Quirk stood in the depths of Mattrax’s cave and gaped. She had never seen anything like it before in her life.
“Betra’s sagging tits,” Lette breathed. “I’ve seen gold in my time, but this…” She trailed off with a small sigh of contentment.
Quirk took note of the gold for the first time. Yes, she supposed, there was a lot of it. Coins, crowns, medallions, necklaces, brooches, bracelets, scepters, gilt frames, earrings, emeralds, rubies, topaz, diamonds, pearls…
She looked away, disinterested. She looked back to him.
Mattrax slumbered atop his treasure trove. A vast coiling column of muscle and scale. His wings drooped down forming leathery blankets over the slopes of his hoard. His head was a vast angular wedge. Each nostril was wide enough that she could thrust a clenched fist into it and barely tickle the fine hairs that lined it. Each claw upon his foot was longer than her forearm.
She could hardly breathe. Her chest felt full of air, the confines of her ribs too tight for her lungs. The room was bright despite the cloying night. The edges of the world were fading to mist.
She walked toward the dragon as if in a dream. Coins and jewels gave way beneath her feet as she mounted the hills of his fortune. She stretched out her hand. She had to touch him.
Would he feel rough? Smooth? Warm? Hard or soft? Would the skin give beneath her hand?
She remembered the first time she had touched magic. A child in the dark of her parents’ hut. Hiding from her brother, Andatte. Curled up in a nest of dirty laundry while he tried to seek her out. Half-asleep. The heat of summer mounting where she lay. Becoming almost unbearable, almost beautiful. And then the sense of something pushing through that heat. Some vast, unknowable intellect manifesting in it. And it was reaching out to her. Pressing through layers of reality. And she had reached out, pushed back. And then… they had touched. Been briefly connected. She had touched something that had redefined her utterly. Left her branded. Left her different.
This felt like that moment.
She was vaguely aware of Lette scooping vast armfuls of wealth into her pockets, letting out small giddy noises.
Quirk was almost annoyed. Such petty concerns in the face of such… such… magnificence. Was the woman blind to the beauty of the world? Did she spit in its eye on purpose?
No. Quirk stilled herself. Nothing was going to spoil this for her. This moment would be pure, unsullied by the world, by her past, by her need for constant control. This was what she had worked so hard for, for all these years. She wouldn’t let anything ruin it now. She could feel the heat of Mattrax’s breath gusting over her hand, playing between her fingers—
A noise from the mouth of the cave. A shout. And another.
Quirk froze.
“Shit,” Lette cursed.
And no. No. This couldn’t be happening. This was her moment.
Another shout.
“Balur,” Quirk breathed. “It’s Balur. And Firkin. With the wagon and the sacks. That’s all.”
She reached once more for the beatific peace of biological rapture. Toward epiphany. Toward Mattrax.
From the cave entrance came the sound of steel clashing against steel.
“Lawl’s balls!” Lette cursed again. Then the mercenary was moving. She dashed along the contours of the golden hoard, heading back toward the cave entrance. Rivers of coins tumbled and tinkled in her wake.
As she dashed past Quirk, the ground gave way.
No. No!
Quirk lunged, desperate, grasping. Her fingers were almost there, almost touching Mattrax’s skin. But there was nothing to gain purchase on. She felt herself falling. She screamed. Everything was slipping away from her. Epiphany fluttered away.
Then she was tumbling, arse over heel, landing unceremoniously, feet in the air, hands splayed and empty.
For a moment, Quirk lay and seethed. She recognized the signs, felt the mask of control slipping away. No! screamed some last rational part of her. No! That’s not what this is. Not what this was meant to be! This was my moment.
She picked herself up. Her teeth gritted. Her palms hot. Steam rising from between her fingertips.
Someone was running around the corner of the cave. A guard, chain mail glinting in reflected moonlight, mouth open in a yell, sword raised. He saw her, let loose a fresh howl, and charged.
Quirk did not see the man. Not as he was here and now. She did not see the cave around her. She did not feel the hot breath of Mattrax gusting over her.
Instead, she felt the hot breath of the Tamathian scrublands blowing at her back. She saw the shallow sloping hills of her childhood, dotted with scrubby bushes that held more thorns than leaves. She saw a bandit dressed in tatters charging, scimitar raised above his head, the desperation of a starving man glinting in his eyes.
No! screamed the voice. This is over. This is past. This is not who you are.
But the mask of control was slipping, almost gone. And in her rage, her frustration, her fear, Quirk reached up and tore it away.
She reached out her hand. Heat rose in her palm. She felt divine power within her. She felt words she had never learned forming on her tongue, words that pushed back at the skin of reality stretched over the world. Felt them punch through.
The guard was almost on her. His sword hung above her head.
The heat in her palm became a physical pain. A scalding, searing expression of hate and rage. She howled, loud enough to match the guard’s battle cry.
And then, there, in the darkness, she gave birth to fire.