Kai looked down at his hands, which were covered in scars and dirt. He didn't look like the hero from the bard's story.
"No," Kai said. "I killed the Ghoul; it has died over there."
The girl didn't move; she looked at Kai's shoulder. The Fire Mark was still glowing a little bit through his shirt.
"You have the light," she said. "The priest says the light is good."
Kai was feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder; the good light felt like a needle poking his bone.
"The priest is a liar," Kai muttered.
He reached into his bag and pulled out a small piece of dry bread. He held it out to the girl. She stared at it for a long time before she took it.
"Where is your mother?" Kai asked.
The girl pointed toward the door, where the bodies were. She didn't cry; she looked like she had no more tears left to cry.
Kai looked at the small girl and then at the dark woods outside. He couldn't leave her here. But he knew that having her near him was dangerous. The Mark on his shoulder was like a bell, and the monsters were coming for the sound.
Kai sat down on a heavy wooden stool that was half broken. He leaned his head against the cold wall of the hut and closed his eyes for a moment.
He could hear the girl chewing the hard bread; it was a loud, scraping sound in the quiet room. His shoulder was still pulsing with heat, and he could feel his shirt sticking to the burnt skin of the fire mark.
Every time his heart beat, the pain flared, reminding him that the fire was eating his energy to stay alive.
The girl finished the bread and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. She stood and walked closer to Kai, but she stopped two steps away from him.
She stared at the black sword leaning against the table. The sword was almost as tall as Kai and much wider than a normal blade. It had many chips and notches on the edge from hitting the hard bones of the monsters.
To the girl, the sword looked like a heavy, scary tool, not a shiny weapon for a hero.
"My name is Miri," the girl said. She looked at the floor because Kai's face looked scary to watch.
"My father said a man with a golden sword would come from the city to save us. He said the man would have a cape that never gets dirty and a horse that runs on the wind." She looked up at Kai's muddy boots and his torn, wet cloak. "You don't have a horse, and your cloak is dirty, different from what your father said."
Kai opened his eyes and looked at the small girl, and he felt a bitter taste in his mouth; the stories parents told their children were poison. They made the children wait for a savior who would never come.
"Your father told you a fairy tale, Miri," Kai said. His voice was deep and dry. "There are no golden swords; there is only iron and blood. The men in the city don't care about a charcoal camp in the woods. They only care about the taxes and the church gold."
Kai stood up, and the girl jumped back in fear. He walked to the window and looked out at the camp. The sun was going down, and the grey sky was turning into a deep, bruised purple.
The dead Ghoul in the camp was starting to dissolve into a black mist. This was the most dangerous time. When the sun disappears, the Void grows stronger, and the things that live in the dark start to hunt in groups. He could not stay here, nor could he leave a child in a graveyard.
He turned to the girl and pointed at the small cloth bag on the floor, "Gather what you can eat, only food, no toys or heavy things," he ordered. His tone was not kind; it was the tone of a soldier giving an order.
He didn't want to be her friend; he just wanted her to move fast so they couldn't die. Miri didn't move at first, her eyes wide with confusion. Kai stepped closer and raised his voice.
"Now, Miri. Move fast, or the Ghoul will take you too."
The girl scrambled to grab the bag. She stuffed a few dried apples and a small tin cup into it. Her hands were shaking so much that she dropped the cup twice.
Kai watched her, feeling a heavy weight in his chest that had nothing to do with Mark. He hated that he had to be the one to break her heart and show her the real world.
He picked up The Scourge and swung it onto his back. The weight made him grunt, and the Fire Mark on his shoulder hissed as the strap pressed against the burn.
They walked out of the hut and into the cold air. The smell of the dead Ghoul was gone, replaced by the smell of wet earth and coming snow.
Kai did not look at the bodies of the charcoal burners; he walked straight past them toward the narrow forest path. Miri tried to look for her mother's body, but Kai grabbed her shoulder with his large hands and forced her to keep walking.
"Don't look back," he said. "The dead are gone, now you have to live for yourself."
As they entered the treeline, the forest became very dark very quickly. The tall pines blocked what was left of the light. Kai reached into a small pocket on his belt and pulled a dull, grey stone.
He rubbed his thumb over the Fire Mark on his shoulder, catching a bit of the orange heat, and then touched the stone. The stone began to glow with a faint, steady light. It wasn't bright, but it was enough to see the path three steps ahead.
Miri walked closer to Kai, almost touching his cloak. The forest was full of strange noises, twigs snapped in the distance, and the wind made the branches sway.
"Where are we going?" she whispered. Kai didn't look back, he kept his eyes on the shadows between the trees.
"To the main road," he said. "There is a merchant caravan passing through in two days. I will give you to them, and they will take you to the nearby city."
"Are you not coming to the city?" Miri asked.
She reached out and grabbed a piece of his cloak. Kai stopped for a second and then kept walking. The Fire Mark is pulsing faster now. He could feel something moving in the woods, something much bigger than a single Ghoul.
"The city is for people who believe in the spark," Kai said. "I am the man of the spark, I stay where the fire is needed."
The forest grew thicker, and the path was no longer a path; it was just a gap between large, twisted trees. Kai noticed that the mud was starting to freeze, and the temperature was dropping too fast, even for a night in Oros.
He knew this kind of cold wasn't from the weather; it was the Breath of the Void. Somewhere nearby, a creature was pulling the heat out of the air to feed itself.
Miri started to shiver; her small teeth made a clicking sound in the dark. Kai stopped and looked down on her. He saw her lips were turning a pale shade of blue.
Without saying a word, he reached into his pack and pulled out a spare piece of heavy wool. It was a rough cloth used for cleaning his sword, but it was dry. He wrapped it around her shoulders like a shawl.
"Stay behind my left leg," Kai commanded. He shifted the strap of The Scourge so the hilt was easier to grab. The Fire Mark on his shoulder was no longer just warm; it was stinging like a thousand hornets.
The orange light was leaking through his bandages, casting a long, flickering shadow behind them. Like he was a beacon in the dark, and a hope sent to illuminate people's lives.
A sound came from the canopy above–a loud tearing sound. Kai looked up, and high in the pine needles, something was moving. It wasn't jumping; it was flowing from branch to branch like a liquid shadow.
It had far too many limbs, and they moved with a jerky, unnatural rhythm. It was a Stalker, a creature higher in the Void hierarchy than a common Ghoul.
Kai didn't run; running was for prey. He planted his feet in the frozen mud and drew The Scourge. The sound of the iron sliding against the scabbard was a sharp, metallic ring that broke the silence.
The blade felt ice-cold at first, but as Kai gripped the handle, the heat from his Mark rushed into the blade. The notches on the blade began to smoke.