Young Flame

The khirig and his towering wave of water close in on me. A secondary wave extends out of the one holding Hirsh aloft and reaches for me as if it were a hand.

I look into his oncoming eyes with overwhelming disdain, ready to explode and tear him apart.

For the first time I see him hesitate, his eyes widen as they lock on mine. But it’s too late. The water is almost upon me. He won’t pull back in time.

A world shattering crack pounds through my chest and a visible shockwave slams the water flat into the ground. Before I can even process what happened, I feel an impact in my back and the world spins around me.

My chest slams into the earth. I hadn’t even realised I’d been flung through the air. My body is quick to twist back to the khirig and the mass of water behind me, but it’s not there anymore. Water floods the ground, but only in the direction opposite to me.

In place of the wave stands Remus. He is unmoving, looking down at something in front of him. I follow his gaze and see Hirsh, his body buried in a crater.

“What the fuck! Remus?” the khirig groans and tries to move, but he can’t seem to get up. “What the hell are you doing? This’ll take weeks to regrow.” He tries to move again, but one of his large antlers cracks and snaps off.

Remus remains still. Unusually quiet.

I feel something touch my shoulder and turn to see Jav.

“You okay?” he asks.

It doesn’t feel like I should be; my arms still shake and my face aches, but I nod anyway. “Yeah. Thanks.” I turn back to Remus and Hirsh.

“Ah, fuck. That hurt, you old fool. What was that for?”

I can only barely make out the narrowing of Remus’ eyes. “You attacked my team. One of my own.” His voice is cold. Far from the ever cheery tone he always maintains.

“What? No. I was just showing the kid what I could do. I do that with all my brother’s and sister’s kids. A little ride around the camp is all.” I can hear the worry entering Hirsh’s voice. It seems like he hasn’t seen Remus like this before, either.

Remus takes a step toward the downed khirig before a crack of thunder rings out and Hirsh bellows a scream. The dohrni’s tentacle pulls back from the pained man.

“You didn’t stop when she ran from you? You didn’t stop when she pleaded? I did not watch you grow up to be so inconsiderate. Be thankful I don’t tear your horns from their roots.” Remus’ tone remains flat and quiet, but there is a fury barely hidden beneath the surface.

Another crack thunders out, followed by a scream. With a final glare, Remus turns and walks to me and Jav.

“Are you okay?” he asks as he bends down before me. His cold gaze returning to cheery as if it were never gone.

“Uh, yeah.” I’m put off by the jerking of my emotions. I still haven’t calmed down from the overwhelming fear. How can I be more fearful of being trapped than water? I’d prepared myself to dive into a building, but when I was confined by the wall of water, it felt far worse than the agony of water sizzling away at my flames.

“Thanks for the help,” I say.

“Naturally.” He rises to full height again and addresses Jav. “Get her ready. I’ll get the others.”

I jump to my feet immediately, trying to hide the shivers running down my arms. I don’t want them to think I’m weak. They can’t know my embers ache with terror.

Will I ever get over this fear of being caged? No matter how much strength I gain, will water always be an impossible hurdle for me? If a water mage was to attack me and I didn’t have my team around to help me, Could I ever compete?

My team…

It was strange to see Remus get so mad for me. Until this point, everything had been so casual. They’d all been too welcoming. So much so that I assumed they were just happy to have someone who could fill the role. I didn’t really think they considered me a part of their group. A part of their team.

But they protected me. They got mad for me. They already considered me one of them and I’d just not noticed.

A sigh escapes my lips. I thought I’d resolved myself to be more trusting after Ash proved me wrong, but I fell into some of the same doubts. Even when they showed patience in teaching me and a willingness to work with me.

“We got our mission orders from the brass. There are quite a few bits of bad news, most relevant of which is that we’ll be heading out immediately. No time to sleep.” Jav eyes me as I finally calm myself properly. “Are you sure you’re alright? We can help, you know?”

“Yeah.” I should probably tell them of my issue with entrapment. I’ve wanted to hide it to hide my weaknesses, but if tonight has shown me anything, it’s that I might need to rely on them to cover those weaknesses. If Remus and Jav hadn’t appeared when he did, I would be dead. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Alright.” Jav then unstraps a satchel from his back and presents it to me. “Here. We were lucky my sisters got your outfit here before we left. You can use the bag when you want to fly.”

I pull out the gift to inspect it. The cloth is a full body piece that seems will cover every surface of my body except my hands and face. Hardened boots are sewn directly into the outfit, leaving nowhere for snow or water to drip down into.

“There should be gloves, goggles and a mask in the bag. You should be able to zip them into the suit and leave you entirely covered. As far as I know, it should keep you safe from snow. And maybe water too.”

I stare in amazement at the workmanship of it. This is amazing. It would be an incredible thing to bring back to the áed tribes if it holds back water as well as Jav says.

“How do I put it on?” it’s all one piece, so I can’t see where I’m supposed to fit in unless I flex myself in my incorporeal form and worm my way in. Which won’t be quick.

Jav steps forward and unzips the front where I hadn’t even noticed a seam. He shows me the same type of connection at both the sleeves and the hood, where they would connect to the gloves and mask.

This is really too good to waste with the temporary flame resistance inscription I’d been using up until this point. I need proper materials to give this outfit the proper protection it deserves. “You think that merchant will still be awake?”

“Merchants out here are always ready for a sale. But we shouldn’t take long; Remus expects us out in five minutes.”

❖❖❖

The heqet merchant didn’t have one of the metal types I remember my uncle often using for the inscription, but silver — the metal in the kitchenware I’d stolen from the Cano mansion — turned out to be a decent replacement. It was costly, but in combination with copper and aluminium, I think they will work great.

I also had to get a ceramic bowl that would withstand the heat of the melted metals while I mixed them.

Now that I have everything I need, I just need to wait until we stop for a rest and I can write out the inscription into my new suit. I can’t wait to throw away these worn-out rags.

Jav and I leave the garrison to find the others waiting. As soon as he notices, Grímr rushes to my side.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he, Solvei? I’m sorry, I should’ve stayed outside with you. I should’ve noticed when you were in trouble.” His ears lie flat on his down-turned head.

With this level of concern he shows, I feel foolish for holding a grudge against his opinions.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Do you mind if I ride with you for a bit? I’d like to get some sleep before we reach the snow again.” Nobody has said it yet, but there’s no doubt in my mind we’re heading back up the mountains.

The big cat’s ears flick up, and he raises his head. “Sure! No problem.” He then lowers himself for me.

Remus speaks loud enough for us all to hear. “The brass have given us our orders and we are to head out at once, which is a good thing because if we were to stay at this moment, I may be tried for murder come tomorrow morning.” He laughs, but there is no humour in his tone.

“We have been given the unreasonable task of following the Titan’s path to discover the source of previously unseen species that have been attacking our defensive positions for the past months. They are expected to originate somewhere in the Middle Elevation.”

“You’re kidding? No prep?” Grímr exclaims.

“Nope.”

A silence hangs over us for a time. I’m still new to the dangers of the Alps, but everything I’ve heard points this mission to being unreasonably difficult.

It’s likely a death sentence.

But I have no issue with that. Not that I’m planning to die, but as long as it gets me away from this garrison right now, I don’t care how difficult the coming days will be. I never want to be near Hirsh again.

❖❖❖

I was lucky enough to get some sleep before we reach the snowline. After our first hunting trip together, Grímr learnt to run a tad smoother. I found his thick fur coat rather easy to nap on, even with the constant movement.

I requested we break before the snow and now that we are here, I can’t help but feel giddy. Not only do I have this incredible new outfit, but I’m going to recreate one of the enhancements I’d only seen my uncle inscribe, never helped with. As I couldn’t melt metals on my own, it had been all but impossible for me to perform any of the more difficult protections for our clothing.

I lay out the suit and accompanying equipment and prepare the bowl along with the metals I bought. I don’t have a perfect memory of how much of each metal I need to use, but going off feeling shouldn’t be too bad. Uncle specified the mix of metals used only really affected the efficiency and maximum temperature a small percentage. The jump from using no metals to what I’m doing is huge, so I’m not too worried about getting the best ratios. A perfect mix of metals would only increase the max temp by maybe five percent.

I can tell by the way my fire interacts with the silver that it will be the most important part, so I melt down the entirety of the silver I brought. Next is to add enough copper and aluminium to give me enough total volume to work with while limiting the loss of efficiency a smaller portion of silver would cause.

A pure sample of silver wouldn’t work, but as it’s the lowest quantity of metal I have, I need to be careful not to dilute it too much.

“Wow. Jav really didn’t cheap out on your welcome gift.” Remus inspects the outfit in front of me.

“Huh?” I look down at the cloth. How much did this cost?

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s good you’ll have something to protect you.”

Back to my project, I hold both the copper and aluminium bars in a hand and slowly melt them into the bowl. Once I’ve only half of each metal bars left, I stop. The silver has solidified at the bottom of the bowl, leaving the other two metals to sit on top. I can only see the aluminium on the surface, but mixing the bowl with my finger swirls some of the copper colour into the mixture.

Uncle told me that once the metals melt and are mixed for a few seconds, the drawing process needs to be done immediately. The inscription required the metals to be together, but not truly combined. If I spend too long heating and mixing them, it might not work.

So, while keeping the metals from cooling into solid, I use the tip of my finger to paint the patterns into my new snowsuit. If I was with my tribe, I could have used a proper tool for this, to make the strokes perfect, but I’m limited by what I have on me and what that trader could sell.

As I paint, I realise that these are not the same inscriptions as the ritual. I don’t know how it works, but the patterns I learnt from my tribe don’t follow the same logic of the lines in inscriptions. Actually, I can’t seem to see any form of logic other than the pattern that repeats both horizontally and vertically. Also, unlike the ritual inscription, there are many parts that are not touching. The logical lines of inscriptions always connect to each other. These patterns from my tribe do not.

Eventually, the process is complete. Only a tiny bit of the liquid metal remains in the bowl. I bring forth a flame to test it, ready to pull back if it damages the cloth even slightly. My fire touches the suit and I jerk it back.

There is no damage.

I let out a sigh of relief and put my flame back over the outfit, waiting for any part to damage. My tribe’s pattern does its job though, and even if I have no idea how it does so, the snowsuit is protected.

The goggles were the hardest to do. There wasn’t enough surface area on the rims and band to draw the pattern, so I had to write over the clear panels. It might obstruct sight slightly, but it’s better than burning them in the heat of the moment.

With my work complete, I don the outfit. It fits surprisingly well, even the sewn-in boots don’t slide around and fit tight.

“Looks good.” Remus gives his usual eye grin.

I can’t help the smile that rises in return. “I’m ready.”