The Boy With the Wrong Flame

The Ashlands were still warm with the blood of the people I'd survived. I didn't move for a long time after the Sandreaver retreated. I lay on top of the dune with my face against the grit and counted. Six people had been on that carrier, six people had screamed while their lives were being snuffed out of them. Now there was silence, and silence was worse than screaming because it meant I was the only one left to hear it. I pushed myself upright. My hands were shaking, not from fear but from the effort of keeping what I'd done buried deep enough that nobody would see it. Because here is what I knew and nobody else did, the Sandreaver hadn't retreated on its own. I'd moved the sand. I didn’t do it deliberately, I swear, I didn’t even know I could. But in a moment of blind panic, I’d done the impossible and the dark creature recoiled like something had burned it. It was gone but so were six other people. I was the only survivor of an attack that should have killed everyone, including me. I pressed my wrist against my knee and looked at the brandmark; one line, ember rank, but the colour was wrong. Every Ember rank brandmark burned either gold for Solaris or silver for Lunaris, the two halves of the Eternal Flame that every Kindled drew from. Mine burned red, the kind of red that glows at the bottom of a fire. It should have been gold or silver, or at least something that was related, but this wasn’t a color I had ever encountered. How was that even possible? I covered it with my sleeve. I turned when I heard voices. Four of them came over the ridge, moving with the ease of people who didn’t know what had just happened. The one in front was built like a mountain, and had a massive sword across his back and a brandmark burning bright gold at his wrist. Three lines, Forge rank. Right now all I knew was that he was looking at me the way you look at something that has no business existing. "You," he said. "How did you survive?" "I blacked out," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "When I came round I was on top of the sand." "You blacked out," he repeated. The woman beside him crouched and grabbed my wrist before I could pull back. She had pale eyes, and dark hair with a silver-white brandmark at three lines. Her fingers were cold the way Lunaris kindlers were always cold, like they carried winter inside them regardless of temperature outside. She turned my arm toward the light to study it. I held my breath. "Nothing," she said. "No brandmark. He hasn't kindled." The man stared at me like he didn’t completely believe me. "You were lucky," he said, sniffed the air, and looked at me again. "Impossibly lucky." He said, and started walking. "Put him in the carrier. We pass through Duskwall." Another giant at the back grabbed my collar and hauled me upright one-handed. The fourth member, lean and sharp-eyed, watched me the whole time like he could see my soul. That one was going to be a problem. They loaded me into the sand carrier and the vehicle surged forward through the Ashlands. I sat on the cargo bed and counted my breath down to something that wouldn't show. The Lunaris kindler sat three metres away, she wasn't looking at me now but she had been. I'd caught the tail end of it. She had seen the band when she checked my wrist, maybe- hopefully- she thought it was just blood. What else could it be? But she kept looking, and I wasn’t so sure anymore. Duskwall appeared on the horizon, grey and rust-coloured and exhausted, the kind of place that existed only because the Embershard deposits beneath it were worth more than the lives it cost to extract them. I jumped down as soon as the carrier stopped with three objectives in mind; map every exit, find food and find a way back home before the Lunaris decided to figure out what was wrong with me. I’d barely taken three steps when she spoke to the leader of the group. "Something was wrong with his wrist," she said. Her voice was low, but it was clear. "The light was wrong, I… I want to look again." "Something was wrong with his wrist," she said. "The light was wrong. I want to look again." I did not break stride, but I couldn’t run. Not yet. I had until nightfall to get away. Maybe less.