The door groaned open, a slow, agonizing crawl of wood against the wooden floor.
Two bestial silhouettes loomed in the frame. Their eyes caught the hearth's glow, reflecting the firelight like burning coals buried deep within their animal skulls. They didn't just look; they studied us, their presence heavy and predatory.
"It's you who..." Tarin took a breath. "Who the hell are you?"
The first being entered, scanning the room with a slow, agonizing lack of urgency.
My stomach dropped.
A dark, elongated snout loomed in the firelight, two enormous tusks jutting from the sides of his mouth. They gleamed in rhythm with the dancing flames.
His polished shoes and stiff, formal suit clashed violently with his silhouette. Half man, half boar, barely taller than he was wide.
His small, evil eyes settled on me.
Help.
My bladder twitched, a sudden, desperate urge for the bathroom.
It was him. The monster from my head had crawled out of the darkness to come for me.
My legs shook.
I… have to do something. What now?
His companion behind had to duck to pass through the entrance and he positioned himself behind the first. His face was that of a drooling dog.
Simple, practical clothes that revealed massive muscles underneath.
Wet fur and rancid saliva. The room shrank around it.
The dog-man pulled a heavy knife from his belt. He crossed his arms and stood still, a wall of meat and malice.
"My name is Vrogat," the boar-man announced, shifting his gaze to my father.
It speaks. That thing actually speaks.
"Filthy bestial. What do you want from me? Are you working with them..."
"SILENCE." A rabid, the half-dog wet voice echoed through the room.
Silence.
Too much silence. Like the house itself held its breath.
"You see, I don't like being interrupted when I speak. My friend here is present to help people..."
"Get out of here! This is our home! I don't know what you want from my husband, and I don't care. Leave now."
Mirina stepped in front of me and my father, who was struggling to his knees. Her body blocked my view.
If they attack Mom, I use fire. Right away.
I decided it then, hands already tingling.
Once I was behind her, I released a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
A flat crack. Sharp. Like a branch snapped by ice.
What…?
I didn't have time to think.
Mom flew sideways and struck the wall.
The dog-man had struck—fluid, almost bored—long arm reaching over his boss's shoulder.
The sound of her hitting the wall was worse than the slap. A dull thud, bone and muscle slamming into wood.
She slid down and collapsed, limbs loose like cut strings.
Mom, is she breathing?
My legs shook, I wanted to run to her but I couldn't move.
Ringing in my ears. Heart pounding. Nothing else.
Dad made a strangled sound, an attempted scream that died in a blood-choked rattle.
I looked at Vrogat. His tusks gleamed in the firelight.
Copper filled my mouth. Hot and furious.
Not fear.
Heat burned from my guts to my palms.
I stretched out my arm. The flames in the hearth leaned toward me, just slightly, as if they already knew what was coming.
The veins on the back of my hand swelled. Pulsing, burning heat, like red-hot iron under skin.
Vrogat spoke again, with the calm of an assassin.
"Ronak. What manners. This is still a woman, after all."
"But boss..."
The boss's look turned Ronak to stone on the spot. Not a shout, but a slimy hiss that seemed to cut through the humidity. "Don't interrupt me. Ever again."
Ronak cowered, his shoulders hunched and head down. Like a beaten dog.
A moan. Soft and painful.
Mom... how's Mom? I could't think, I could't move, I almost couldn't breath.
A muffled groan, choked by pain, gave me certainty she was still breathing.
Mirina got up slowly, leaning against the wall with one hand. Her cheek had turned a purplish red, the same color as the ripe tomatoes we had bought just a few days ago.
She held the shoulder she'd slammed against wood, but her eyes... her eyes were ice shards pointed at those intruders.
Bastards. You'll pay for this.
But I stayed still. I couldn't move.
The taste of blood and bile filled my mouth. Unconsciously, I loosened my mental grip on hearth fire. Flames stopped churning, returning to their lazy dance, afraid their crackling might draw Vrogat's attention to me.
I had to understand. I had to hear what that stuck-up bastard had to say.
Vrogat adjusted his jacket, brushed an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve, and turned back to stare at my father, still wheezing on the floor.
The veins on my hand slowly deflated, but the tingling stayed there, like embers under ash, ready to flare at the slightest breath.
Let's hear what this bastard has to say.
"Where were we? Ah yes—"
Vrogat ran a stubby hand over his snout, wiping a raindrop with a purple silk handkerchief he took from the chest pocket of the jacket.
"You see, friend," he began in a calm, almost bored voice. "Our... mutual acquaintances from the Singing Hills are very private people. They don't like nosy individuals sticking their noses in their business."
Tarin tried to speak, but only a wheeze came out. Black veins on his neck gleamed for an instant.
"They chased you all the way to the city walls, and then you vanished into nothing, right?" Vrogat continued, flashing a smile that showed yellowish tusks. "You were good. You took refuge in the city's skirts, where my business partners can't enter without causing an uproar. Everyone hates them. They love the shadows, not city guards."
Vrogat took a step forward, polished purple leather boots creaking on wood. Too new and too polished.
"But my little group and I don't have these problems. We're respectable citizens." He shot an ironic glance at Ronak, who grunted.
"We're here to make sure you don't repeat to anyone what you saw and heard. It's just business. Understand?"
"Take... take me."
My father's voice came from the floor, broken but determined. With superhuman effort, he lifted his head.
"I'll come with you. I'll do whatever you want. But leave them alone. My wife... my son... they know nothing."
"Tarin, no!" Mirina tried to approach, but Vrogat raised a hand and she stopped. That beast emanated an unexplainable aura of authority with every gesture.
The boar studied my father in silence for a moment, piggy face turning to the side.
"A reasonable bargain," the bestial finally commented. "One life in exchange for two. That's a generous offer for a man in your condition. Those veins... they used their book on you, didn't they?"
I saw Dad nod weakly and slowly. He was accepting and confirming at the same time. He was about to hand himself over to those monsters because of a secret he didn't even want.
Vrogat reached out to grab my father's collar, like you'd grab a trash bag.
The taste of copper became unbearable. The heat I'd held in my chest exploded, rising up my throat like a scream that didn't need vocal cords to be shouted.
"Don't touch my father, monster!"
Vrogat stopped, surprised by my tone. He looked down at me—a small blond dot at his mother's feet.
"What did you say, brat?"
I looked at him, staring into those small, cruel eyes. I didn't answer with words.
I stretched out my arm. My palm didn't just tingle anymore, it burned. Hearth flames didn't just rise; they were sucked toward me, spiraling and condensing into a sphere of white and orange light spinning furiously in front of my fingers.
The room lit up like daylight.and the smell of ozone and smoke filled the air.
"I said," I snarled, feeling skin on my arm start to crack from heat, "leave my father alone!"
I hurled the raging white-hot fireball straight at that stuck-up snout.
The sphere shot in a straight line toward Vrogat, aimed at the center of his face. The glow lit up the walls and shadows shifted in the room, moving opposite the blazing spell.
I expected an explosion, smell of burning flesh, that monster's scream.
Instead, Vrogat smiled, teeth too white.
He didn't dodge. He lifted his left hand, the one without the purple-stoned ring, and opened his palm.
The fire didn't explode. It stopped before touching his skin, like a stray dog finding its master. The flames began to shrink, compressed by an invisible force, until Vrogat closed them in his fist and held it like a rubber ball.
"Oohh. We have a pretty skilled little mage here with us?" His voice was an amused whisper that froze my blood. "You've got talent. You don't just do useless magic to light bonfires or clean floors, but you're still a brat."
He reopened his hand. My fireball had become a rabid spark, unstable and malicious.
"You see, Tarin," Vrogat said, ignoring me and turning back to my father. "The problem isn't just what you heard at the Singing Hills. The problem is that now you know about the offer. You know about the red-eyed girl our dark companions are searching for. And that secret... weighs too much for a simple man like you."
Mom let out a muffled groan and her eyes widened.
"Now," Vrogat continued with a flash of cruelty in his eyes, "let's return the little one's toy."
With a lazy flick of his wrist, he hurled the glowing sphere at me. It was ten times faster than mine. Pure death whistling through the air.
The world slowed.
"AREK!"
It wasn't Mom who moved. It was the shadow at our feet.
Dad, who a moment before had seemed like a sack of broken bones, threw himself forward, a spasmodic, violent movement. The last strength of a desperate father.
With a scream that had nothing human in it, he put himself between me and the purple trail.
Dad—no—
The impact made no sound. A nearly muffled rustle, like water falling on hot iron.
The blow hit him square in the chest. Tarin was thrown backward a few steps from where he stood. He slumped over me, crushing my body against floorboards.
Dead weight suffocated me. I couldn't breathe. And the heat around me was wrong. Not from fire, but from his blood. Warm. Dripping over me.
"Tarin! No! Nooo!" Mirina's scream tore through the wind's whistle of the outside wind. She threw herself on him making the weight over my stomach unbearable, hands desperately trying to cover the hole in his chest, blackened edges, still smoking. The smell of burned flesh filled the air.
Scream broke. Sobs. Dry, violent, voiceless.
I pulled my head out from under his shoulder. Dad's face was next to mine. No longer pale, just gray. But his eyes... his eyes weren't empty anymore.
He looked at me. Tried to smile, but a dark trickle ran from the corner of his mouth—warm, thick.
"Arek..." he whispered. His hand, rough and dirt-stained, brushed my cheek. It still smelled like oak wood. Like him.
"Sorry... sorry I hit you the other day. You're... my son..."
He coughed, and the sound broke permanently.
"Don't be afraid... of your light. Use it... protect Mom."
His hand slid away, leaving a wet trail on my skin.
The dead weight of his body was still on top of mine. I just came out halfway.
"Dad?"
No answer. There never would be again and answer from my Dad.
His eyes stayed open, fixed on the ceiling. Empty. Dead.
Mom collapsed on his body and screamed. Sobs that shook her back.
Vrogat chuckled, cleaning his shoes of the mud Tarin had brought in.
"What a waste of sentimentality. Ronak, finish the job. We'll take the brat. With his powers he could fetch something as a slave. Kill the woman."
The dog-man took a step forward, the large knife gleaming in the dim light of the room.
I didn't hear Mom's screams. I only felt the crushing pressure of my father's body on me. And the heat of his blood started to cool.
Something inside me cracked.
A black immense void that began to suck every light from the room.
I raised my gaze to Vrogat, pulling myself free from the weight pressing me down.
Tears, hot on my face, mixed with the blood where he'd touched me.
But my hands...
They were ice. The fire had followed him into death.
"You." The word scraped out of me.
"Won't leave here alive."