Never Fire [ONC2020]

Chapter 10: The Breaking Mirror

One time, when Sienna was newly eight years old, she'd burned herself on the stove while trying to see what her parents were cooking for dinner that night. Pozole, was it? Mole sauce for something else? Her neverending curiosity had urged her to crane her neck to try and see into the pot, and when that had failed, that curiosity had inflamed even more. She would simply lift herself up in the slightest—just to see what was in there—

"Ow!"

Tearful eyes had made the burn on her hand blurry, but the pain from the burn was still sharp and ever-stinging. Raw—an angry red burn. Someone had rushed into the room at the sound of her crying. "Sienna, what happened?"

She'd shown her mother her hand, sniffling.

While watching as her mother spooned and spread honey on the already-blistering wound, she'd asked why it had hurt to touch the stove—she'd touched it before, after all, and it'd been cold.

"See the flames underneath the pot? They go there when we turn the stove on and it makes the stove hot," her mother had said. "Don't touch the fire, cariña. I don't want you to get hurt."

Little, eight-year-old Sienna Diaz had nodded.

But, when Fajhiro walked through the door and Sienna the Matchlight tripped him, pinned him down, and subdued him in a choke hold, she found that touching Fire did not hurt at all. What hurt was when Fire's Tongue elbowed her in the gut and pushed her away from him with a furious snarl. "You dare—"

She didn't wait. She rushed to him, ducking under his fist, snatching his arm and wrenching it behind his back in a movement that made Fajhiro yelp in pain and squirm in surprise. Like a volcano, she erupted, something maddening flowing like lava down her body. Heat. Heat of anger, of shame—heat of a thousand names seeking revenge.

"Send us back!" she roared, one arm holding him back, the other biting her knife into his neck. "Envre, his other arm!"

Envre stood frozen, eyes wide, hands gripping the phoryth shooter so tightly his arms quivered.

"Envre, grab him!"

But instead of touching the fire god, Envre came to him and pointed the shooter at his head. Fajhiro ceased to move, glancing up at the device with an eerily amused expression. Envre said softly, "Don't move."

The Bright Flame suddenly grinned, setting Sienna's nerves aflame. "I do not need to."

Smoke—the putrid scent of smoke filled the room. Smoke led to life. Or it signalled death. The scent of fire and a blazing pain at Sienna's hip—

"Djia!" The matches in her robes burst into flames. Panic rose up into her throat and she let go of Fajhiro, frantically patting down the fire.

"It would be foolish not to admit that was clever, Matchlights," said Fajhiro, brushing himself off with a languid hand. He touched his neck where the kitchen knife had nicked him, and when his fingers came away bloody, his eyes darkened like soot. "But then again, I think you were foolish not to admit the same about me."