I turn to face the source of the hand on my shoulder and I see a soft, reassuring, look from Eryss’s face. It stings to see — her face is a mirror of my own, gaunt and underfed, but behind her eyes I see little else beyond care and determination. I bring my hand up to hers on my shoulder and place it atop, pushing a bit of the King’s Flames into the contact. Her hands are always cold, but especially so since we’ve been on this journey to get help for the homeland.

  “We’re going to be in sight of the gate soon. I just hope they don’t turn us away.” Eryss pauses for a moment to look at Nyssa before continuing, “You do the talking with whoever is on watch at the gates, and I’ll stay with the little one, Valynn. This area isn’t very safe.” She doesn’t look any more hopeful than I feel. The last three towns have turned us away soundly, but that was to be expected until we made it to a major settlement.

  What hadn’t been expected was our supplies being destroyed by a monster. And now it has left us in fairly dire straits. Neither of us are hunters, and neither of our skillsets lend themselves to such endeavors.

  I look down at our daughter, squatting low as she looks up at me with unrestrained hope and trust. I put a hand on her head and rustle her hair, meeting her ruby eyes with my own and as much of a smile as I can manage. “These people will be nice! Ekrass said so, so you can smile more, Zarann!” I match her expression and make to stand.

  “If you say it will be, Nyssa, then it must be. Stay with Ekrass, but make sure you can be seen. Hood down. Like we practiced, alright?” With childish cheer, she does as asked, revealing her almost porcelain white skin and matching hair and twin ruby orbs within, and puts on the most hangdog expression she can muster.

  I smile proudly at her efforts. It kills me inside to ask her to participate in such base manipulation, but it’s ultimately for her own good. At least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself until we make it to the capital and can hopefully beseech these people for help at home.

  I make to head towards the gate, but Eryss grabs my hand and squeezes one last time for luck. I nod at her, and we all move around the bend together and see nobody standing at the gates proper, but instead I see moving lamplight from the parapets. The walls are sturdy white stone girded with metal banding. The gate itself is probably twenty feet across at its widest point and nearly as tall. We’re spotted by people on the walls immediately, who stay quiet until we get close enough to be seen in the light of emitters on the wall.

  I note that their emitters are using something besides Her Light, painting the area in a white hue rather than the more customary pinkish one associated with light mana. The light is clean, sharp, and casts long shadows in the falling light of the late day sun.

  “Hail, stop there, outsider.” Not a great start. If that’s response before they’ve even seen me, this is probably a doomed endeavor. I take another two steps. It’s impetuous, but I’m feeling less than cooperative after so many failures recently. “Who are you and where are you coming from?” The speaker is leaning over the ledge to peer down at me. A human, but in full plate, so their tinny voice is hard to make much detail out of.

  I bring down my hood, revealing my spired white horns and skin matching my daughter’s. I switch to the Eldaran common tongue. While my use of it is somewhat broken, Eryss’s is far worse than mine. “I am Valynn-Eryss Dakris. My family and I have traveled far, and are seeking rest and resupply for the night.”

  The speaker visibly stiffens when they see my kyn features. “Gates are closed, and will remain that way. Especially to your kind.” The words are daggers. Ones that I have my guard up for but still leave shallow cuts. I feel my magic stirring, the King’s Flames coming to my heart in response.

  “I could make you open those gates, and I’d put the King’s Own Honor on it, you ignorant—,” I seethe internally, but present a composed front on the outside. “We’ve already been attacked by a monster today. My partner and I need to get in somewhere warm so we can tend our injuries.”

  The speaker has others joining them at the parapet, looking down at us figuratively and literally. “We won’t be doing any business with hellions.” Their voices are all but shouting now, which draws more people to their side in increasing numbers. All armed and armored in varying degrees. Many disciplines of magic and fighting, but none impressive at a glance. “Your kind don’t belong here.”

  “Can’t you find it in your hearts to at least let our daughter in for the night? We’ll stay without the walls and pay for whatever is needed.”

  I am roundly denied at every turn as we go back and forth with requests and denials until they let something slip that is curious.

  “You’ll draw the beast here. Get gone before we make you.” It’s the first actual threat, but not one they seem actually inclined to act on, but it begs the question what beast they’re worried about that us merely being here would draw it — and how it’s dangerous to people behind sturdy walls. I know that the average person here is less capable than anyone at home, but I should think they’d have some degree of confidence.

  “We’re only asking for a single night of shelter within the walls. Please.” I’m not above begging, much as my station would preclude me doing so in any other circumstances.

  “And you’ve got your answer, hellion.” That word again. It’s an honorific at home, but is evidently used as a slur here. Absurd.

  I feel my anger rising with every exchange and start to call upon the King’s Flames in preparation for if they try anything more than words. Eryss senses the change in the air as I begin to physically heat up and puts a hand on my shoulder to calm me.

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  There’s a resounding roar. Something hellishly loud and distorted. I spin around and look into the rapidly darkening forest behind us. I step forward and unceremoniously shove Eryss and Nyssa towards the gate. I make the sweeping gestures necessary to conjure my magic.

  [With Her Flames I Burn, In Her Flames They Burn]

  A ball of angry blue flame ignites in my right hand. Its flame licks up my arm, and I see some nearby greenery wilting in the face of it. I peer farther, pushing more mana into my eyes alongside a quick gesture of my offhand.

  [By Her Flames, All Is Lain Bare]

  My eyes fill with Her Flames. Showing me concentrations of essence and power in my line of sight, but painting them in the image of flames of varying degrees of intensity. I turn around quickly, seeing the two sparks of my family. Nyssa hasn’t yet manifested any natural talents for the King’s Gifts, but she should soon. Eryss, on the other hand, is restraining herself for now. Her Gift is one that can’t be concealed and draws nothing but attention when used.

  I turn back around to spot the sound, seeing *trees* being knocked over before it. It’s easily more than ten feet tall, and built like one of the scaled drakes of our homeland, but with too many and too long limbs that are using long talons to scythe down anything before it in its charge. A thousand yards out.

  I hear shouts from above and behind as commands are given from the wall. At least they’ll join me in this fight. They’ll see why our “kind” have our reputation today, and maybe that’ll convince them to open their damned gates.

  I hear a shuffle, and some muffled words as Eryss appears beside me, her blessed armor on full display. It’s a relic of a bygone era, the times before the fall of the King in centuries past, and passed along to those who carry the Gift that Eryss does and Nyssa will inherit when she comes of age.

  “It is one of the Harakai, I can sense it. These people are dead. We are dead.” Her words fall like a headsman’s axe. The local term is a “Calamity”, and it’s why we’re here, to seek aid from other nations regarding them. Our lands are falling to a plague of the things.

  “Then you and Nyssa leave. It won’t be able to ignore me. Restrain yourself and you’ll be unnoticed, Myara.” She grabs my unkindled hand between her own while I keep my eyes on the approaching beast, and kisses it, returning my love and goodbye.

  She turns and runs to Nyssa and I lose track of her, slipping into a battle trance with a few measured breaths.

  [Like The Sun, We Become As One, I Am Kindling For Her Flames]

  I call far more mana than is safe, but safety won’t win this day. Holding back won’t change the outcome I will face, but it might change the one that my family and these kretch will suffer. May they remember this day for all time.

  My core grows hotter and hotter, the flame in my hand growing a twin in my left, as I feel their flame licking from my eyes and mouth in anticipation.

  I wait, pushing more and more mana into my body and feeling its secondary benefits settle into me. More power into the leyveins in and around my body, tracing heat and strength through them in increasing amounts until the exact moment that it fully reveals itself.

  At that moment, I begin my end. I throw a searing bolt at the draconic facsimile that strikes it along the side of its head, burning a divot as it screams into its flesh. Immediately, I trace another sigil with that hand, conjuring another ball of Her Flames to hand. I take the moment of impact to break into a run directly away from the gate and my family. It looses an *awful* screech that slams into my mind like a hammer, but turns its sole focus onto me as spell, shot, and arrow rain from the walls to little effect.

  It recognizes me as a powerful Source. Good. I’ll give it exactly what it wants. I focus on my physical Imbuements as I throw bolt after bolt at the creature. Each bolt growing more and more compact as my focus narrows, to the point that some of them are starting to blow straight through the creature and carry off into the distance. Each blow raises the temperature of the area a few degrees — raises my temperature a few degrees.

  I feel Her Flames within me as I run, outpacing the creature as it dogs me down the road away from the town. It kicks up huge clods of dirt and stone as it surges forward on its many legs. My core. My vital essence that makes me, me, is catching alight. I feel it and it brings no pain. Her Flames burn to ash those who stand against Her. I am merely a vessel for that will, and it rewards me for my faith with power. Short-lived, but nigh deific power.

  The next bolt I throw physically pushes back with the force that it fires from my hand, and when I cast my hand forward again, I see that it is blackened and cracking. Deep within the fissures, I can see my bone as it is blackening under the sustained punishment. More and more of my body is being replaced with the mana of flame, and it feels good as it happens.

  Each and every mote of power that supplants a portion of my natural mana empowers me further, but I am reaching the critical state where my vessel will catch in that final flame. Sensing that time coming, I cease throwing projectiles at the monster and instead plant myself and focus inwardly. I call every mote of Her Flames that I can into me. The surrounding area steadily develops a rime of frost as I sap it of everything it’s worth for a final attack.

  Gouts of flame begin to scream out through my skin with high-pitched whines of pressure and force as the creature closes the final remaining distance. Behind it, far in the distance, I see Eryss, but not Nyssa. She must have gotten her far enough away to turn back to try to help me. Eryss is kneeling in prayer in the center of the pathway leading away from the road, and I see blinding sparks of golden light swirling around her as she calls upon the King’s Will.

  “My foolish Myara, you would save these people? I won’t allow you the chance to become a hero. I will take this thing with me. I’m so…so sorry.” I see her mana coming to her beck and call, almost cocooning her in radiant golden light as it does.

  But…beyond her and traveling fast, I see another warrior — a titanic individual running upon the air itself, brandishing a blade larger than I am tall and probably just as heavy, moving like an airborne landslide. All around the warrior, Her Breath and Her Skin, the mana of earth and air, erupt.

  "Good, Eryss will have a capable ally who seems prepared for this fight. I beg of you, dark knight, watch over my kin.”

  The creature arrives and I don’t resist. I’m mere moments away from the instant my soul will reach the point of ignition, so I want it to be as close as possible when it happens.

  No pain. Just power. I summon the last embers of Her Flame as the creature seizes me. My brittle bones, hollowed by the fire that replaced their essence, crumble in its grip as it holds me close. It inspects me for an instant as I reach my Final Moment—the moment every faithful of the King yearns for: a worthy end for a worthy cause.

  I feel it, the instant my vessel — my soul — ignites. For the briefest, most sublime fraction of a second, there is only flame and purpose. Then, I cease to exist, a smile on my fading lips and my family’s names dissolving into the heat. No voice escapes me, for the means to make sound have been consumed, replaced by pure power and will. Only one sound remains.

  The birthing cries of a new star.