The silence in the warm, lamplit room had become a physical presence. Alexa finally broke it, her voice soft but deliberate. "So then? Do we leave Thermyra?"
Daniel let out a long, weary breath, the sound deflating the last of their hesitation. "It seems we must. To prove ourselves to Cantar, we find one of the Seven Fires. The one who's vanished. We bring him back."
"It sounds straightforward enough," Alexa said, a hollow note in her voice.
A familiar, brazen grin spread across Daniel's face. "It's a simple task. A walk in the park. If you're worried, you can always just stand behind me. I'll handle the messy parts."
Alexa answered with a practiced roll of her eyes, her attention dropping to the book in her lap. On its once-blank pages, ink bloomed like a secret, forming a new verse:
At the deity's demand, the heroes' path is spun,
To find the hand of treason, the traitorous one.
The deity follows where the faithless tread,
For faith and betrayal share a single shadow's bed.
"Cryptic," Daniel muttered, peering over her shoulder.
"It's a thread," she countered, closing the book with a definitive thud. "However tangled." She rose, her gaze sweeping the room. The house had been a gift, a courtesy of the city, but its perfection was unnerving. Her bed was arranged precisely as she liked it; Daniel's table was a chaotic replica of his own at home, strewn with loose metal scraps and gears. It was as if the walls had been waiting for them, anticipating their quirks.
The entire city was like that—a place where smoke hid scars and whispers spoke of a mysterious Soldier of Fire. There was a puppeteer here, she was sure of it, and she doubted it was the Goddess of Fire herself. Until she could untangle the strings, this suspicion was a seed she would keep buried in the dark soil of her own mind.
"Ready?" Daniel gestured to her pack, his own bulging awkwardly.
She nodded. Her bag held only essentials and the relics of her old life. His was stuffed with warm pastries from a morning delivery no one had ordered.
"You didn't eat any?" she asked. "You'll just get crumbs everywhere."
He shrugged, a boyish, mischievous light in his eyes. "Call it a strategic reserve. For when the moment demands a buttery intervention."
"Right."
The moment Daniel pulled the door open, they were met with a shock of fiery red hair and a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
"Leaving so soon?" Fiero chirped, his voice bright with false innocence.
In unison, they offered a pair of silent, wary nods.
"Excellent! I'm coming with you."
"What?" The word left their lips as one sharp blade of sound.
"I'm bored," Fiero declared, as if this explained everything. "A real journey sounds like just the thing to stir the blood."
"This isn't a pleasure trip," Daniel snapped. "We're looking for—"
Alexa's hand clamped over his mouth. She pulled him close, her whisper a sharp, cold needle in his ear. "Perhaps we don't announce our quest to a man we can barely trust. His reasons for joining might be the very opposite of ours."
Daniel's jaw tightened, but he gave a sharp, conceding nod.
"You don't mind, do you?" Fiero's eyes widened into a theatrical, pleading look.
Alexa turned her face away just long enough to let her exasperation show, then forced a thin smile. "Fine. But we are not your guardians. You keep up, and you hold your own."
Fiero's laugh was a light, airy thing. "Don't worry about me. I may not look like much, but I know how to survive." He produced a small, sleek pistol from his coat pocket, spinning it neatly around his finger. "And I have this little charmer to even the odds."
The three of them moved east, the grand, smoldering silhouette of Thermyra shrinking behind them. The forest that swallowed the path was preternaturally still, its silence a stark contrast to the city's constant, low hum. The peace was unnerving. Fiero yawned with theatrical boredom, while Daniel mentally cataloged the deep, soft patches of loam that might conveniently hide a body. Alexa simply walked, a deep-seated fatigue clinging to her, her only goal to reach the end.
"So," Fiero began again, slicing through the quiet. "This quest of yours. What's the real story?"
Alexa relented. He had been a buzzing fly of a question for the entire trek. "We are to find a missing member of the Seven Fires. A test of our loyalty to Cantar."
"The seventh?" Fiero rubbed his chin, a glint of something unreadable in his eyes. "A shadowy figure. He was always… absent. I suppose it was only a matter of time before he fled entirely."
"You know him?" Daniel was on him in an instant, his powered gauntlet closing around Fiero's throat, pinning him against the rough bark of an oak. "What meetings?"
Fiero choked out an awkward laugh, his hands scrabbling at Daniel's wrist. "I snuck in! I've seen them, that's all! I don't know anything!"
Daniel's grip tightened. "I don't believe you."
A gasp, then a searing heat bloomed against Daniel's metal-clad arm. He winced and recoiled, shaking his hand as if stung by a brand.
"What in hell was that?!"
Fiero massaged his throat, his smile returning, though it was tighter now. "Pyromancy. A minor art. Well, I did say I could hold my own."
The air grew thick with the day's dying heat and the weight of their stalled quest. Daniel's request, when it finally came, was gritted out through clenched teeth, his gaze fixed stubbornly on the distant, darkening tree line. "Teach me."
A slow, infuriating smirk spread across Fiero's face. "You want me to do what?" he drawled, the question a deliberate provocation. He had heard perfectly well.
"Teach me." Daniel's voice sharpened, cutting through the humid evening.
"What's the magic word?" Fiero sang, the playful lilt in his voice a stark contrast to the tension.
"Please!" The word was a bark, stripped of all courtesy.
A soft, weary sigh escaped Alexa. She pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples, the constant friction between them grating on her nerves. They were wasting time. All she could think of was the seventh fire, a beacon of hope that felt increasingly like a mirage. "Fiero," she interjected, her voice taut. "If you truly know of the seventh fire, where would it hide?"
Fiero tapped a thoughtful finger to his chin, his eyes glinting with theatrical contemplation. "Hm… no idea!" The admission was far too cheerful. "Although, if it were any of the others, that's much easier… The fifth would undoubtedly be found waist-deep in a bakery, binging on honey-cakes. The third is likely still whispering sweet nothings to that mistress of his in her gilded prison… and the second…"
He trailed off, but the damage was done. The two heroes stared, their earlier frustration replaced by a dawning, unsettling curiosity. How could he know such intimate details?
A cold suspicion coiled in Daniel's gut. "It wouldn't be crazy to think that he's the seventh fire with how much he knows about all of them…" he muttered, the words barely audible.
Alexa's head snapped towards him, her eyes wide. The pieces clicked into a terrifying, brilliant whole. She grabbed Daniel's shoulders, her nails digging into the worn leather of his jerkin. "You're right! It must be him!"
"Must be who?" Fiero asked, his face a perfect mask of genuine confusion.
"Wait. Here." Alexa pointed a commanding finger at Fiero, pinning him in place. She seized Daniel's arm and pulled him into the skeletal embrace of a nearby thicket, the dry branches scraping against their clothes. Her whisper was a frantic, hot breath in his ear. "What if he is the seventh fire? He knows so much, and he's been leading us in circles, and…"