The Everburning City

Act 1, Part 2, Chapter 1

Vincent

Rock and dust melted beneath the fury of his will, as a pool of molten stone was born in his hand.

A cabal of school-aged children gawked and gasped in awe as the pebbles in a young man's grasp glowed, and squished like balls of lint between his fingers. They gasped in surprise as he poured the luminous liquid from his hand and into one of the cracks in the sidewalk. They flinched and bit their lips as he ran the flat of his hand over the blazing pool, small flames appearing between his fingers as he smoothed the edges of the cobblestones.

"Wow!" One of the kids gasped, a little girl with a rat's nest of dirty hair and a threadbare shirt. She crouched down, and pointed her finger at the young man's work. "That is amazing!"

"And quite hot," the young man replied, as he used his hand to keep the little girl's fingers away from work. The girl frowned and took a small step back, at which point the man smiled. "It might be hard to hold a pen or play a piano if you lose a finger."

"Silly Vincent," the little girl said, with a haughty laugh. "We don't have a piano."

Vincent grinned, trying to be as mischievous as possible. "Are you sure about that?"

"Really?" the little girl exclaimed, gasping and theatrically cupping her mouth with her hands. "A piano? Is that why Crafter Polden is here? Is that why you're here with her? The lady got us a piano?"

Vincent laughed, and brushed the cobblestone with his hand. "It's on its way, even as we speak. It's why I'm fixing the walkway. We don't want the wheels to catch on the cracks. Speaking of which, it's cool now, if you'd like to touch it."

But the little girl didn't hear him. She had already turned away to yell and jump excitedly with her friends, and they jumped and screamed in a delight so profound Vincent found himself envying it.

Vincent scooped up another handful of gravel from a small pile nearby, and scanned the cobblestone path that wound its way to the gate. Nearly every stone was broken, missing pieces, and weeds had pushed some of the stones out. From the dilapidated door of the building behind him, to the gate half-minute walk away, the place showed its age.

And the neglect of the City.

Vincent turned his will upon the dust and pebbles in his hand. His power, the Craft, ravaged the granules of rock, rending the firmness of the stone into a putty of blazing heat. Fire blazed between the fingers of his closed hand, as putty turned to liquid and pooled in his hand. Vincent the. poured the small handful of molten rock into another broken piece of stone, and gently nudged the rest of the loose rock back into place.

"Vincent," the same little girl said. Vincent hesitated, despite having been introduced to the child three times already, her name still escaped him.

"Yes?" Vincent asked in response. He was confident her name began with an 's'. Sunny, or Shirley, or something.

"Sun'il. Sun'il Tavore. I can't believe you forgot again!" Sun'il said, putting her hands on her hips and fixing him with an astonishingly theatrical pout. Her bottom lip was curled down, her wide eyes pretended a lifetime of hurt, and she even sniffled once.

Vincent laughed, and pointed to the gravel. "Well sunny, tell you what."

"Hey!" Sun'il exclaimed. "It's Sun'il!"

"How about you and the other kids take that pile of gravel behind me," Vincent said, and he gestured towards it with his thumb. "And go fill in all the cracks with it. That way, I can just focus on melting it into the cracks. If we finish early, I'm willing to spend a lottery token or two on some pastries. There's a baker just across the channel, over in Ashwood, who makes tarts with strawberries in them."