EMBERS OF THE FORSAKEN

The First Burn

The wraith's hand passed through James's chest.

He expected cold. Death. The feeling of his soul being torn out through his ribs.

Instead, he felt heat.

Not the warmth of a fire. The heat of a forge. The heat of a star collapsing. The silver light exploded from his wound like a supernova, and the wraith melted—not dissolved, not banished, but unmade. Its grey mist turned to ash and rained down around him.

The other wraiths froze.

Then they fled.

They flowed back through the walls, through the floor, through the ceiling—anywhere away from the boy who carried a dead god's hunger in his blood. Within seconds, the tunnel was empty except for James and Taylor and the sound of dripping water.

James fell to his knees.

The heat was gone. The cold was back. But worse now—much worse. He couldn't feel his fingers. Couldn't feel his toes. Couldn't feel anything except the empty space where the heat had been.

And something else.

Something was missing.

His mother's face.

He couldn't remember his mother's face.

He'd never met her—she'd died giving birth to him in an orphanage basement. But he'd always carried a mental image, built from stories told by the nuns. Brown hair. Tired eyes. A small mole above her left eyebrow.

Gone.

Not faded. Not blurry. Gone, like someone had taken a knife to his memory and cut her out.

"What happened?" Taylor knelt beside him, her sword still raised. "What did you do?"

"I don't know." James's voice cracked. "I can't remember something. Something important. I can't—" He pressed his hands to his temples. "My mother. I can't remember what my mother looked like."

Taylor's expression shifted. Not pity—she didn't seem like the type for pity. But recognition. Like she'd seen this before.

"The Ember," she said. "It took a memory. That's how it works. Every time you use its power, it burns away something you are. A memory. A feeling. A piece of your personality."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I've read the Inquisition's archives. Ember-touched are rare, but they're not a myth. The Church has been hunting them for centuries. They know how the fragments work." She stood and offered him a hand. "You used a lot of power just now. Defeating that many wraiths should have taken years of training. Whatever's inside you, it's stronger than most."

James took her hand. His legs shook, but he stood.

"How many Ember-touched are there?" he asked.

"Twelve, last the Inquisition counted. Maybe fewer now. They don't live long. The Ember burns through them. Most die before they turn thirty."

James looked at his chest. The silver glow had faded to a dull pulse, barely visible through his torn shirt. But he could still feel it—the cold, the hunger, the voice waiting to speak again.

You did well, the voice whispered. But you lost something. That's the cost. That's always the cost.

"Why is this happening to me?" James asked.

Taylor didn't answer. She was staring at the tunnel entrance, where a new sound was growing louder.

Footsteps. Many footsteps. And the clink of chainmail.

"Inquisition," she said. "They followed the light show."

She grabbed James's arm and pulled him toward the stone wall at the end of the tunnel. For a moment, James thought she'd lost her mind—there was no door, no passage, nothing but solid rock.

Then Taylor pressed her hand against a specific stone, and the wall shifted.

A hidden door. Old, rusted, but functional. It swung open with a groan, revealing a narrow passage that sloped upward.

"Smugglers' route," Taylor said. "Leads to the Gears. We'll lose them in the crowds."

They slipped through the door just as torchlight appeared at the other end of the tunnel. James caught a glimpse of grey robes and golden masks—the Inquisition's hunters, faceless and silent.

Then the door closed behind them, and they were in darkness again.

---

The passage was steep and narrow. James had to turn sideways to fit in some places. Taylor moved ahead of him, her hand brushing the wall to guide her way.

"How do you know all these hidden routes?" James asked.

"I told you. I used to hunt people down here." A pause. "And I used to hide down here. Before I deserted, I was stationed in Ravensbrook. I knew every tunnel, every bolt-hole, every smuggler's path."

"Why did you desert?"

She didn't answer for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was flat.

"Because my commander ordered me to burn a building full of children. They weren't magic-users. They weren't Ember-touched. They were just poor, living in a district that the Church wanted to clear for development. He said they were 'collateral purification.'"

James felt sick.

"I refused. He said I was a traitor. He branded me himself." She touched her cheek where the Mark of the Deserter burned into her skin. "Then he killed my squad. All six of them. Made me watch."

"You said you killed those Syndicate men back there. The ones in the furnace room."

"I did."

"Were they the first?"

Taylor stopped walking. In the darkness, James could feel her turn to face him.

"No," she said. "They weren't the first. And they won't be the last."

The passage opened into a larger space—a storage cellar, by the looks of it. Crates of dried fish and salted meat lined the walls. A wooden ladder led up to a trapdoor.

"The Gears," Taylor said. "We're below a warehouse. The owner owes me favors. He'll let us rest here for the night."

She climbed the ladder and pushed open the trapdoor. Warm lamplight spilled down, and James followed her into a small office.

The warehouse owner wasn't there. Instead, a boy was sitting on the desk, his legs swinging.

He was maybe twelve years old, with wild dark curls and a gap-toothed smile. His clothes were cheap but clean, and his eyes lit up when he saw James.

"Jamie!" The boy jumped off the desk and ran to him. "You're okay! I heard screaming and the nuns said the Syndicate was hunting someone and I thought—"

James caught the boy in a hug, ignoring the pain in his chest.

"Tommy," he said. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at the orphanage."

"I followed you." Tommy pulled back, his smile fading as he saw the bandage on James's chest. "You're hurt. And your blood—it was glowing. I saw it from the market. Everyone saw it."

James looked at Taylor. She was watching Tommy with an expression James couldn't read.

"He's your brother?" she asked.

"Foster brother. We grew up together in the Shallows orphanage."

"Then he's in danger. Anyone connected to you is in danger now." Taylor locked the trapdoor and moved to the window, peering through the curtains. "The Inquisition will investigate your background. They'll find the orphanage. They'll question everyone who knew you."

"So what do we do?" James asked.

"We leave Ravensbrook. Tonight."

"I can't just leave. I have nothing—no money, no supplies, no plan."

Taylor turned from the window. Her face was hard, but her voice was softer than before.

"You have me. And I have a plan." She glanced at Tommy. "But your brother can't come."

"What? No." James stepped between Taylor and Tommy. "He's family. I'm not leaving him."

"You're not listening. The Inquisition will use him to get to you. They'll torture him for information. They'll turn him into a hostage. The only way to keep him safe is to put him somewhere they can't find him."

"Where?"

"There's a woman in the Bloom—the fungal forest to the north. She's not Inquisition, not Syndicate, not anyone's ally. She takes in refugees. Hides them. Your brother would be safe there."

Tommy grabbed James's sleeve. "I don't want to go to some forest. I want to stay with you."

James looked at the boy's face—the fear, the trust, the desperate hope that his big brother could fix everything.

He didn't know how to tell Tommy that he couldn't fix anything. That his blood was poison. That a dead god was whispering in his head. That everyone he loved was in danger simply by knowing him.

Send him away, the voice said. He's weakness. You can't afford weakness.

"No," James said out loud.

Taylor raised an eyebrow. "No?"

"I'm not sending him away. Not yet. We find somewhere safe in the city—somewhere the Inquisition won't look—and we hide him there until we figure out what's happening."

"You're being sentimental. It'll get you killed."

"Maybe." James put a hand on Tommy's shoulder. "But it won't get him killed. That's what matters."

Taylor stared at him for a long moment. Then she sighed.

"There's a safe house in the Shallows. An old memory-den that went out of business. The owner owes me his life. He'll hide the boy for a few days."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Thank me by learning to control that thing in your chest before it burns you hollow." She grabbed a cloak from a hook on the wall and tossed it to James. "Cover your bandage. We move in ten minutes."

---

The safe house was exactly what Taylor had described—an abandoned memory-den in the Shallows' worst neighborhood. The walls were stained with residue from decades of memory-wine consumption, and the air smelled of old regrets.

But the owner, an old man named Elias, didn't ask questions. He just looked at Taylor, nodded, and led Tommy to a back room.

"I'll be fine, Jamie," Tommy said before he disappeared through the door. "Just come back for me. Promise."

"I promise."

The door closed. James stood in the empty taproom, staring at the wood.

Taylor sat at a table, cleaning her sword again.

"You shouldn't have made that promise," she said. "You don't know if you can keep it."

"I know."

"Then why?"

James looked at his hands. The silver glow was barely visible now, just a faint shimmer under his skin. But he could feel the cold waiting. The hunger. The voice.

"Because he's the only thing that makes me feel human," James said. "And if I lose that, the Ember wins."

Taylor was quiet for a long time.

Then she sheathed her sword and stood.

"Get some sleep," she said. "Tomorrow, we start training. If you're going to survive long enough to keep that promise, you need to learn how to burn without being consumed."

She walked to the door, then stopped.

"James."

"Yeah?"

"The memory you lost—your mother's face. I'm sorry. That shouldn't happen to anyone."

She left before he could respond.

James sat alone in the dark, one hand pressed to his chest, feeling the cold pulse of the Ember beneath his skin.

Somewhere in the distance, a clockwork bell tolled midnight.

And the dead god whispered.

Sleep, vessel. Tomorrow, the real hunger begins.