Burning Out

[Rayse Valentino]

“What?!” Rayse practically exploded, shrugging the woman off. “They just tried to kill us!” Karuka looked sadly upon the two men Rayse had killed, and he calmed down. “Fine. Have it your way.” He walked over to his knife, still deep in one of the raider’s spines, and pulled it out. Thick globs of blood dripped from the blade, and he wiped it off on the fallen man’s robes.

“Water out here is far more precious than anything else. I couldn’t tell them clearly that we would be gone by sunset and didn’t want to keep the oasis.” She sighed and pulled off her head covering, wiping the sweat from her face and revealing a livid purple bruise on her forehead. “None of this was necessary.” She wobbled a little, then shook her head. “I need to cool off.”

Taking a deep breath, Karuka headed towards the water, beginning to disrobe as if Rayse wasn’t even there. While normally he would be all over such an action, he decided not to stick around.

He grabbed his traveling bag and reached into it, pulling out a fresh cigarette. Almost instinctively, he conjured a flame on his thumb to light it, but instead walked over to the fire pit and lit it off one of the burning embers. He walked around some bushes, giving her some privacy to bathe. Thoughts about how she fought pervaded his mind, how she spared their enemies’ lives. He sat down with his back against a tree, and took a drag off the cigarette while fishing in his bag for a canteen he filled with a special liquid.

Turning the lid, he opened the container and let the smell of imported Salvaran whiskey assault his senses. He let the aroma waft into his sinuses, and then took a deep swig, some of it dripping along the edge of his lips. He wiped his mouth, the raiders’ bodies still in view of him, their blood pooling into the sands.

“I have booze,” he said. “Want some?”

“Yes,” Karuka said without hesitation. Rayse calculated her position in his head, closed up the lid, and told her to catch it. He tossed the canteen into the air, expecting it to land on her.

A small trail of smoke rose from his lips, and he couldn’t tell whether it was from the cigarette or his power going out of control again. He tried to ignore the feeling by talking.

“When I was little, I was sent away as well. I wasn’t technically on my own, but I might as well have been.” He started fishing in his shirt for something. “I was really young when I took my first life, and it wasn’t about self-defense. Someone took something that was mine, and I wanted it back. That was all.” He pulled out the locket that was hidden under his shirt. “I figured after that, there was no going back. That was who I am now.” He didn’t open the locket, instead putting it back into its place. “Those men were probably on their way to rob some village, or attack a rival tribe. What value are their lives to you? When someone attacks you with intent to kill, they should accept the consequences.”

“This is their watering hole. One of their tribeswomen made it to give them a stable source of water. Water is life, Rayse. Life for us, for the men who attacked us, for their livestock, for their mothers and wives and children. We are unknown to them, and taking something that was theirs. Of course they wanted it back. They may’ve even seen it as self defense.” Karuka unscrewed the canteen’s lid, drinking deeply of the burning, heady liquid, then closed it up and tossed it back to shore. “What good did killing them do, anyway?”

“How would you know what their intent was? Their history?”

“I know. The same way I knew they were coming. The same way way I know which way to walk. My sight works a bit differently than yours does. I can see into the future, if that future is strong enough.”

Rayse paused for a moment. “Is that why you said I would have been consumed by flames anyway, back at the shop?”

“Aye.”

“So then, do I get cured?”

“Clairvoyance doesn’t work like that. The future is not one set path, but a road woven out of choices. Just like if you take a northern road from Knife’s Edge, you’ll get to Berevar eventually, and if you take a southern road, you’ll get to Alerar. Small choices can have big impacts on the future, larger choices may not change much.” She joined him under his tree, hair dripping and clothes damp. “You killed once and thought that defined you. It doesn’t have to. Man or monster, it’s your choice. It’s not an easy choice to change, but I’ve seen it done before. Giving up and dying or pushing for a cure, that’s your choice as well.” She took another drink from his canteen, then handed it back. “C’mon and help me get the bodies out of camp. We’ll lay them out nicely for their clansmen to deal with.”

Karuka put a hand on Rayse’s cheek when the bodies were respectfully placed where their relatives could find them, compassion and concern vying for prominence in her eyes. “You should go cool off too, then get what sleep you can.” As high-stress as this environment was and as little time as they had, would they be able to save him?

As the sky turned to red, Rayse thought about what she said.

For all her talk about chance and choice, she's just as alone as I am. Is that truly a way to be happy, or is she deluding herself?

[Karuka]

As dusk turned to darkness, the two continued eastward toward what looked like a dark void that spread across the desert. As advertised, the sand was completely black, and were it not for the light of the stars, they would have felt as though they were heading into oblivion. Rayse briefly considered ignoring the warning and taking the direct path to the ruins, but Karuka started heading south. Whatever was there, her tenalach sense gave her warning to avoid it.

The coarse desert sands soon gave way to the finer grains and thickly-spread glass shards of the Nirrakal. The winds hissed across the colorful expanse, kicking up dust that threatened to shred lungs or eyes if a traveler didn’t take care.

Rayse took a drag on his ever-present cigarette, then looked at the woman who walked a few paces ahead of him. His shoes provided ample protection from the occasional sharply-sheared glass shard, her bare feet gave no such service. Even so, she had declined to don her boots, merely picking her way across the glass with a little more care than he had to.

Something she had said earlier, just ahead of the fight, still bothered him. For all her talk… “What do you mean, you can’t use magic?”

Karuka sighed, shifting her shoulders a little bit and looking up at the quarter moon. “I’m caillte. Lost. As you’ve been learning, cothromaicht, magic is unforgiving to the unbalanced. Maybe I'’ll find enough balance again, one day. But I don’t believe so.”

“Why not?”

The redhead bent down, grabbing a fragment of desert glass and turning it in her fingers. “I learned a lot about magic during my childhood. Th’ natural type that comes from people like you, or the type that people study and learn. I learned runic magic. My mother taught me as hers had taught her, and hers had taught her, and so forth. Reading and casting. They call to us. But… just as it’s dangerous to be unbalanced with your type of magic, it’s dangerous to be unbalanced with mine.”

“How did you become unbalanced?”

Karu spun the glass shard thoughtfully. “I don’t know about Fallinese runes, but Celtic runes draw their power from the gods we worship. When they still responded after I came here, I didn’t question. I knew the gods could reach through the veil of one world and into the realm of another. There was nothing to doubt. But when you go to th’ end of all days... “

She sighed and threw aside the shard she’d picked up. It clattered against its brethren for a moment, then was silent. “My faith broke, and I wasn’t able to hear the runes. Nor would they listen to me. The gods were dead, the bond was broken.”

Rayse pursed his lips. “You…” He scowled, knowing all too well the way he was lectured his entire life by people who didn’t know any better. He wanted to yell at her, to tell her off for tricking him into thinking she could help him, but he stopped himself. If she left him behind, he would be in much more trouble than if the reverse were true. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“If I lost my legs, I would still know how to walk. I still know what I know about magic and about balance. Even if I can’t reach out and grasp it anymore.”

Rayse thought it was a bit of an extreme example. “Will you ever get it back? Your… balance?”

Karuka shrugged broadly, looking away from him and to the unforgiving landscape ahead of them. “I don’t know. Coming to this world has challenged much of what I believed… but maybe someday.”

They skirted the glass flats for a few hours, using the brutal landscape to shield against some of the dangers of the Fallieni night and avoid even more treacherous terrain. Toward moon set, the ground became fragmented, the flats giving way to ridges and sudden cliffs. Moonlight failed on the broken ground, but Karuka tied a silver bell to her spear and guided them by the light it cast. A wind was starting to pick up, causing the shards to jingle over each other.

Karuka stopped and looked north, her eyes narrowing and her shoulders tensing. “A sandstorm is coming. Fast.”

Rayse was tired of his disbelief and merely accepted the proclamation. “So what do we do?” He looked around, but navigating the darkness wasn’t one of his strong suits.

Karuka pointed, drawing his eyes to a deeper patch of black in the inky night. “There are caves. The storm comes from the north, so if we can find one that faces mostly south, we’ll be sheltered. That is, if we’re lucky enough to find it unoccupied.”

Rayse frowned. It was absolutely desolate out here; even Karuka’s little phoenix had unhappily choked down some dried meat for lack of anything fresh to feed him. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“Because life finds a way, even when you’d think it impossible.”

[Karuka]

By the time the weary travelers reached the caves, the storm was already whipping at them, sending shards of glass flying like thousands of airborne daggers. Each of them sported over a dozen tiny wounds before Karuka tucked them into a long, low cave. Formed from limestone long before the once-lush land had shriveled into barren desert, it boasted deep, ominous pockets of shadow and a concerning array of cracks on the ceiling.

“I don’t like this,” Karuka murmured, trying to gently brush the glass from her clothing and pull sharp shards from her cheeks and hands. “Let’s not wander too deep.”

Rayse shook his head. Danger outside, danger inside, there was just no winning here. He looked over to Taodoine, who was poking his head out of Karuka’s bag with some apprehension. Was that thing a tenalach too? Or maybe it didn’t like glass storms. But they were out of the storm, and nothing had fazed it thus far. That’s when he imagined for a moment that it wasn’t fear which burned inside the phoenix.

Karuka looked at her pet, who flapped his little wings and cheeped at her. She gathered the little orange ball of fluff into her hands, holding him under her chin and closing her eyes. Her toes gripped the still-warm stone beneath her feet, latching on and sending awareness rippling through the ancient limestone.

“Hey.” Rayse’s voice, sharp and hard as obsidian, cut into her concentration. “We’re not here to-” he checked himself, with obvious effort. “What are you doing?”

“Listening.” The redhead didn’t open her eyes.

“How? There’s nothing to hear over the storm.”

“Tenalach. I’m feeling for anything else alive through the earth with my feet. It’s just easiest to call it listening.” Her blue eyes opened, probing the deeper darkness beyond the murky silver light provided by the tiny, jingling bell. "I... don't know if there's another way out. If there is, I can't feel it clearly. But there is something big living deeper in this cave. Better not to risk provoking it." She rubbed Taodoine's head, still peering anxiously.

“How long’s it been since you last rested?” Her question assaulted him from seemingly nowhere. “Not since I’ve known you, at the very least. Try to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

The two stayed relatively close to the doorway, Rayse fitfully attempting to sleep and Karuka sitting in tense, watchful silence. After a couple of hours, a deafening CRACK shook the limestone caverns, and the following tremor sent them to their knees. Karuka grabbed Rayse’s arm, throwing them both roughly onto sharp rocks and chunks of glass deeper inside the cave. A rolling plume of dust washed over them from the entrance, and after a fit of coughing, they made their way back to it.

A mountain of rubble filled the former mouth of the cave, entombing the adventurers.

Rayse momentarily reached for the cigarettes in his pocket, but decided against it. “Could we move this?”

“Maybe,” Karuka replied. “But it would take a long time. Far longer than we have provisions for.” She cast a wary eye at her companion. Between the worm and the fight with the nomads, he had sped up the rate he was burning. Even if they found the plant, they'd never make it back to Kesta in time to save his life.

If the plant will tell me how to use it, maybe I can save him. If I can't, maybe I can at least stabilize him for long enough to get him back.

“Is there another way?” Rayse's mouth twitched, subconsciously trying to adjust a roll of tobacco that wasn't there.

Karuka shook her spear gently, jingling the bell and renewing the dim circle of light. “...There might be,” she admitted. “And without a way out up here, it’s certainly better to go looking for it and pray we don't anger whatever else is in here.” She bit her lip, clenching her weapon in her grasp. “But there’s no promise of anything, not clearly. It’s very possible we’ll both die without ever seeing the sun again.”

A woozy complaint from her satchel brought her gaze back down. “Or all three of us.” She sucked in a deep, dusty breath. “Right. No point huddling here. Let’s see what’s back there.” Despite her urgent words, she bent to pull her boots from her bag. There would be too many jagged rocks in their path for even her tough feet to withstand.

To their surprise, the cave eventually opened up to an expansive cavern. A crude pattern of rocks spiraled down the face of an underground cliff, plunging ever deeper beneath the ruthless Falieni desert. The thought of going further from the sky, the fresh air, and the sun agitated Karuka, but they pressed on. There wasn’t any other choice. When they reached the bottom of the cliff, they were on a flat bed of rocks, and darkness shrouded every direction.

“Which way now?” Rayse asked innocently enough. Out of the sun and heat, his body felt more stable, and some of his tension melted away.

“I don’t know.” Karuka's brows furrowed and her spear raised futilely, trying to expand their light, but the tiny, dim little bell did nothing to cut through the ominous gloom. “What I’d not give for a proper torch. I can’t hear a damned thing with these shoes on. But…”

Karuka’s hand went to her neck, where a pair of necklaces hung beneath the light cotton garb she wore. The one closest to her throat was a pretty jade charm held on a simple string. The other was a simple piece of lodestone held by a jute cord. It was highly polished and shaped like a crude spear tip, though its edges couldn’t cut through soft butter, much less flesh. It had passed through the O’Sheean line, mother to daughter, for five generations.

She hadn’t tried using it in years. But if the runes were speaking again… Could the pendulum also be working? She tore it from her neck as the light died to nothing once more, concentrating as hard as she could. Which way? Which way to destiny?

[Rayse Valentino]

The darkness hung, black and unbroken, for nearly a minute before a silver jingle cast its delicate light once more. The necklace was pulling visibly forward and to the right, drawn by forces neither Rayse nor Karuka could see. A real smile blossomed on the caillte’s face for the first time since she’d met the cothromaicht.

“It’s working. This way.” She headed off, a little bit of a spring in her step. But her hand grabbed the spear more like it was a weapon than a weak torch; there was every chance that the way out was the way to danger. Rayse assumed that this was some sort of magical device that would lead them outside, and followed alongside her.

While they traveled deeper into the cave, Karuka could feel the walls around growing and contracting, sharp stalactites poking out of the ceiling. The floor was becoming more rounded and lumpy, lending more evidence to the desert’s origins as a lush, verdant greenland. In this endless desert cellar, Rayse felt more at peace than ever. So what if he was facing inevitable doom? Worrying about it was not going to change anything.

Every now and then, Karuka would abruptly stop and sharply turn her head toward a perceived threat. He followed her glance but did not see nor hear anything out of the ordinary. He thought it was her strange ability at first, but her reactions seemed to be more in line with some sort of imminent danger. Curious, he slowed down until he was trailing a few feet behind her. Her posture was tight, her steps rapid. She didn’t seem all that sure about her predicament.

Rayse asked the question that was nagging him. “That necklace thing, it’s leading us out of here, right?”

Karuka expected this type of misconception, but hoped that her companion would avoid vocalizing it. “No. Maybe? Even… even when I was sure this was working, it wasn’t always useful for leading out of trouble. More like… leading into it. This thing… it does its best to make sure you’re where you’re supposed to be. Whether or not that place is where you want to be… It’s not like we had any other ideas which way to go. It was something to try.”

“Wait… so it’s just a dowsing rod for fate?”

“That’s....actually a good way to describe it. It’s worked for my family for generations. If you’ve got another idea, I’ve nothing aside from this.”

Rayse didn’t like the notion of fate leading him around by the hand. “Do you believe in destiny, Karuka?”

The woman’s mouth pulled to the side. “I... “ she trailed off, fighting to find her beliefs and then put them into words. “That’s not an easy question, Rayse. Sometimes the world seems so random that I can’t make any sense of destiny. And then, sometimes I get such clear visions of the future that fate’s the only explanation I have. I’ve stopped a boatload of people from dying, following this. I also followed it to an end of the world that the gods themselves had to reach through and stop and reset the universe. I also followed it in circles for three days once before just giving up and going north. And that’s just with the pendulum. I could tell you hundreds of stories, but in the end, the answer to your question would boil down to ‘I don’t know.’” She looked at him. “What do you believe in?”

“Well... “ Rayse stopped, the lack of footsteps prompting Karuka to stop and turn around as well. “Take your necklace for instance. I assume it’s leading us to something. But what if we decided to just stand here? It would still point there no matter how long we waited, right? Maybe that means it doesn’t work, but it could mean that destiny is waiting for us. And it will continue to wait even if we sit here and starve to death.” He scratched his head, trying to find the right words. “I believe there is a certain element of force in the world. It pushes down on you; compels you to move one way or the other. You’ve objectified it in that necklace. But for some people, they can break from this prison and become Fateless. Your visions are just possibilities; just something to give you choices. That’s what I believe in: choice. Get powerful enough, and the force of the world stops affecting you.”

He walked over to Karuka, and put his hand under the lodestone attached to the necklace. He lifted it, absorbing the compelling force so that Karuka could not feel the tug anymore. “Am I opposing fate right now? I feel its pull, but you no longer do. Its guidance for you has ended.” He lifted his hand and met hers, their eyes meeting for a moment as she let go of the necklace. “If fate is leading us to disaster, then we should be ready for it. How about you get some rest and I explore the area? I’m starting to get a handle on things down here.”

[Karuka]

Karuka laid on the cold stone floor, with only her oilskin cloak to keep her warm and soften the ground where she rested. Taodoine nestled into her neck, a spiky little ball of heat. What few feathers he had coming in promised he’d be soft eventually, but for the moment it was like snuggling with a hedgehog.

She’d taken back her pendulum from Rayse, trading it for her glowing bell. That way, without torches or control over his powers, he had a way to see. If he got himself lost, she’d find him when she woke. While she didn’t have another source of light and couldn’t see in the darkness, between what the ground whispered below and her ability to see auras, she wasn’t helpless in the desert’s lightless depths. Hopefully he wouldn’t get lost, though. Every moment she had to search for him and they weren’t seeking an exit was a moment he couldn’t really afford.

Her fingers ran over the smoothness of her heirloom necklace. It had guided the steps of Sheehan, then Astrid, then Brigid, then Faylinn. On Faylinn’s deathbed, the pendulum had passed to her firstborn child and only daughter, who had yet to turn sixteen. Karuka. A leanbh de danaan coigriche. Her father was dedicated to foreign gods, and though she barely remembered him - she hadn’t seen his face since she was five - she was never allowed to forget that she was only half Irish, sullied by gods from another land and cultured. Would she have faced the same trials and prejudices in India?

In her hands, the pendulum had stopped working. Was that because she wasn’t completely Irish, or because she’d lost faith? It was working now, wasn’t it? Just as the runes were. But what if the runes lied? What if the pendulum was broken? What if fate had spurned her?

Fateless.

Rayse was so convinced that he could not only break the bonds of destiny, but bend it around him to shape the fates of everyone else. He didn’t understand the power of time, the steady pull of the threads. Perhaps doubting was his dharma. But something about that confidence was very reassuring in her moment of weakness. Perhaps her initial judgment of him had only seen his facade. Who was this man, beneath the anger and bitterness?

He’d looked her in the eye, taken her hand, and more or less told her that either it would be okay, or it wouldn’t, but it would be on his terms - and hers, if she would step up. She wasn’t sure that was how fate worked. But she wasn’t sure of anything anymore. The moment she thought she’d learned how the world worked, it changed.

Heavy thoughts in her head, she slipped into sleep.

[Rayse Valentino]

Another tunnel, huh? Rayse stepped through the narrow opening, treading carefully to avoid the sharp protrusions from the cavern walls. He moved through, the sound of his footsteps bouncing from surface to surface, giving him a mental map beyond the thin light of the bell. Between steps his breath kept him company, slow and steady. He had been walking for an hour and didn’t expect anything down here, but things were rarely that simple. Even the arid wasteland he came from contained life, even if it was sparse. The tunnel ended shortly, marked by how far the sound of his steps traveled uninterrupted. He looked back, a strange feeling pointing him toward a particular direction. Despite his distance from her, he still felt Karuka's presence. It was a strange feeling to know she was there despite having no immediate evidence, but he was compelled to trust it. He only noticed once he had developed some distance from her, but there was a warmth in her direction that did not feel like heat. It felt more like a recollection.

When he first heard a sound that wasn’t generated by him, he stood still and listened. Twice a minute, there was a drip of water hitting the ground somewhere. As he followed it, he heard skittering along the ground intermittently, just long enough for him to notice but not enough to pinpoint. Eventually, he reached a point where there were now two traces of heat in opposite directions. A warm-blooded creature as large as a human, perhaps? He could not investigate without losing track of Karuka, and despite feeling better than ever, he ran the risk of getting lost.

Maybe it was the cold and darkness that kept his body stable, maybe if he stayed he could last as long as he wanted. But what kind of life would that be? Living in a cave and eating scorpions? He spent so long thinking little of death, he never truly considered what the rest of his life could be like. Every step he took was a small one, culminating in the next plan or quenching the closest desire. Even now, what was he doing? Trying to fix some sort of magical sickness so that he could return to Corone to run an inconsequential smuggling operation? There had to be something more he could do. The power he was given, if losing it meant obscurity…

The dripping lead him to an underground stream, where he filled his canteen. They did not have enough food for an extended camping trip, but water would last them a while at least. As he turned to return to Karuka, he felt an immediate warmth that had not been there before. He shined the light in front of him, and caught the outline of a large, four-legged creature. It was wet, likely having hidden its heat in the stream. Its carapace was brown, and its claws looked sharp enough to dig into solid stone. He took a cautious step forward, but the creature produced a low hiss, with long antennae floating in the air.

He got a good enough look at it, however. It looked insectoid in appearance, like a gigantic cricket, but its eyes were completely crusted over. Maybe it was a creature from before the cataclysm turned Fallien into a desert region, preserved in the deep. His immediately instinct was to strike first and run before more of them showed up, but he hesitated this time. I’m the invader here. It’s just… protecting its home.

He backed up, making enough distance so that the creature was no longer under the light, blinding Rayse to its actions. It was not a move he normally made, but maybe it was better than making a commotion. He continued to carefully move around it until its heat signature was in the distance.

Upon his return to Karuka, he found that she was still sleeping. Her body was curled loosely in on itself, as though she were cold, and her unrestrained hair cascaded over her face, her cloak, the stone, and her bird. He walked up close and stood over her like a cat carefully inspecting a new toy, and then knelt down and brushed the hair from her face. His mind was strangely blank during this, his body acting on its own, but after that he took a few steps back and sat down. He thought of rousing her, but decided against it and waited.

[Karuka]

Taodoine woke first, prone to the short naps common to both babies and birds. He looked at Karuka for a second, considering whether he wanted to rouse her to hunt. Instead, he tumbled out of her thick red curls and waddled over to Rayse. Climbing up the warm man’s leg and into his hands, the tiny phoenix wedged against his chest like a spiky little ball. The fire person was a better source of heat than his imprinted mother.

Karuka woke a little while later, not much refreshed from her uncomfortable rest. There was no way for her to tell how long, exactly, she’d been asleep. In the darkness of the underground, time had no meaning. She reached out in the first moment of bleary wakefulness, bolting upright when she didn’t find what she sought.

“He’s here.” Rayse’s voice sounded from a few feet in front of her, dry and hard as a desert wind, but lacking the constant edge. “And full of more crap than a bird his size should be.” He didn’t sound tired, she thought. Simply calmer.

Strange. But at least he made it back safely. I probably shouldn’t have let him go off alone. It was like he’d sensed her a little off balance, pushed her just a bit, and then taken command. That was dangerous; he didn’t know how to survive and could have been killed.

“That’s babies for you.” Karu’s posture relaxed and she dug in her bag for a clean cloth, holding it out to Rayse so he could wipe his hands while she took her pet back. “Incredibly cute, incredibly messy. Did you find anything out there?”

“I believe so.” Rayse stood up, returning light to the sheltered nook, and held out a hand to Karuka. He led her back through the smooth limestone tunnels, pausing at the pool so she could replenish her water supplies and catch some of the small, skittering creatures to satiate her phoenix’s eternal hunger. She held one of them up to the light, where it thrashed its countless legs uncomfortably. A stark contrast to the creatures that made their home above in the sands, this insect lacked poison, sting, or armor. It was pale, needing no defense from the desert sun, and though sensitive to light, it barely had any eyes.

“This place must be absolutely ancient,” she mused. “These creatures don’t know there’s a whole world above.” Her eyes traveled up to the barely-visible ceiling. Solid limestone, it offered no opening to the surface, neither as escape for the trapped travelers or well for the parched landscape. “We’re so deep that not even the toughest roots could find the water. I thought life always found a way,” the odd bug disappeared into Taodoine’s greedy beak, “but perhaps not in that merciless desert.”

She frowned a little, picking her bird back up so they could continue. They were only a few dozen more miles from where they ought to find the flower that might help stabilize Rayse’s condition, but if this was what the desert’s water was like, would they even be lucky enough to find a dried husk? The man’s strongest fate was a cursed one, a curse of his own making, but he still had a chance to turn it around, to build and create, to be a positive force in the world. Did he not deserve that chance?

The smooth limestone slowly gave way to craggier rock, and the sound of Rayse’s footsteps stopped echoing densely around the tunnel and started traveling farther and higher as the cavern opened up. Though Karuka couldn’t sense the same heat that beckoned to the contractor, the stone beneath her feet hummed to her about something old, something powerful. She’d spent more than an hour walking with her dark-haired companion, fairly relaxed and content to let him lead the way by a step or two. Now her posture drew up straighter, more alert, and she pulled alongside him.

He shot her a look, and she shook her head a little bit, not knowing how to describe what she was feeling to someone who didn’t share her senses without having him write it off as some sort of crazy. “There’s…” she paused. Some breath of air had stirred a loose lock of hair against her cheek, and she took a few more strides in that direction. “There’s the smell of fresh air. This way's got an exit of some sort. But there's somethin' else. It smells like…”

Her head tilted and she took a deep breath, trying to pinpoint the other scent that drifted on the faint breeze. “Heat.”

[Karuka]

Taodoine paced back and forth on Karuka’s shoulder, looking anxiously ahead, as if he had knowledge the humans lacked. Though they didn’t immediately press onward, he fluttered his wings so hard in protest that he tumbled off his perch and grasped desperately at Karuka’s sleeve with his sharp little talons. She righted him and led them forward, stepping carefully over stone that was becoming more jagged with every stride.

On and on they walked, barely aware that they were climbing. They paused only when the ground got so treacherous that the redhead was forced to put her boots back on. The little phoenix nipped at her hands, more and more agitated with each step. Smooth tunnels gave way to odd structures, as though the stone melted from time to time. Protrusions they passed were craggy and rough as they came to them, but smooth and sharp as they passed.

Finally, the tunnel ended, dropping abruptly to a floor twice as far down as either Rayse or Karuka was tall. Fire-blasted stalagmites and thin columns crowded the broad cavern that opened up below them, but at the end, for the first time in far too long, an opening gave way to daylight.

One area directly beneath their small cliff differed from the rest of the cave. Scraped from the rock was a broad, shallow bowl, easily big enough to fit two peasant houses into. If they’d been able to see into it, the travelers would have seen great gouges and smooth sides.

Instead they saw the creature that had created it as it rose to meet them: a humongous bird, gold and orange on its breast and belly, red as fire on its back, wing and tail feathers blue as the sky and a violet crest upon its head. Though it stood on the floor, it looked down at them from behind its hooked beak, imperiously disdainful of the tiny interlopers in its lair.

Taodoine screeched at it, flapping and fluttering in a terrified rage. The redheaded Irish woman could hardly keep hold of her pet, his rage was so violent.

The old phoenix looked at the baby for a split second. Then it reached down and snatched him from Karuka’s arms. The little bird’s squawks turned into terrified screams, and his master’s curious, wary expression turned to horror. Both firebirds plunged from sight, and with the same reckless protective instinct that had rushed to help Rayse with the Kresh’Ramli, Karuka started racing forward.

Before she could take two steps, Rayse felt the heat change. Where it had been a powerful guiding force, it spiked into something dangerous. Karuka jumped into the pit after the great phoenix, and Rayse followed, although the logic of it escaped him.

They both landed in the over-sized bowl below, Karuka readying her spear and swearing at the phoenix in a tongue Rayse did not understand. The great bird dropped Taodoine’s broken corpse on the stone, paying the humans no mind. It prodded the little bird with a talon, as though expecting something, and when it didn’t happen it spread its massive wings to entirely engulf the humans’ vision. The air around it shimmered, sending forth a wave of pure heat that roiled through the cavern. A great fire surrounded the bird, its wings flapped with the force of a gale, mixing with the flames so much that it was hard to tell where the bird stopped and the inferno began.

With a war cry that rivaled the greatest armies of Althanas, Karuka bolted toward the massive phoenix, her fury echoing throughout the cavern. Rayse only had a moment to process the scene. To his confusion, he was already moving, feet trailing embers through the dusty air. Something about this felt wrong to him. Why would the phoenix attack a baby of its own kind? If the threat was the humans, it should have attacked them instead. It didn’t matter however, all he wanted was to protect both the young bird and Karuka. Was it because she was his salvation? Because he felt like he owed her?

No, he realized dimly as he caught her by the sleeve and wrenched her around so that his body stood between the raging redhead and the flaming bird. I thought for a long time that I’d decided to trust only myself, act only in my own self-interest.

Karuka tried to shove Rayse away, willfully oblivious to the ever-enlarging conflagration centered on the adult phoenix or to the contractor's intentions in her wrath and desire to avenge the baby bird she’d brought so far. Instead of releasing her, he crushed her against his chest, clamping his right hand down on the top of her head to protect her face from the blast he could feel coming.

Changing my mind is going to kill me. What a time to start caring.

The phoenix flapped its wings once more, washing the cavern in flame. Rayse braced himself and was hit directly by the conflagration, crying out at heat too intense even for him to tolerate. He felt his own flames trying to consume him, but fought them down as much to safeguard the woman in his arms as to keep himself from burning away.

The ordeal lasted only a few seconds, and when it ended, Rayse stumbled back a few steps and fell. The fire he’d held at bay came roaring back, consuming his limbs and body, licking at his head. He could see small burns and blisters on Karuka’s stunned face, but he didn’t feel any such injuries on himself. What he could feel was the absence of a familiar heat, and despite the world spinning wildly around him, Rayse turned his head to look at the phoenixes.

The adult wasn’t paying attention to the two humans it had nearly killed, focused on the little pile of ash left behind by the fledgling. Nothing else remained of Taodoine, not feathers, not bones. It hadn’t been Karuka’s warmth that served as Rayse’s beacon when he roamed from them, he realized dimly, but rather her familiar’s.

The contractor struggled to rise, gaze turning from the phoenix and its victim to the cavern's jagged ceiling. Instead of supporting him, his limbs pooled uselessly on the ground like liquid fire, refusing to reform however hard he willed them to. Turning into chili in a bird’s nest. That’s exactly how I envisioned going out!

Karuka sucked in a breath, feet bracing on the smooth floor. Her eyes darted from Rayse, sprawled helplessly on the floor and starting to lose his form, to Taodoine's ashes and the great phoenix that stood contemplatively over them. Her every instinct told her to unleash hell on the bird that had murdered her pet, but if she didn't help Rayse now, he'd be gone with the next slight breeze. A growl left her throat and she knelt beside the cothromaicht, dropping her spear with a hollow rattle.

"Look't me," she demanded, reaching for the first thing that might focus him on anything other than his panic. "What did you do that for?"

His eyes focused on her face, while she kept a wary eye on the phoenix, which was now gently prodding the little ash pile with its talons as though it expected something. Rayse took in a breath either to answer with honesty or incredulity, but that didn't matter. As soon as Karuka heard more lung than flame in the intake, she slammed her fist into the base of his sternum and twisted brutally. Rayse choked and coughed, agonized shock blossoming on his face before he realized what she was doing.

The fires around his body dissipated, and he took a shaky, relieved breath as his limbs solidified. Once more, he tried to rise, but Karuka planted a hand in the middle of his chest. "Don't get up until that pain numbs to a dull ache." He needed the time to calm down and relax before his body could fully stabilize. She worried that if he stood and found his limbs unable to hold him, he'd panic again and she'd lose him.

The redhead did stand, grief and anger rushing through her like a hurricane. A quick kick shot Consequence back into her hand, and she started stalking toward the phoenix, which still wasn't looking at her. Karuka didn't know how she planned to either demand answers from the creature or bring it down, but it had killed the baby she'd worked so hard to raise and brought so far, and the old beast was going to answer for its actions. She'd barely crossed half the distance when Rayse called out from behind her.

"Wait." He sat up with a grunt, looking intently at Taodoine's ashes. A resurgent, familiar heat cried out to his senses, growing stronger by the second. The dead little pile started glowing, at first only enough for faint red embers to be seen through the black soot. The light grew brighter and hotter with every breath, engulfing the ash in orange, then yellow, and finally the entire mound set itself ablaze. After another moment, a fully-fledged phoenix the size of a common field hawk erupted from the heap, flapping its new wings and looking up at the adult with a mix of awe and fear. The birds called to each other a few times, the adult's melodious voice contrasting sharply with the harsh squawking of the fledgling, then Taodoine took flight, landing back on Karuka's shoulder.

At last, the gigantic bird took notice of the little humans in its nest, approaching to look them over curiously. It maintained eye contact with Karuka on its way over, its will boring into her soul, then it bent to Rayse, grabbing him gently with a claw that could have ripped him apart. It examined him gently and curiously, and when it was satisfied, it turned to Karuka, bending down to touch its beak gently to her forehead.

Her face twisted briefly into a rictus of pain, and she fell to her knees a moment later, when the bird withdrew. Rayse bolted to his feet, but Karuka shook her head, holding her lower right abdomen. She took in a few agonized gasps before speaking.

"She's given us permission to pass safely through her nest. We should go now."

[Rayse Valentino]

Rayse and Karuka sat on a few rocks overlooking the pit they just climbed out of, massaging their sore joints. The jagged rocks that marked the ascent were far more troublesome than they imagined, so they were trying to recover under the pale moonlight of the glass flats. After their ordeal with the phoenix, they were both silent, with Karuka occasionally smiling at Taodoine’s antics.

The trek had been rough on the redhead; she looked pale and drawn, and had been favoring her right side since the elder phoenix had touched her. Despite the night’s chill, beads of sweat dotted her forehead. A quick inspection had shown an angry red brand on the skin of her lower abdomen, but she had declined to treat it. She spent their downtime with her eyes closed when her little fledgling wasn’t demanding her attention. While she wasn’t sure what the great phoenix’s mark meant, she was sure that it had connected her more to the desert. Before, she could hear it sing and scream through her feet. Now she heard it whisper and speak. She could almost make out what it was saying.

It was a far more somber mood considering they were finally free of that cavern. For Rayse, he didn’t feel like there was much of a difference, at least until daybreak. At this point, only the phoenix could set him back into a balanced state. Rayse got up; there was no time to rest for him.

“Where are we?” he asked. He knew Karuka had some sense of the lay of the land, even though they were tossed out in the middle of nowhere.

“Further east of where we were. And north. We’ve left the black sands far behind.”

A faint light spread across Rayse’s eyes. “Does that mean we’re actually close?”

“If we haven’t made it by the coming dawn, we will before the next one.” Karuka frowned a little, pressing a palm into the rippling glass. Something didn’t sound right for plant life, not so close, not in the direction they were headed. She stood slowly, moving Taodoine to her shoulder. “At the very least, you’ll make it that long.”

The use of we gave Rayse some assurance that Karuka was still willing to make the journey, despite being done with her personal quest. If he was going to die anyway, he might as well get this question off his chest.

“Do you feel that you owe me? Is that why you’re still going?”

Karuka’s lips and nose curled. “No. I gave my word, didn’t I? Just because I’ve got the answers I came for doesn’t mean my part in this is done. B’sides, if I left you now, you’d probably die.”

“I know,” Rayse snapped, almost defensively. “It’s just… I want to say thanks. That’s all.”

A hint of a smile touched Karuka’s mouth. “Y’know… I think I might have misjudged you, when we met. If nothing else, it will be worth finding out how badly.”

After a short rest, they reached the desert, with Karuka sighing relief as she was able to remove her boots and take in the world, nearly drowning in her new connection to it. She felt the desert’s cold night breeze on her skin, a breath that still smelled of the merciless heat. It washed away her troubles, and after a moment, she looked a little refreshed.

Rayse didn’t want his last few hours to be spent in silence. “I know a lot of people that try to assign meaning to their actions. They want their lives to mean something, and they want others to know it. So when they mess up, it really gets under their skin, you know? But I’ve always plowed ahead with whatever I was doing. I never equated mistakes with my self-worth.”

He paused for a second. “But lately, it’s been hard. Getting here, I keep thinking what went wrong. When I took the job that lead to the this runic shit, I thought I had no alternative. But really, there were plenty of options. I thought I was cornered, but I wasn’t. When I was a kid, a few things happened to me that felt out of my control. What’s more, it was because the people I was with didn’t believe that I could make the necessary choices on my own. I’ve tried to spend my life proving that wrong. You barely know me, so I’m not expecting you to know if I succeeded or not, but I do sometimes wish there was someone around to tell me.”

Karuka looked at Rayse for a long moment, then uncorked her water skin for a long drink. The water was gritty and a little bitter from its long time in the cave, but she was sure it was safe to drink. “When we first met, I peered into your life, remember? I saw that you’d be consumed by something. This condition that’s even now got you on the brink of life and death was just one option. Ultimately it’s your own ambition, your own drive, that would push you over the edge. That’s like fire in its own way, isn’t it?”

She reached out to touch him, calloused fingers feather-soft on his beaten cheek. “The thing about fire is that it’s got to be fed carefully. Too much, too fast, and it blazes out of control and kills everything around it until it has consumed itself to death. Too little, and it withers and dies. It only brings light and warmth to the dark and cold if it’s both there and safe.”

Her hand withdrew slowly, but was caught by Rayse’s own. “Karuka, I…” What could he say? This could be his last chance to…

But…

He let go of her hand. “Sorry, you were saying?”

Her head tilted slightly, confusion and compassion vying for space in her eyes. What would a man who was so used to making his own will happen hesitate to say? Or was it that same will forcibly biting down words of fear? “I can’t say if you’ve succeeded or not. Just that if you feel out of control, you did somethin’ wrong. I do know that if we can pull you through this alive, there’s so much you could go on to do. Maybe for the worse. But hopefully for the better.”

She offered him a bit of a smile and picked up her pace, though she winced at how the fabric rubbed over her burn. “Whatever the outcome, we’ll not stop trying until this is over.”

[Rayse Valentino]

The sun rose over the golden sands, but Rayse and Karuka still had miles to go to reach the promised oasis. She persuaded him to take some rest. The relentless heat could kill her if they didn’t hunker down in the shade of their little cloak tent, and it only aggravated Rayse’s condition. Though he was anxious to keep moving, to find the herbs that might restore his humanity, he acquiesced. Finding the herbs did him no good if she wasn’t there to make the potion that would cure him.

To soothe her anxious companion, Karuka directed his eyes to a dark patch on the horizon. It might mean water, she explained. It might mean life. It meant hope.

They slept only a few hours each, for reasons of their own. While they were awake during the heat of the day, Karuka dampened rags to wrap around their necks and they talked. Rayse opened up like a dying man delivering his last confession. He told her about his upbringing. He grew up with his single father, his mother dying in childbirth when he was young. He had a vague recollection of her features, and the only possession he knew was hers was the pendant around his neck. His father was a cold man who rarely cracked a smile, and as soon as Rayse was old enough, he was sent off to boarding school and from then only saw him on one occasion: His graduation from military academy. Even then, it felt like a formality. He never knew what fate befell him, but knowing that he was a general in service of the crown, likely he died on the battlefield, otherwise he would have heard of his accomplishments after the war. When Rayse figured this out, he felt… nothing. Not happiness, not sadness, just emptiness. This was a man who was destroyed by the death of his wife and never remarried, cared nothing for legacy, and disappeared. Rayse would never understand him.

She told him about her homeland, a rainy, foggy country that gleamed gloriously green when the sun hit it. She talked about snow, but not the pounding, packed snow from Salvar. Instead, she told of big, fluffy snow drifts that children would race down on small wooden rafts. She talked about her mother and stepfather, and how cruel the man had been. She spoke of the old healing woman from her village, and how she’d learned almost everything she knew from old Saoirse. She spoke of her half brothers, Cael, Artan, and Fiachra. Cael was ten years her junior, and Fiachra had been born just before his father had kicked her out of the village. He’d been sickly out of the womb, and when their mother died after his birth, she hadn’t held out hope for the boy. She spoke also, a little, of her time on Althanas, but she hadn’t told anyone about her family in years.

The calm, quiet, and relative cool kept Rayse’s flames mostly at bay, though toward the evening they started flickering up and down his arms again. Karuka did put a little salve on her burns when the sun started setting. The one on her abdomen had bubbled and blistered, and even though it was an honor to have, she couldn’t afford the pain to slow her pace for another night. He couldn’t afford it.

They struck out again at the first chill breath of night. With each step, Karuka grew less and less certain they would find what they sought. Even without use of magic, she could sense life around her, and she sensed none on the horizon. But she kept her fears to herself. The herb was a precious, life-saving plant. If it just gave and gave of itself to anyone who might find it, it would long since be myth and nothing more. Maybe it had a way to camouflage itself from any diviners, as other plants had poisons or thorns. Maybe… maybe.

Maybe, Karuka thought, stroking a sleeping Taodoine. Or maybe it's all for naught.

The moon had abandoned them by the time they reached a dry lakebed, and the sun wouldn’t cast its first lights for more than an hour, but what the two travelers could see by the dim light of the stars was enough to let their stomachs drop.

“We’re here.” Karuka bit her lip, bending down to examine a dry, brittle husk of reed that crumbled at her touch. “It’s dead. I feared this, but I’d hoped… Rayse, it’s a long time since anything’s grown here.”

Rayse shook his head, stumbling a few steps along the rocky expanse. “Th-this… it can’t…”

“It is. I’m sorry.” Karuka watched Rayse’s back. All of this? All this way? And nothing? Just like that, he was doomed to die? Had he really been damned from the beginning?

Rayse dropped to his knees. Was this his punishment for tempting fate? He grasped at the sand below, letting it run through his fingers as his body shook. Wisps of flames crawled up his arm and flickered into the air. After those thoughts he had in the cavern, he changed his mind. “Damn it!” He struck at the sand, sending it flying around him. “Motherfucking fate toying with me! Cosmic shitheads having a laugh at my expense?! Well laugh it up, assholes!” He bit his lip, his vision blurry from the tears. Was this all he amounted to? Dying in some goddess-forsaken place on the other side of the world? Unknown, unaccomplished? He felt so stupid for how he felt in the cavern. Who could possibly be okay with it ending like this?

“I don’t... I don’t want to die! Not yet! Not ever! I…” He got up and kicked at the sand, taking off his robe and tossing it away from him. His pendant slipped out from under his shirt, pulling down. The only part of him that would remain after he faded away. “Not yet…”