The Last Fire

"The sealing will occur during extraction," the Wayfarer told me. "Four days remain."

I listened to the last wine dripping from the courtyard steps.

When Seraphine returned, she stopped in the doorway. Her gaze moved from the empty shelves to the hearth. I watched her see the broken doll.

She said nothing.

"I'd like to ask for something," I told her.

She opened the lantern.

"Name it."

"Bury my ashes in the village where we met. Beneath the alder, if it still stands."

Her expression changed.

"There are no ashes. The flame consumed the vessel entirely."

I remembered the gardener there refusing to cut down the alder because I liked sleeping beneath it. A stranger had once taken more care with my resting place than she took with my body.

"Then there's nothing left of me here."

"Objects are not people, Evander."

"You burned both."

She looked away.

Lucien knocked before she could answer. He proposed a public cleansing, claiming my soul still carried dangerous residue. The assembly would help remove it.

"Ask me," I said.

He paused.

"If this is for my benefit, ask whether I want it."

He addressed Seraphine instead. "His judgment is compromised."

She authorized the rite.

At noon they hung me above the courtyard in chains that caught the edges of my soul. Sunlight passed through me and burned wherever it met the metal.

Lucien stood below in immaculate white.

"We return this creature to clarity," he announced. "Do not let his anger discourage your mercy."

The first prayer strip struck my face.

Then another. Then so many that I could no longer see the sky.

A merchant shouted that I had disgraced my mistress. I recognized him. I had dragged his daughter out of a burning stable thirty years earlier.

A woman called serving Lucien an honor. She wore a silver bracelet I had traded for medicine when her husband was dying.

I had believed kindness left something behind.

Apparently it left debts people preferred to forget.

At the edge of the crowd, Mara raised her arms. Two burning strips struck her instead of me. She flinched and did not lower them.

"Stop it," she shouted. "He saved you."

A guard pushed her down.

Seraphine sat above the assembly, still as a carved judge. Only when a knight lifted a spear meant to destroy souls did she rise.

"Enough. He is still required."

Required.

They returned me to the lantern with burns spreading through my chest.

That night, something cold entered the glass. A black needle dissolved against my soul before I could pull away.

Lucien stood outside, smiling.

"Perhaps you will spare us the ceremony," he whispered.

He left as cracks opened through me.

The Wayfarer warned that extraction could carry fragments, but it could not promise I would remain capable of thought. I tried to hold myself together. My hands broke apart whenever I touched the cracks.

Seraphine burst through the door.

She shattered the lantern and gathered me against her. Light streamed from her brow, joining the scattered pieces. Blood ran from her nose and over her mouth.

"Stay," she said. "Stay with me."

I had said those words to her beside a gutter a century earlier.

She worked until dawn. When I could see again, her head rested against the stone wall, her hand still cupped beneath mine.

"Don't be afraid," she murmured. "I'm here."

I closed my eyes.

Her presence was the thing I feared.

A knock came. Lucien brought Mara between two guards. Blood covered her sleeve, and she held two crushed sprigs of soulwort against her chest.

"She broke into the forbidden garden," he said. "Such wards cannot be breached without corrupt assistance. The penalty is death."

"She did it for me," I said. "Seraphine, she's a healer. She only wanted—"

"Deal with it," Seraphine said.

Mara lifted her head.

"He isn't corrupted. You know him. You know what he gave you."

The guards dragged her outside.

Her voice broke on my name. A heavy impact followed. Then silence.

I moved toward the doorway and struck the lantern's renewed wall.

Lucien leaned close.

"She would still be alive if you had faded quietly."

Seraphine stood when he left. She remained outside for a long time. Through the glass I could see her boots beside a dark smear on the steps.

She returned alone.

"Three days," she said. "Afterward, you will accompany us beyond the veil. There is no end to life in the higher courts."

"Whose life?"

"Yours."

"If I'm bound to his sword, unable to refuse him, what exactly will be mine?"

She reached for the lantern. I withdrew to its farthest corner.

"Close it," I said. "I don't want to see you."

For three days, she fed my soul with her power. Lucien did not enter again. I counted the hours and stopped wondering why.

On the seventh morning, the court assembled around a golden furnace.

Seraphine carried my lantern herself.

The crowd admired her generosity. I looked for Mara among the servants, though I knew better. No one stood with burned hands raised to protect me.

The Wayfarer whispered that the passage would open in minutes.

Seraphine released me beside the furnace. Her hand touched my cheek, impossibly gentle.

"The fire is winter phoenix flame," she said quietly. "It will preserve your mind. When this is over, there are things I must tell you."

"You could tell me now."

She glanced toward Lucien.

"Afterward."

I nodded. It was no longer important.

She lowered me into the fire.

Pain stripped away the courtyard, the voices, even my name for a moment. I heard myself screaming. Seraphine's light surrounded me, but the furnace pulled harder, dragging each piece toward Lucien's sword.

"Now," I told the Wayfarer.

A white line opened through the flame.

The binding broke.

Seraphine caught Lucien by the throat. I saw them through the widening passage, distant as figures beneath water.

"You said this would remove the foreign presence," she shouted. "You said he would remain. Why is he leaving?"

Lucien clawed at her wrist.

She threw him aside and reached into the furnace.

"Evander. Come back."

Her fingers closed around light.

The Wayfarer began sealing my memories. The village vanished first. Then the crooked house. Then ninety-nine winters.

"Don't do this," Seraphine pleaded.

I looked at her face while I still knew it.

"You already did."

She lunged toward me as the world split open.

Her hand was almost within reach when I forgot why I had ever wanted to hold it.