Arcane Fire
The Story of Axiann Sungazer, Magister of The Sunreavers
Prologue: Ashes on the Wind
The village bells began before the screaming.
Their sound rolled across the Eversong Woods, deep and urgent, calling sleepers from their beds beneath a sky already stained red. By the time the first doors opened, flames had crossed the eastern lane and found the silk awnings above the market. They ran from house to house with a speed no ordinary fire possessed.
Pale stone blackened. Flowering vines curled into ash. Painted shutters split apart with sharp reports as heat gathered behind them.
The villagers came carrying buckets, blankets, staves, anything their hands could find. A chain formed at the fountain, though half the water turned to steam before reaching the nearest roof. Magisters stood in the square beneath wavering shields of violet light, their voices raw from repeating the same containment spells.
Each barrier held for a few breaths.
Each one broke.
A woman stumbled from a burning house with a child under either arm. An old vintner rolled casks into the road before the cellar caught, only to watch one burst against the stones. Healers called through the smoke for the wounded to answer them.
Above it all, sparks rose among the trees and disappeared into the stars.
No one knew what had happened. The ley-lines had failed, someone shouted. A workshop must have exploded. A spell had been cast where no spell should have been.
The stories changed from street to street. The fire did not.
At the northern edge of the village, two cloaked elves slipped through the confusion without joining it. Soot streaked their sleeves. One held a basket against their chest, hidden beneath the cloak as tightly as if the night itself might steal it.
A cry came from within. The figure stopped beneath the shadow of a burning archway.
“Keep moving.”
“I cannot.”
“You must.”
The basket shifted. Singed cloth fell aside, revealing the face of a newborn boy. His hair was dark crimson, wet against his brow. Ash rested upon his cheeks. He breathed without coughing.
The air around him was warm. Not from the village. Not entirely.
The elf holding him pressed two fingers to the child’s neck. The skin beneath them seemed to answer with heat.
“We should take him back.”
“Back to what?”
A tower roof folded inward behind them. Sparks raced across the road. The archway above their heads groaned, shedding chips of burning stone.
The child cried again.
A tongue of flame along the nearest wall leaned toward the basket.
There was no wind.
The second elf seized the first by the arm. “Now.”
They left the village by the old road, where the trees stood close enough to hide the fire but not its glow. Red light followed them between the trunks. Smoke caught in their throats. Behind them, the bells lost their rhythm, one peal striking before the last had faded.
The child quieted once the village could no longer be seen.
They walked through the last hours of darkness.
At dawn, the towers of Falthrien Academy appeared above the trees of Sunstrider Isle, white against the paling sky. The sea beyond lay smooth and cold. Mist clung to the gardens, and dew silvered the steps leading to the great entrance.
Nothing there had burned.
The elf carrying the basket climbed first. Near the top, their pace faltered. The other waited below.
“He needs a name.”
“He needs distance.”
“They will ask where he came from.”
“They will find no answer.”
The basket was set upon the highest step. The infant stirred beneath the blanket. His eyes opened, catching the first color of morning. The elf knelt beside him and cleared a strand of hair from his forehead.
“We could leave him something.”
“We already have.” The kneeling figure looked back. The second elf stood beneath the arch of the stair, face hidden, one hand clenched inside the folds of the cloak. “His life,” they said.
The bells of Falthrien Academy began to ring. The kneeling elf withdrew their hand. A dark smear of soot remained above the child’s brow.
They descended the steps together. Neither looked back.
When the doors opened, Master Seloren Dawnveil found the basket alone in the morning mist.
He had come expecting a messenger. The bell had been rung from outside, though no visitor stood at the gate and no carriage waited along the road. Only a few fading footprints marked the dew.
Then the child made a sound.
Seloren bent over the basket.
The blanket smelled of smoke. Its edges were charred, yet the cloth around the infant remained warm and whole. No letter had been tucked beneath him. No family crest adorned the clasp. There was nothing to say who had carried him there, or from what part of Quel’Thalas they had fled.
The boy regarded Seloren with amber eyes. One small hand emerged from the blanket. Seloren offered a finger. The child closed his hand around it, his large amber eyes fixed on the tall man.
Heat passed into the old master’s skin, faint but unmistakable.
Beyond the Academy towers, the sun cleared the horizon. Gold touched the upper windows, crept down the white stone, and reached the basket upon the steps.
Far across Eversong Woods, ash settled over the ruins of a village whose name would soon be spoken only in mourning.