Trial by Flame

Chapter 58

Flames thrashing against his back. A bone sticking out of its socket. Blood and sweat evaporating under the peak desert sun, a sweltering summer midday in the hottest region of Khae.

"Get up," commanded his father, slamming a wooden staff into his chin. "Heal yourself."

He was running on scraps of mana, but he still stitched his skin together, swallowing sand while he lifted his shaking limbs. His bone gave out beneath him. The lecture came before another thrust of the staff.

"Not fast enough." Another blow, this time to his back, before the weight of his father's heel kept him pinned to the ground. "You will never amount to anything like this."

Days and days of training, without an end in sight. No amount of practice against his half-siblings, no level of teaching from his uncle was enough. His father's words accompanied every blow.

Heal faster. Strike harder. Don't succumb to the heat. Bear every flaming whip, let each bruise remind you of your weakness. Your heart's too frail. You never improve. All of my efforts are wasted on you.

He saw the fateful day he failed the summoning, when his father's disgust was so vehement he left Tellik chained in a cavern to die. He remembered stone walls like stacks of fire, the daylight burning away and the coldness of the night. It took two days for Nada to find him, but the rest of the tribe was already gone.

They shouldn't have followed after. They shouldn't have tried to hide where there was no privacy, shouldn't have fostered false hope that he could change his father's mind. They should have taken the chance and run, spent as many years in the city haven as time would have allowed. He should've embraced his healing earlier, focused on curing others instead of himself, should've put Nada's health above his father's shouts to fight.

But there was that cry, that silent urge to be accepted. To prove he could be something, that all of the training wasn't a waste. He was getting there. Improving. He was on track to change his mind. Until word reached his father that he and Nada were growing too close.

"You are not my son."

The words of exile rang upon him, his last memory within the tribe. He wasn't given a chance to say goodbye to the rest of his family, nor make an argument on his way out. Bystanders treated him like a stranger, and his only love would follow him just to die.

He felt the weight of it all on his shoulders, digging into his flesh like claws. Old wounds left to fester tore open, and the root of the infection spilled out before him.

"You have good friends," his father told him, feather blazing between their hands. "But you still are not worthy."

Not enough, never enough. There was no winning to the ghost in his mind.

So Tellik let the image of him burn.

* * *

Perhaps it started with the music box.

Her first memory was of a small basement room, without any windows to let in light and a space quite bare beyond the necessities. She had a bed and an unfilled wardrobe, a wooden desk with no paper nor quill, and no toys beyond a worn, round-eared doll and a music box left by someone she'd never met. The room, and her existence, were hidden beyond a thick wooden door, and another one beyond that, and one more that was usually locked.

The few sounds that traveled in were muffled, usually no more than firm footsteps a floor above, and except for lessons from her maid, nobody ever came to visit. When she got sick of hearing her own voice, she'd wind the pin to the box and let it play, watching porcelain figures spin to the same song in a circle that didn't end. She wondered if they ever got bored.