Page 71 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

Epilogue: Candles

Faruhar

I ’m a child, old enough to speak and not much more, starving in the forest when the man finds me.

The damp moss squishes beneath my little fingers where I lay starving, only scarred by flame thus far and not weapons.

But I know people like him will kill a child, because everyone will kill a child who looks like me.

I’m afraid of the old man with the blurry face, a man whose name I can no longer remember.

I am too weak to run away when he offers that name and asks mine, reaching to pick me up with the long blue sleeves of his Asri robe.

He winds our way through the endless green, hunger aching in my belly as I sit on his hip.

His forest shrine stands stark and beautiful when we arrive, carved with wood atop the old stone foundations.

There, he feeds me and wraps me warm in oversized clothes, giving me cushions in his sanctuary to sleep on.

And when the night rolls over solemn sky, he doesn’t make me go back outside to the cold and rain.

Instead, I watch him light candles in the window, one by one.

I’m confused about the candles; emboldened by a full belly.

He explains that he lights one for everyone he loved and lost, people too far away for him to hold close.

He nurtures each flame, singing life into each name, his voice rustling like the wind in the dry leaves.

When he asks my name and I can’t remember, he gives me one: Faruhar—a name he says would keep me safe, explaining we all grow into our names.

When he asks if I have anyone to light a candle for, I say no.

He gives me two. He explains I must have a mother and a father—everyone does.

I don’t believe him, but I clutch the candles anyway, asking him if, when I go, I might light one for him.

And there is so much love in the gaze he gives me that even I know it for what it is.

Later, beneath a sky studded with all the lights scattered in the cold void, I can see a multitude of candles burning under the trees, candles I light for all the people I choose to love.

Even if I don’t know them, I feel there should be many, that I can make room for them all.

The memory fades, crackling at the edges with the warm scent of burning green.

The flames lick wild and hungry at the sky, claiming the lives of the trees.

I see the carved wooden roof of the shrine groaning in protest before it falls into itself, and I find the man’s bones in the morning, still inside.

Bria tells me that to kill a star, you must make it turn inward on itself, like that burning shrine.

This is the first day I learn what I am, and I will hold onto that memory even if I lose everything else. There are no candles for me to light, only that man’s bones, the ash of the first man who ever loved me.

I’ll remember the last man too.

These memories are delicate, nothing to hold too tight. I stand too far away to burn him down, but I haven’t always. I remember his curly blond hair is soft to my touch. The rest of him feels strong in all ways, unwavering.

I dream about him sometimes: nightmares I know are not real. A festival explodes before my eyes, a riot of laughter and music. I see him, a solitary figure sitting at the fringes amid the swirling colors, his eyes distant to the sky. I wonder if he knows how to destroy a star.

In those dreams, I’m shameless. I reach for his face and wrap my arms around his body.

I flood him with my every secret and desire, drowning him with words and hopes that are not mine to give.

He’ll look right past me in those dreams—unseeing, unhearing, as if I am a ghost—an unsettling breath of wind.

He never could see ghosts. A face flickers at the edge of the crowd, a sneer of twisted lips that reminds me I shouldn’t be here, that I will never belong here.

I slip away before they try to kill me, before I kill them.

But there’s another dream I believe is real.

He’s strong, unchanged, and I find this strange somehow, because the years have come and gone.

He’s playing with several children, their laughter echoing through the trees.

The children’s sandy brown skin shines in the sun as they duck between trees, shrieking, collecting sticks they pretend are swords.

A carefree smile stretches across his face as he darts and twists between them, until he surrenders, and the children attack him and beat him senseless.

I can hear the thwack of those sticks against his body, tensing.

But he’s laughing; he was always strange like that.

He looks happy, and I smile too, hidden in the shadows of his joy.

“Let’s go,” Bria says in her little voice.

“You could play with them,” I offer. She looks like a child their age, her dark, shoulder-length hair whipping in the wind. But she’s in rags, a frail child shaking beside me.

“No,” she says.

I smile at her. “Bria.”

“Faruhar, I need your help,” she says, trembling as she looks up at me. I watch as the details of the forest shift, blurring. The sunlight through the trees breathes with me, and the ground wavers underneath.

“It will be over soon,” I tell her, offering my hand. “Let’s go.”

We step into another dream. And another.