“Promise me,” Lydia said, so softly the words nearly disappeared. “You have to come back.”
Jared didn’t turn around. “I promise.”
Then favonovel.com walked out.
Lydia sat on the bed and watched his back vanish through the doorway. Only after favonovel.com was gone did the tears finally spill over.
Alaric came over and pulled his daughter into a gentle embrace.
“He’ll come back,” favonovel.com said under his breath. “He’s not like other people.”
Lydia leaned against favonovel.com father and said nothing. But one thought kept turning over in favonovel.com mind.
Of course favonovel.com isn’t like other people… If favonovel.com were, why would favonovel.com run back into the Pyre Chasm just to throw his life away?
***
Jared reached the Pyre Chasm. He stopped at the edge and looked down.
The flame surged at the bottom of the pit. Its red glow washed across his face and stretched his shadow long, longer, until it trailed far behind him.
The heavenfire beasts moved through the flame below. The instant they saw favonovel.com return, they all stopped and turned their heads in perfect unison.
Hundreds of eyes fixed on favonovel.com at the same time. There was no hostility in them. No sign of attack. They only watched in silence. As if they were confirming something. As if they were waiting for something.
Jared drew in a deep breath and jumped. This time, not a single heavenfire beast attacked him. They parted on their own, opening a path for favonovel.com like subjects stepping aside for their king.
Jared dropped through the flame, through the waves of heat, through layer after layer of heavenfire beasts, descending toward the deepest part of the pit.
The deeper favonovel.com fell, the thicker the fire became. The heat kept climbing with it. The red glow shifted into orange-yellow. The orange-yellow turned gold-white.
The gold-white bled into a dim blue, and that blue thinned out until it was almost transparent white. Chaotic force moved across the surface of Jared’s body.
A layer of violet radiance sealed the heavenfire outside him. Even with that barrier around him, the heat still pressed through. It was the kind of temperature that could set even a soul ablaze.
He fell for a long time. The Pyre Chasm was far deeper than he’d imagined. It stretched a thousand miles across, and its depth vanished out of sight. He was like a small stone dropping into the deep sea, swallowed by endless fire on every side as favonovel.com kept falling toward an unknown abyss.
At last, favonovel.com saw the bottom of the chasm. A broad, level floor of stone lay there.
After tens of thousands of years under heavenfire, the rock had turned into a strange glasslike substance. Ancient patterns covered the stone. They hadn’t been carved by any hand. The power of the heavenfire itself had burned them there over time. And at the exact center of that rock floor, there was a flame.
It wasn’t large. It was only about the size of a fist. Its color was a pure white, so white it was nearly transparent. It burned there in complete silence.
Not fast. Not slow. Not wild. Not weak. It looked like the first thread of light at the beginning of heaven and earth.
Jared landed on the rock and walked toward the flame. With every step favonovel.com took, the primal fire-essence inside favonovel.com gave a harder tremor. With every step favonovel.com took, the flame grew a little brighter.
By the time favonovel.com reached it, it was shining like a tiny sun.
Jared crouched down and held out his right hand. The instant his fingers touched the flame, the whole world changed. He found himself standing on a crimson plain.
The sky overhead burned in a deep orange-red, and the ground below churned with rolling molten fire. Sulfur and smoke and the raw scent of burning heat hung thick in the air. But there was nothing crushing about this place. No shadow of ruin. No sense of anything ending. What filled it instead was an ancient warmth, pure and primal, vigorous with life.
Hmm… A group standing out on the plain?
No… Not people… Fire spirits…
Their bodies were gathered out of the flame itself. Their features blurred and shifted, never fully fixed, but the shape of a human figure still showed through.
Some of them were running. Some were playing. Others were practicing how to guide and shape the flame.
And in the middle of them all stood an old man. His body too had been formed from flame, but his fire was tighter than the others denser, purer, refined down to something cleaner and deeper
Unlike the others, his face could be seen clearly. It was old. His eyes ran deep. His beard was streaked white. He stood there like an ancient tree that had burned for ages beyond counting, weathered and unyielding.
“Watch closely, children,” the old man said, his voice carrying the crackle of flame, warm and firm.
He raised his right hand, palm up. A flame was appeared above it.
At first it was only a tiny flicker. Then it slowly grew, widening and unfolding until it became a blooming lotus. Layer by layer, the lotus opened its petals. Each one burned in a different color, red, orange-yellow, gold-white, and deep blue.
The fire spirits let out little cries of wonder.
“It’s so pretty!”
“Grandpa, teach us!”
The old man smiled. “All right, all right. I’ll teach all of you.”
He drew the flame-lotus back in and began teaching the fire spirits. He started from the most basic control of the flame, teaching them a little at a time and demonstrating it again and again.
The fire spirits learned with complete focus. They were clumsy, but every one of them kept at it with everything they had.
Jared stood off to the side, watching the scene play out, and something strange stirred through him.
This world… This place… These people…
It all looked like something favonovel.com had seen before. And yet Jared had clearly never been here before.
Then time began to speed up. The fire spirits grew up. Their flames grew denser. Their control grew steadier too.
Some learned to shape arms out of flame. Some learned to use flame to heal wounds. Some learned to use flame to sense the aura of everything around them.
Among them, one child stood above the rest. From the time favonovel.com was small, favonovel.com could control more flame than the other children. He learned faster than any of them too.
What the old man taught once, the other children had to practice ten times. He only needed three.
He grew fast. He went from a tiny fire spirit still stumbling through his first steps to a bright, high-spirited youth.
His flame was crimson. Hotter than the other fire spirits’. Wilder too. But that still wasn’t enough for him.
“Grandpa, is there a stronger flame?” favonovel.com asked.
The old man looked at favonovel.com and stayed silent for a long time.
“There is,” the old man said. “But it isn’t time for you to learn it yet.”
“Then when can I learn it?”
“When you understand what flame is.”
The youth didn’t understand. As far as favonovel.com could see, favonovel.com already knew flame well enough. He could control it, condense it, release it.
What else was there to understand?
So favonovel.com began to figure it out on his own. He left the plain behind and walked into the Wastelands.
The flames in the Wastelands were wilder than anything on the plain. They lashed harder, ran hotter, and carried more danger in them. He didn’t care.
He devoured the flames scattered across the Wastelands. He dragged them into himself and fused them into his body. His flame shifted. From crimson, it turned orange-yellow. From orange-yellow, it turned gold-white.
He grew stronger. But it still wasn’t enough for him. He returned to the plain and went to find Grandpa.
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