Hundan watched the motion, an unreadable expression on his face. "You're only delaying the inevitable," he said, and the words landed like a sentence.
Mari's face went white. In a sudden, ragged shout he screamed, "CULTIST!"
The word hit the room like a match thrown into tinder. Hundan reacted in an instant, drawing a blade with blinding speed. There was a single, brutal motion—Mari staggered, collapsed, and the world tilted. Hundan didn't wait. He backed toward the door, then fled into the night.
In the aftermath, a small overturned lantern hissed against spilled oil. Flames licked at rags and paper, finding kindling with greedy, hungry speed. The shop, already worn, took to burning almost immediately—wood caught, smoke began to coil, and the sound of the fire grew loud and terrible.
From inside the cramped closet, Yuehan pressed his hands over his mouth to keep from making a sound. He heard Mari hit the floor—a dull thud, a soft cry—then Hundan's booted steps stamping away into the street. The faint crackle became a roar as flames devoured the shop's outer wall.
Yuehan's heart pounded. He fumbled at the closet latch, fingers slick, breath shallow—trapped between the fear outside the door and the heat pressing in. The smell of smoke threaded under the wood.
Somewhere beyond the crashing and shouting, voices rose—running feet, the distant collapse of timbers. Yuehan swallowed.
Hot ash clung to Yuehan's scalp, dragging him back to the moment. He gasped, then unleashed his spirit ability.
A gold-white halo flared around his eyes. Time slowed just enough for him to dodge the burning timbers crashing down around him.
"Are you here?!" Yuehan shouted, not knowing the young girl's name as he raced through the burning building toward the second floor where she should be.
"You in here?!" he called again, sweat clinging to his clothes as he leapt over a collapsed section of the floor and slammed his fist on a door.
It swung open easily. A girl stood inside, trembling, her small rounded ears twitching beneath a faint yellow halo. Before Yuehan could speak, she lunged—claws flashing.
"Who are you?!" she shouted, her voice breaking with fear.
Yuehan flinched, heart pounding. The heat closed in, smoke searing his throat. Without thinking, he drove forward, catching the girl and crashing with her through the window. They tumbled into the street below, landing in a shower of glass and ash as onlookers gasped.
For a moment, neither moved. The halos shimmered faintly around them—then faded, their glow dissolving with the air in their lungs.
Yuehan lifted his head, staring at the burning workshop. The place he had known for less than a day crumbled into ruin before his eyes, leaving no mark on the world. All the tools, the promise, the quiet memories that might have been seemed to press into his chest—and then were gone.
"Hey—kid! You okay? What happened? What happened to Marii?"
The voice came from somewhere beyond the haze. Yuehan blinked through the smoke, his ears ringing. A man stood at the edge of the crowd, face drawn and eyes wide with disbelief.
The name Marii hit him like another blow. Yuehan opened his mouth, but no words came—only a ragged breath and the faint crackle of the dying fire behind him.
Yuehan went to answer the man, but a small sob cut him off. The girl—her face streaked with soot and tears—pressed her fists weakly against his chest.
"Why—why didn't you save him?" she cried, her voice breaking into hiccups as she struck him again and again.
Yuehan froze, words dying on his tongue. The man's questions faded into the distant noise of crackling fire and murmuring onlookers. He didn't know what to say—what could he say?
So he just let her.
The girl's small fists trembled, her blows slowing until they became only shudders against him. Yuehan stayed still, staring past her at the rising smoke, feeling her grief spill out in uneven breaths. He didn't stop her. He didn't speak.
For the first time since the fire started, the world was quiet.