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The children of Ash Valley did not play with Kaelen Vorec.
They played near him, sometimes. Around him. In ways that reminded him he was separate—a stone in the stream, an ember that had fallen from the fire and cooled into something useless.
"K-K-Kaelen wants to j-j-join!"
Ruk Naylor stretched the word like taffy, drawing out the stutter until it broke. He was ten, same as Kaelen, but bigger. Always bigger. His father worked the kiln's main feeding shaft, which meant his family ate better, which meant Ruk grew faster, which meant Ruk could say whatever he wanted.
The other children laughed. Four of them, gathered at the edge of the cinder track where the village children raced flat stones across the packed ash.
"Let him join," Mina said, not looking up. She was nine, with braids tight as rope and a mother who made her practice Attending every morning before dawn. "It's funnier when he tries."
Kaelen stood at the edge of the group, his hands shoved deep into his tunic pockets. The ash was warm beneath his bare feet—everything was warm here, twelve miles from the volcano's pulse—but he felt cold anyway. He always felt cold.
Don't speak, he told himself. Just watch. Just wait. They'll forget you're here.
But Ruk was already turning toward him, already grinning.
"Come on, K-K-Kaelen. Show us how you t-t-talk to the fire."
Dorn, a boy of eleven with a missing front tooth, snorted. "He can't even talk to us. How's he gonna talk to fire?"
More laughter. Kaelen's face burned.
Walk away. Just walk away.
His feet wouldn't move.
"I-I-I j-just w-w-w—" He stopped. Pressed his lips together. Started again, slower, forcing each word out like pulling teeth. "I just w-wanted to s-see who w-w-won."
Ruk's grin widened. "We all won. Except you. You never win."
It was true. Kaelen had never won a single race, never thrown a stone as far as the others, never been chosen for anything except last. His arms were too thin, his legs too slow, his mouth too broken.
Mina finally looked up. Her eyes were flat, disinterested. "Why do you keep coming, Kaelen? You know we don't want you here."
He didn't have an answer. Or rather, he had an answer, but it would take too long to say, and by the time he forced it out they'd already be laughing.
Because I'm alone. Because at home they look at me like I'm already ash. Because if I stop trying, that means I've accepted it.
He said nothing.
Ruk picked up a stone. Not to throw—just to hold, to weigh, to remind Kaelen what power looked like in someone else's hand.
"Go home, stutter-boy. Go talk to your fire goddess. Maybe she'll fix you."
Kaelen flinched.
He'd told no one about the goddess. About the nights he lay awake, whispering prayers to the flame that lived in the mountain's heart, asking her to make him normal. Asking her to burn away the broken part.
But secrets didn't stay secret in Ash Valley. Walls were thin. Ears were everywhere.
"Goddess of fire," Dorn mimicked in a high, mocking voice. "Please make me s-s-speak right. Please make the other kids l-l-like me."
"Maybe she doesn't answer because you're not worth answering," Ruk said.
He tossed the stone. It landed at Kaelen's feet.
No one said anything else. They just watched him, waiting to see what he would do.
Kaelen looked at the stone. Looked at their faces. Looked at the ash stretching between him and them, gray and endless as the space between people.
He turned and walked away.
Behind him, the laughter followed like smoke.
---
The Vorec home sat at the edge of the village, farthest from the kiln's warmth. This was not an accident. Kaelen's father, Harren Vorec, had once been a man of standing—a kiln-tender, respected, his hands calloused from feeding the flame that kept them all alive. But that was before the tremor. Before the burning collapse that killed three men and left Harren with a leg that never healed right.
Now he worked the sorting pits, separating usable coal from dead rock, his back bent, his silence grown thick as old soot.
Kaelen entered through the leather flap that served as their door. Inside, the single room was dim, lit only by the small fire pit where his mother, Sella, stirred a pot of thin grain broth. She looked up when he entered, then looked away.
"The others?" she asked.
"Th-they w-w-were—"
"I don't need the full story." Her voice was tired. Always tired. "Did you eat?"
He shook his head.
"There's broth. Not much."
He moved toward the fire, toward the small bowl she'd set aside. But before he could reach it, his father's voice stopped him cold.
"Where were you?"
Harren sat in the corner, his bad leg stretched out before him, his eyes fixed on Kaelen with an intensity that made the air feel thinner.
"Th-the c-c-cinder tr-track."
"With the other children."
A statement, not a question. Kaelen nodded.
Harren's jaw tightened. He looked at his wife, then back at his son.
"Do they laugh at you?"
Kaelen said nothing.
"Do they mock you? Call you names? Treat you like something they scraped off their boots?"
The words landed like stones. Kaelen wanted to deny it, wanted to say it wasn't that bad, wanted to protect himself from what he saw building in his father's eyes.
"Y-y-yes," he whispered.
Harren's hand slammed against the packed-earth floor. The sound was dull, heavy, more frightening than a sharp crack would have been.
"Then why do you go?" His voice rose, cracking with something that might have been anger or might have been grief. "Why do you keep going back? Do you enjoy it? Do you like being their fool?"
"N-n-no, I j-just—"
"You just what? You just want them to like you? You just hope that one day they'll stop? They won't, boy. They won't ever stop. Not while you sound like—" He stopped, his hand rising to his face, pressing against his eyes. "Not while you sound like that."
The word hung in the air, unspoken but deafening.
A cripple. A broken thing. A shame.
Sella moved to her husband's side, her hand on his shoulder. "Harren. Enough."
"Enough?" He laughed, bitter and sharp. "It'll never be enough. Every day he goes out there, every day they see him, every day they remember that the Vorec blood produced—" He gestured at Kaelen, a sweeping motion that took in all of him, all his failures, all his broken pieces. "This."
Kaelen felt something inside him collapse. A small thing, a thing he hadn't known he'd been holding together until this moment.
"Go outside," Harren said, quieter now. "Just... go outside. I can't look at you right now."
Kaelen looked at his mother. She met his eyes for a moment—just a moment—and in that moment he saw everything:
I want to help you.
I don't know how.
If I defend you, he'll turn on me too.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Then she looked away, back at the pot, at the thin broth that was all they had, at the small life that was all she could manage.
Kaelen left.
---
The river ran east of the village, narrow and swift, fed by snowmelt from the Furnace Peaks. Its water was too hot to drink—steam rose from its surface in constant curls—but Kaelen came here anyway, because no one else did.
He sat on a flat rock at the water's edge and tried to speak.
"M-m-m-my n-name is K-K-Kaelen V-V-Vorec."
The river swallowed his words without comment.
"My n-name is Kaelen Vorec."
Better. Almost. The "K" came clean, but the "V" caught, stuck, twisted.
"My n-name—"
He stopped. Pressed his fists against his thighs. Breathed.
"My name is Kaelen Vorec. I am ten years old. I live in Ash Valley."
The words came out smooth. Perfect. For one shining moment, his mouth obeyed.
Then the moment passed, and he knew that if he tried again, the stutter would return. It always did. The gift came only once, and never when anyone else was listening.
Why? he screamed inside his head. Why can't I do this when they're watching? Why can't I be normal?
The river offered no answers.
He tried again. Failed. Tried again. Failed. Tried until his throat burned and his eyes stung and the sun had moved across the sky and he was no better than when he started.
Then he cried.
Not the loud crying of a child who wants attention—the silent crying of someone who's learned that no one comes when you call. Tears slid down his cheeks, dropped onto the hot rock, evaporated into nothing.
Giving up means accepting fate.
The thought came from somewhere deep, somewhere that had been listening to his father's words for ten years and had decided, quietly, to disagree.
If I stop trying, they win. Ruk wins. Father wins. The stutter wins.
He looked up at the mountain.
Twelve miles away, the volcano rose against the sky, its peak hidden in perpetual smoke. The fire goddess lived there—or so the elders said. She had made the world, made the flame, made the kiln that kept them alive. She had given them warmth and light and the power to survive the endless winters.
She had given Kaelen nothing.
But maybe—maybe if he asked. Maybe if he begged. Maybe if he showed her how much it hurt, how alone he was, how the only thing he wanted in all the world was to speak like everyone else—
He fell to his knees on the rock.
"G-g-goddess of f-fire." His voice cracked, broke, reformed. "I—I kn-know I'm n-n-n-not w-worth anyth-thing. I know you h-have b-b-bigger th-things. B-b-but I c-can't—" He sobbed, once, a sound that surprised him with its ugliness. "I c-can't d-do this al-alone. I've tr-tried. I've tr-tried so h-hard. And n-nothing ch-changes. It n-n-never changes."
He pressed his forehead to the warm stone.
"P-please. Just—j-just help me. H-help me s-speak. Help m-me be n-normal. Help them s-stop l-laughing. I'll d-do anything. I'll b-be anything. Just p-please—"
Silence.
The river flowed. The mountain smoked. The sun continued its slow arc toward evening.
Nothing came.
No warmth beyond the rock's ordinary heat. No voice in his head. No sign that any goddess had heard or cared or even existed.
Kaelen stayed on his knees until his forehead ached and his tears dried and the hope that had driven him here—foolish, childish hope—flickered and died.
She doesn't answer because you're not worth answering.
Ruk's voice. But it sounded like his own now.
He was pushing himself up, wiping his face with his sleeve, when he heard the laughter.
"T-t-talking to the g-g-goddess!"
Ruk stepped out from behind a boulder, Dorn beside him, their faces split with grins.
"We wondered where you went," Dorn said. "Didn't think you'd actually do it. Didn't think anyone was that stupid."
Kaelen's face went white, then red, then white again.
How long were they watching? How much did they hear?
"Please make the other kids l-like me," Ruk mimicked in a high, broken voice. "Please make me n-n-normal."
Dorn doubled over laughing. "He was crying. On his knees. Crying to the air."
Kaelen's hands curled into fists. His legs trembled. His throat closed.
"G-go a-away."
"Go away," Ruk echoed, delighted. "The stutter-boy wants us to go away. What're you gonna do if we don't? Cry some more? Pray to your imaginary goddess?"
Kaelen took a step toward them. Then another.
His body shook. His vision blurred. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to hide, to curl into himself and wait for them to leave.
But something else—something small and hot and desperate—kept him moving forward.
Ruk's grin flickered. Just for an instant. Just long enough for Kaelen to see it.
He's not sure. He's not sure what I'll do.
Then Dorn picked up a stone, the same way Ruk had earlier, and the moment broke.
"Come on," Dorn said. "He's not worth it. Let's go."
Ruk hesitated. Looked at Kaelen. Looked at the stone in Dorn's hand.
"Yeah." He spat on the ground, close to Kaelen's feet. "Not worth it."
They turned and walked away, their laughter fading into the steam.
Kaelen stood alone by the river, his fists still clenched, his body still shaking, his heart still pounding against his ribs.
She didn't answer. She never answers.
He looked at the mountain.
But I didn't run.
It was small. It was nothing. It changed nothing.
But as he walked home through the gathering dark, the thought stayed with him, warm as ember, waiting to be fed.
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