuckles tightened around the hilt. "Because I'm not learning what I need to." Hesitation.
Alexandra's gaze darkened. "What?"
"You know what I mean." Reed lowered the blade. "You know magic. You've shown me nothing but knives and bruises. When are you going to teach me magic?"
Silence. Like usual—all the time.
Alexandra sheathed her blade and turned her back. "Go to sleep."
"That's it?" Reed asked, anger rising. "No explanation?"
"I don't owe you one."
"You brought me here. You trained me. But you won't give me answers."
Alexandra paused, then turned slowly. Her expression was unreadable, but something hardened in her eyes.
"You think you're ready to wield what's inside you? You couldn't even hold your own fire without burning down a house. You want to chase after power? That's not learning. That's hubris."
Reed stepped forward, voice low. "I'm not that girl anymore."
"No," Alexandra said. "You're something worse. Desperate. And desperation leads to ruin."
Alexandra circled her slowly. "You've got speed and instinct, but no control. The mark inside you—will destroy you if you can't master the weapon first."
Reed frowned. "What about the fire? You never teach me how to use it."
Alexandra's eyes darkened for a moment before she shook her head. "That comes later. Or maybe never. Your strength will come from the blade, not the flame."
Reed's stomach twisted. Alexandra was hiding something. But she pushed the thought aside and focused on the knives.
Hours passed as Reed practiced strikes, parries, and swift movements. Her muscles burned, sweat stung her eyes, but Alexandra's sharp corrections kept her going.
When the sun began to set, Alexandra stopped. "Good. You're getting faster."
Reed wiped her brow, catching her breath. "But I want to know what I really am—what I'm meant to be."
Alexandra's gaze was cold now, but not like usual. It felt sad. "Sometimes, what you want isn't what you need."
Reed felt a sting—not just from the words, but from the sense of secrets closing around her like a cage.
The same night, when Alexandra had gone to gather water, Reed stared at the campfire and whispered, "Do you know. . . who I am?"
The fire cracked. For a moment, Reed thought it answered her. But it was only the wind.
Then, she heard footsteps behind her. Alexandra returned and sat across the fire, staring at her through the flames.
"Why do you ask that?" she said.
"Because I at least want to know," Reed said carefully. "All I know is that the people at Thornhollow found me in a pile of snow. I know I hurt people, I know I'm dangerous. But there are pieces missing. Things that don't add up."
"Like what?"
"Like why fire responds to me without effort. Why sometimes I speak words I don't understand. Why do I dream of things I won't remember when I wake up. Everything feels so off, so unfamiliar, it's unsettling and scaring me."
Alexandra didn't speak for a long moment.
Then she said, "Dreams are just your guilt, Reed. And fire always answers those who fear it most."
But something in her voice wavered. Not pity. Not scorn.
Hesitation.
"You know something," Reed said quietly. "You're hiding something."
Reed stood up. "Tell me."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you're not ready to hear it—and I won't be the one to break you."
Reed's voice rose. "Why did you agree to train me if you won't tell me the truth?" Reed said pleading, frustrated.
"Because someone else already buried it."
That stopped her.
Reed's breath caught. "What does that mean?"
But Alexandra only turned away.
"Go to sleep now. Tomorrow is our last day."
— —
The cliffside wind howled through the narrow ridgeline as Reed pressed her weight into each step, heart hammering in her chest. Alexandra, ever silent, moved ahead like a shadow stitched into the rock. She never slipped. Never hesitated. Reed could barely keep up.
Her thighs burned. Her lungs felt shredded by the cold.
Alexandra didn't care.
"Put your weight into your heels on the incline," she said coolly, not looking back. "Or you'll twist your ankle and die stupid."
Reed muttered something unkind under her breath and kept moving.
They reached the plateau by midday—a broad, stony space ringed by spindly evergreens. The air felt thinner here, and the sky loomed closer, brushed with slate gray.
"This is where we train," Alexandra said. "No distractions. No villagers. No one to cry to if you fail."
Reed dropped her pack, fists clenched. "I didn't come here to fail."
Alexandra turned, unreadable as ever. Her eyes were sharp as obsidian, her hair braided tightly beneath a dark hood. She looked more like a soldier than a mage. A blade honed, not born.
"You're here because you don't know who you are," she said. "And you're hoping I do."
Reed froze.
"Don't look so surprised. I see it all over you. You asked me plenty of times." Alexandra began unstrapping the knives from her belt. "People only come this far up the world when they're looking for answers they shouldn't have."
Training began at dawn and ended only when Reed couldn't hold a blade. Alexandra drilled her relentlessly. Footwork, stances, angles of attack. No magic. Never magic.
Reed's body became bruised, cut, blistered. Her palms tore open from knife handles. Her legs trembled by noon. But Alexandra didn't let up.
"You fight too pretty," she said. "Too careful. Knife fights are never clean. It's desperation that made it sharp."
"You say that like you've been in a lot."
"I survived them, didn't I?"
Reed wanted to ask more, but Alexandra kept her history locked tighter than any blade.
"Rest for a while, I'll wake you up in an hour."
Reed collapsed by the fire, too exhausted to ask the question that sat behind her teeth every day, Why won't you teach me magic?
Because Alexandra knew magic. Reed had seen it—how the wind followed her. How fire didn't burn her clothes when sparks caught. How lightning rolled on the edge of her voice when she was angry.
But Alexandra never touched the elements during their training. Not even once.
And she never let Reed try.
Reed, made up her mind. This afternoon, I'll break down that boundary.
That afternoon, Alexandra's teaching changed.
She was sharper. Less patient. As if she sensed the shift in Reed—and feared it.
Reed sparred directly now, footwork against footwork, blade against blade. Alex never went easy. Reed earned every bruise, every cut, every harsh breath in the cold terrain of that place.
But she was learning. Faster than she should.
And before the sun sets, after Reed disarmed Alex with a twisting step she hadn't been taught, they stood in stunned silence.
Alex looked at her—not like a student.
Like a threat.
Reed met her gaze, defiant, stubborn, bold.
"You're hiding something from me," she said.
Alex didn't deny it. "I'm keeping you alive."
"You're keeping me ignorant."
"You're not ready." Reed, after hearing that, became even more frustrated. Again, with that nonsense.
"Then make me ready!"
Alex stepped forward, her voice low and furious. "You think because you lit a fire once, you understand power? That mark on your skin isn't a gift, Reed. It's a curse. It pulls things to you. Creatures. Warlords. Dead things. They smell it on the wind. The second you use what's inside you, they come."
Reed didn't flinch. "Then let them come."
Alex looked at her like she didn't recognize her, or maybe she recognized someone else than her. "You sound like her."
"Who?"
"The one who fell."
As Alex said that, the rain poured like a punishment—or maybe comfort.
For Reed who loved rain, and for Alex who reminded her of that person every time it rained. And because it resonated with them both—the fire inside them subsided at last.
"I," Reed's voice cracked, "I'm sorry." She whispered as they took shelter inside a cave. It was already dark, and the only light they had was the lamp Alex always brings with her.
"It's alright. You're a kid, I could understand this much."
"But, I just really want to know.." A tear tried to escape her eyes but she wiped it before it could. "I hate being ignorant."
"I know," Alex paused for a while.
She knew that well. Because like her, she was also ignorant, and now that she's not, she wished to turn back time.
"You. . . have to be a kid."
"Huh?"
"You're young, so don't act like an adult. Be more like a kid, Reed. Please." A plea.
Was that for Reed? or for her?
"Don't chase what you don't understand." For the truth will always come even when you don't ask for it.
"I'm just worried, I never want you to be burdened by something a kid shouldn't carry."
"But I only have myself." Reed looked down.
"No." Alexandra sighed. "You should start packing when we get back. Your training is done."
Reed blinked. "What?"
"There's a village to the west," Alexandra continued. "You'll be safe there. The people are quiet. Their elder owes me a favor."
Reed's chest twisted. "You're sending me away?"
She smiled, yet this time it was too short to be called one. "I've taught you all I can," Alexandra said, her voice cool and distant again. "More than I should've."
"But I—"
"You need to stop chasing what was stolen," Alexandra interrupted. "Live. Learn to survive without it."
"Some truths destroy before they heal, Reed. And believe me when I say you're not ready."
The next morning, they parted in silence.
Reed didn't look back as she descended the last slope of the mountains, boots crunching on loose stone. Alexandra had given her food, supplies, and a few curt words about where to go next—but nothing more.
And a blade—a curved dagger, black steel, balanced perfectly.
"You'll need it," she said, then left.
Reed hadn't replied. But the weight of the conversation—that felt so one-sided, still pressed on her like wet stone.
Reed walked until the sky shifted from bruised violet to dull gray. The wind no longer bit, but the silence was louder now that Alexandra was gone.
She'd expected to feel free. Instead, she felt exposed.
The dagger at her side pulsed with unfamiliar weight, as if it remembered hands that weren't hers. Every time she brushed her fingers over its hilt, a faint thrum whispered up her spine—like a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
By dusk, the path Alexandra had marked on the old, hand-sketched map led her to the edge of a great, sloping forest. The trees stretched tall and silent, draped in late-autumn gold. A trail wound between them, leading toward the village Alexandra mentioned. Reed stood at the edge, hesitating.
Then she heard it.
A snap.
Not loud, but deliberate.
Not wind, not animal.
A footstep.
Her hand flew to the dagger.
She turned.
Nothing.
Only trees and silence.
She let out a shaky breath. "You're being paranoid," she muttered to herself, trying to shove away the image of scorched grass, of the dog burning, of power barely held in check.
She started walking again, slower now, senses on edge.
Then, just before the forest swallowed her whole, something made her glance back.
High on the ridge where she had come from, a figure stood.
Still.
Watching.
Wrapped in what looked like pale robes, motionless among the rocks.
Too far to see clearly. Too deliberate to be a wanderer.
Reed took a step back.
But in the blink of an eye, the figure was gone.
Not vanished—removed, like a thread pulled from a tapestry.
Her mark burned faintly beneath her collar.
And somewhere deep in her chest, a voice she didn't recognize whispered,
"They'vefoundyou."
— —
Arc I: Embers of the Unknown.