You are in a village. At the bottom of a path. The one that leads from the monastery.
You are lost, weeping and frightened. Staggering forward, looking for comfort and answers and explanation. Still dressed in the embroidered robes and colourful woollen clothes of the monks. A moment of relief, on seeing a face you know. The stallholder, Kiessis, who makes colourful toys out of off-cuts of material, and dolls woven from grasses. Their stall one of the few places you have found genuine pleasure in life. The dolls and forest beasts they made, taken and hidden in your room. Food for endless games, a place in your imagination where you can play, where you have never left your family, where your sister never died and you were not alone and trapped within the harsh regime of training. Where you do not have to be a man, and strong, and hard. Kiessis’s eyes opening wide on seeing you. You will never forget this moment. That shout.
“It is the false Rai!”
You do not understand. You are not false. You are the one? The one, the foretold. The beginning of change and the step to the Star Path for all. You are the chosen of the Terrible Lord, Zorir-Who-Walks-in-Fire. You are the salvation of these people.
But the monks, they are all gone.
Kiessis grabs you, powerful arms around you, imprisoning you.
“I have him!” she shouts. Her body is soft against you, while still being unyielding. Her voice is full of glee and you are screaming.
“Let me go! Let me go!” And in your fear and your panic the fire is there.
And then you are free and Kiessis? Kiessis is gone from the world, and you are strong. Strong enough to run, but not strong enough to fight off the horror, the taking of life. This is not a bandit who murdered your sister. This is different.
But you have no time to think.
Her shout brings a crowd, villagers and soldiers. They pursue you. You run, head first, not thinking or looking, careening through narrow alleys, at every turn another villager. The shout of “the false Rai!” echoing between the whitewashed buildings, bringing a heat to your cheeks that the light above cannot. Little by little your escape is cut off. Your routes, up walls, over buildings, are cut off. Then they are beating you, forcing you into a corner of the courtyard, spear butts and fists and voices full of hate and you cannot stand it any longer. Can not stand it, can not stand it.
In one.
Crystal clear.
Moment.
You feel the connections, the silvered lines of power that run through every living thing. How they are stronger in among the crowd where they touch. How the power within is inflamed by emotion, like when air was blown into a fire.
All they taught you, in pain and shame, suddenly understood.
You take.
Take everything. Suck it out of them, a great, hot, seething ball of life and power and you feel as if your cowl opens a great mouth and howls. You howl.
The crowd simply stops.
One moment there, angry, hot and furious. Then not.
Empty flesh.
Lying on the ground.
And a feeling inside, both pride, at doing what the monks had trained you for, at proving you are what they said. And shame, that you killed so many so easily. But in that moment, you did not understand those feelings, you were only a child, and they were quickly subsumed by fear. More were coming, more villagers. And soldiers. Soldiers in armour and with spears and swords. And they brought something else with them. Not just anger, but something black and vile. Hate. All you wanted, in that moment, was to escape. To run. To be left alone.
All that desire balled up and expressed in one word.
“Stop!”
The word is fire.
Fire through the alleyways, through the doors and windows, over the roofs. Nothing escapes. An expanding conflagration that sweeps and scours the village. When it ends. All that is left is you. Standing in a smoking black circle where once those you had known and passed the time of day with had been.
A boy.
A smoking ruin, and more shame and guilt than any child should ever have to carry.
You want to run from the horror of what you are, but you can never run fast enough.
You are running.
Running.