Relik's fingers fumbled with the clasp at the back of his neck, the cold metal suddenly feeling alien.
The ruby pendant, warm and pulsing with that unsettling light, seemed to resist, clinging to him. But under Logun's calm, unwavering gaze and the heavy, expectant silence of the clearing, he managed to loosen it. He abandoned his initial idea and instead lifted the chain, pulling the necklace up and over his head.
The moment the ruby cleared the crown, a searing heat erupted from his abdomen and extended itself to the rest of his body.
He gasped, dropping the necklace. It fell to the ground with a soft thud, the ruby's glow dimming slightly but not extinguishing.
Relik stared at his hand, his eyes wide with disbelief and terror.
Flames. Bright, orange and red flames were licking up his arm, curling around his fingers, his palm, his wrist.
Instinct took over.
A choked cry tore from his throat, and he stumbled backward, shaking his hand wildly, trying desperately to extinguish the fire that was consuming him.
This was it.
This was how it ended.
Burned alive in a bandit-infested clearing, his brief, confusing journey as a guardian ending before it truly began.
Around them, the surviving bandits, already unnerved by Logun's sudden, brutal efficiency and the unsettling shift in the air, saw the boy burst into flames. Their fear erupted into full-blown panic. With guttural shouts, they broke rank, scattering into the dense forest, desperate to escape whatever nightmare they had stumbled into.
But as Relik continued to shake his hand to put out the flame. An expectant feelig of searing pain. He felt... nothing.
He had just rolled around the forest floor for naught. He was seemly safe and somewhat cool. Though he was sure this was a new bodily function, it felt familiar and welcoming almost.
He stopped shaking. He stared at the flames dancing on his skin. They were real. He could see the heat radiating from them, feel the warmth, smell the faint, acrid scent of burning air – but there was no pain. No heat on his skin. It was as if the fire was burning around him, or perhaps, from him, but not on him.
Confusion, deep and terrifying, replaced his panic.
What was happening?
This wasn't possible.
He had seen many times that fire burned.
He was told that it hurt.
That it destroyed.
Yet, here he stood, his body engulfed in flames, completely unharmed. His gaze flickered down to his arm, only then had he realised. Faint black lines, that glowed tracing intricate patterns across his skin, just like in the vision he'd had in the Temple Hall. The markings. They were back, shimmering beneath the fire, radiating a soft, internal light.
He felt a profound sense of alienation. This wasn't his hand. This wasn't his body.
What was this power?
Where had it come from?
Was this what it meant to be a guardian? Was this what the Astras had done to him?
"Relik!" Logun's voice was sharp, cutting through Relik's spiraling thoughts.
He stood a few feet away, his expression unreadable, his sword still in his hand.
"They're getting away kid!" He gestured towards the trees where the sounds of crashing through undergrowth were rapidly fading, "Wave your hand. Towards them."
Logun's attention then flickered down to Yabi, still pinned beneath his hand. The Hurc looked up at him, fear and pain etched on his tusken face.
"Logun… please…" Yabi rasped, his voice weak.
Logun's expression remained utterly cold. "Sorry, Yabi," he said, his voice flat. "Can't leave witnesses. Especially not ones who know about Titan stones."
He didn't raise a weapon this time. Instead, a sudden, invisible force gathered around Logun's free hand, the one pressed against Yabi's head. The air around it seemed to shimmer and distort. With a sharp, almost silent crack, a focused blast of wind erupted from Logun's palm, directed squarely at Yabi's skull.
The Hurc's head simply… disintegrated. Exploded inward in a gruesome spray of grey matter, bone fragments, and dark blood. The sound was sickeningly final.
Yabi's body went instantly limp, his severed arm twitching once by the fire before falling still.
Relik stared, his flaming hand forgotten for a moment, his eyes wide with fresh horror. The casual brutality of it, the effortless destruction wrought by Logun's hand, was almost more terrifying than the fire on his own. Wind. He could control fire, and Logun could control wind.
What were they?
"Relik!" Logun's voice was sharper this time, pulling Relik back to the immediate threat of the fleeing bandits. "Now! Wave your hand!"
Hesitantly, his flaming hand still feeling utterly alien
Relik reflexively shot the man a dirty look.
The request was insane. But Logun's tone brooked no argument. And something, some primal instinct or perhaps the lingering effect of the Titan stone, compelled Relik to obey.
Hesitantly, his flaming hand still feeling utterly alien, Relik turned towards the direction the bandits had fled. He raised his arm, the fire on his hand flaring brighter for a moment, casting dancing shadows in the dim clearing. He didn't aim, didn't consciously do anything. He just... waved. A simple, uncertain gesture.
What happened next defied everything Relik knew about the world.
An arc of pure, incandescent fire erupted from his hand. It wasn't a gentle wave of heat; it was a focused, devastating torrent of flame that sliced through the air. It tore through the dense forest like a physical blade, trees exploding into kindling as it passed, the undergrowth igniting in a flash. The arc of fire seemed to hunt, following the sounds of the fleeing bandits.
Screams, sharp and terrible, tore through the air, quickly cut short as the fire consumed them. The smell of burning wood and something else, something sickeningly sweet and charred, filled the clearing. The arc of fire continued for a moment longer, a burning scar etched across the forest, before finally dissipating, leaving behind a trail of smoldering destruction and an eerie silence.
Relik stood rooted to the spot, his hand no longer flaming, the markings on his skin fading back to invisibility. He stared at the smoking path through the forest, at the silence where moments ago there had been shouts and the sounds of flight. He had done that. He had done that. With a wave of his hand.
His breath came in ragged gasps. His body trembled, not from cold or fear of the bandits, but from the sheer, overwhelming terror of what he had just witnessed, and what he had just done. This power... it was monstrous. It was uncontrolled. It was him.
He looked down at his hand, turning it over, flexing his fingers. It looked normal. Felt normal. But he knew it wasn't. He had just unleashed a devastating force of nature with a simple gesture. He didn't understand it. He didn't understand himself.
He looked at Logun, who was now walking towards the discarded ruby necklace, his expression calm, almost thoughtful.
"What... what was that?" Relik whispered, the question barely audible. "What did I just do?"
Logun picked up the necklace, the ruby still glowing faintly. He looked at Relik, his jade eyes holding a depth Relik hadn't seen before.
"That, kid," Logun said, the earlier cheerfulness completely absent from his voice, "was your fire. The spark the gods saw. The potential." He held up the necklace.
"And this... this is what keeps it in check. Keeps the Titan bound. Keeps you from burning everything to ash."
He didn't offer more explanation. He didn't offer comfort. He simply looked at Relik, the boy who had just wielded a terrifying power he didn't understand, the boy whose skin bore the marks of a destiny far more complex and dangerous than he could have ever imagined.
Relik's mind reeled with questions – about the fire, about the markings, about the Titan, about why he possessed such a destructive force.
He held his breath as he forced his head through his necklace, the fire completely died.
He had been chosen, yes. But for what? And at what cost? The dawn had brought not clarity, but a terrifying new reality, and the chilling realization that the greatest unknown he faced was himself.
Logun tossed him a bundle of clothes, which he caught with his shoulder.
"Get dressed we have to get to the capital."