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MAN ON FIRE

CEDRIC

I can’t breathe.

The fire is suffocating.

It’s everywhere, crawling up my limbs, roaring in my ears, scorching my throat, my lungs. My vision is warping, the walls of the Sanctum bending and twisting like they’re dissolving under the heat.

I look down, see the white-gold flames licking at my body, searing my clothes. Are they melding into me? Fusing with me, replacing my flesh with charred fabric? Or is it melting off me along with my skin?

But no. There’s no blistering flesh, no skin dripping from my bones.

Scalding, oppressive heat is everywhere and yet I still feel...

Cold.

And that’s when I realize the fire isn’t just around me.

It’s in me.

I can feel it radiating from my chest, pulsing out through my limbs with every erratic beat of my heart. It’s expanding, surging. It’s trying to burst free.

It’s succeeding.

I press my palms against my chest, where the flames are hottest. And like sparks igniting a pile of kindling, mental images start to unfurl, one after the other.

Charred fingerprints on a wooden training post.

The mesmerizing call of Gael’s magic.

Wild, swirling flames blazing through the attackers who murdered my parents, melting their clothing, searing their flesh as my family’s cottage burned.

Every time I felt that burning spark in my chest, every time my hands heated or my neck prickled with warmth.

I’d always thought it was just my emotions, the burn of anger, the way rage was supposed to feel.

I see it now.

I didn’t just feel like I was burning.

I was burning.

Just like I am now.

“What’s gotten into you, my little phoenix?”

The memory of my mother’s voice is a soothing balm against the fire weaving around me, through me. Her little phoenix.

She knew.

Did she know?

I stumble back, my breath hitching. The heat flares, the flames dancing on my skin growing erratic, leaping off my body in wide arcs.

This is wrong. Everything about this is wrong.

I am wrong.

I squeeze my eyes shut, clench my fists, trying to stop the fire from spreading.

I don’t know how.

Panic squeezes me from all sides.

I’m a monster.

I’ve always been a monster.

I should have known. I should have ? —

Something presses in on my consciousness, a shadow shifting over me. I feel it settle on me like a blanket, the calming wisp of something else .

Of someone else.

A hand wraps around my arm, gentle but firm.

Stop.

Don’t.

I’ll hurt you. You’ll ? —

I shake, thrash, shudder. Trying to dislodge it.

The grip only tightens, holding fast. Even as the hand starts to tremble. Even as the hiss of pain reaches my ears—first a whisper, then a scream. It still doesn’t let go.

And so, I cling to that shadow, that cooling calm. An anchor in this firestorm.

I cling to her .

And slowly—ever so slowly, the inferno inside me starts to fade.