Chapter 54. Under the Empty Sky

The dying embers of the fire lay cold and lifeless now, their pale gray ash drifting in the faint breeze like a scattering of old letters. Hours had passed since the last flicker of flame surrendered to the night, and even in its brief life it had been little more than a modest glow—barely more than a whisper of warmth. Kai had coaxed it to life with a handful of brittle twigs and the spindly fragments of a fallen branch he’d discovered propped against a mossy stone near the stream.

No neat circle of river-washed rocks had contained it, no elaborate invocation or protective chant had accompanied its birth. It had simply been wood and breath and the inevitable meeting of spark and tinder, nothing more. They had not stoked it beyond that solitary offering, nor had they exchanged a single word while it danced and crackled. It burned its short, earnest life and then, as if satisfied with its small measure of purpose, exhaled its final plume of smoke and yielded to ash.

Lora