Prince Kavian saw death as he gazed past the walls of Orakis.

  Men lined the burned fields like swarms of ants. Siege towers hurled Elemental Crystals at his once-proud city. Blue, red, and yellow crystals smmed into an invisible barrier, exploding into fire, water, and lightning. The second barrier still held; the first had already been breached in the morning.

  “Gods damn him.” Prince Kavian bit his nails, an unbecoming gesture for royalty.

  His own men crowded all around him. Their red uniforms looked washed out compared to the rising, burning sun.

  “Fire!” Prince Kavian shouted. “Bring down those damned siege engines!”

  His words carried to the generals nearest to him, and they began to rey his words further down the line. As his men coordinated amongst themselves, a minute ter, a rain of imbued arrows shot through the air, coated in every element. Prince Kavian even saw a few arrows glimmering with golden light, ones imbued with the Holy Element, and he prayed that some of those would find those siege engines.

  They didn’t. The archers’ coordinated line of fire stopped as they lowered their bows. The trebuchets fired again, and more barrages of elemental magic crashed against that barrier. Watching intently, Prince Kavian distinctly thought he saw a crack in space, one that would smash wide open if the same spot was hit twice. Damn it.

  "I am the eighteenth in line," he muttered to himself, his eyes fixed on the burning horizon. "I sought exile at the edge of the world. Why couldn't he just leave me to rot?"

  The entire reason he was in a city at the east end of Alestia was so that he was as far out of the line of succession as one could possibly be. Yet now, this Civil War had found him anyway. More than a dozen of his siblings had already died in the endless succession wars, and now, it seemed that the Twentieth Prince had come for his head.

  “Drazhan, you bastard,” Kavian whispered, his knuckles white where he gripped the stone parapet. “What the hell did I ever do to you?”

  His archers fired another volley, this time at the sole behest of one of his generals. A holy arrow struck one of the forty towering trebuchets, engulfing it in a blinding white beam. When the light faded, the trebuchet was gone. No wonder that. The trebuchets were all dark-element imbued. Still, Kavian only wished they’d had more Holy elemental Gift users, though he reminded himself that then, he wouldn’t have been so far down the line of succession.

  Once more, his men crowded around him as the remaining trebuchets all fired. As hope dwindled, Kavian closed his eyes and prayed.

  Then came the shatter.

  It was the sound of a gss breaking, magnified a thousandfold -a sound so loud it must have been heard all over the city. As Kavian opened his eyes, he saw the gaping hole in his barrier.

  He heard shouts and screams, the sounds of the opposing army’s men starting to charge forward. Once a barrier had one breach, it was infinitely easier to break through from all sides. Their st barrier was gone, and Prince Kavian knew that the end was nigh. His city had a measly, forgotten garrison of ten thousand men, and his Generals had said the army outside numbered at least one hundred thousand.

  Prince Kavian had one hundred Gift users at his behest, none of them with great powers or especially useful Gifts. Most of his troops were mages -men with mana, but no Gifts. Who used Magical Implements instead.

  He imagined his brother was far better prepared. There would be a formal siege now, fighting on the walls, blood in the streets. The end result, however, had already been decided. Prince Kavian’s head would be mounted on the castle gate. That’s what Drazhan had done to Sharan, the Fourteenth Prince.

  Kavian wouldn’t even live to see sixteen.

  “You look quite pathetic, Prince.”

  Kavian froze mid-step and slowly turned to face the man. As his eyes met the stranger’s, he came to a halt, body tense and motionless.

  The man in front of him stood nearly seven feet tall, all muscle and dark brown skin. Long bck hair flowed nearly to the floor. His face was all hard angles -impressive, daunting. Even halved in size, Kavian would bow. Only a fool judged a God by appearance.

  “How dare you speak to the Prince s-"

  His General, Jaghar, didn’t even finish his sentence. He channeled mana and reached for his bde, said bde never ever leaving its scabbard.

  The General didn’t even cry out. Kavian cringed as intense heat washed over him. He turned his head just in time to see the General’s armor colpse onto the stone, the man inside reduced to a pile of gray ash in a single heartbeat. Nobody had felt the channeling of mana.

  All of his other men stared in horror. Kavian hadn’t felt mana either.

  “Bow your heads, you fools!” Kavian shouted. One by one, the men dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the ground. Even as enemy soldiers stormed for the barrier right behind them, not one of Kavian’s men dared move.

  “My Lord,” Kavian’s tongue felt like ash in his mouth. “I had begun to fear you had forsaken us.” Inwardly, he couldn’t help but scream.

  Now he decides to come. Now, when the sughter is already at my gates!

  Three days ago, Ember, the God of Burning, had shown up before Kavian, offering aid. Kavian had considered himself the luckiest of men -it was rare for a God to help anyone. The price didn’t matter. What price could there be greater than Kavian’s own life? Since that day, however, the God had done nothing; he merely lounged back as the city was circled from all sides. By now, Kavian had lost all hope in him doing anything at all.

  How was a man like Kavian to know what went through the mind of a God?

  “I offered you my help, Prince.” The God said. “The time for said help has come.”

  Kavian dared to look up and meet the God’s inscrutable gaze. For one moment, he actually thought the God might have heard his inner thoughts. His entire body trembled. He was a mouse who had dared to think ill of a Dragon. What kind of fool was he?

  “Tell me, are you prepared to burn everything?” Ember’s word came as a faint whisper, but it seemed to fill his ears all the same.

  “I…I am.” Kavian said, his body trembling. This wasn’t the pressure of mana; this was simply his fear making him shake.

  “Burn your fear? Burn your doubt? Burn everything, until nothing remains?”

  Kavian was sweating, even in the crisp winter air. “I-I do.” At this, Kavian dared to look up, to meet the God’s eyes.

  The God had the faintest of smiles on his face. Somehow, that felt sharper than any snarl would have been. “You speak the words, but you do not know what they mean. People are ever thus. Very well.”

  The strangest thing happened. Kavian felt...calm. It happened so suddenly and so thoroughly that it carried all the weight of a physical blow. Every ill feeling he'd had was seared away.

  Ember turned and began walking back along the path he had come. Kavian recognized that the man was heading down the path to the gate. Only when he was in the distance did Kavian finally breathe. He heard a row of sharp intakes all around him. His men had, wisely, not been breathing either.

  “M-My Prince.” One of his generals said. “What just happened?”

  “I signed a bargain with a devil,” Kavian said after a long pause.

  One man stood alone against a charging army.

  The army in question charged forward fearlessly, as the barrier in front of them shattered into a thousand different holes. Meanwhile, the archers on the walls had stopped their firing. As the castle gates slowly opened, no sortie ventured outside the city’s great walls; instead, only one man stepped forward.

  What army would fear one man?

  Men screamed as they charged. Ember stood tall, idly waiting until the men stepped in front of the ruins of the barrier.

  “Well then, it has been a while.” Ember extended a vast mental hand, encompassing the nd. The air dried until it felt like sand. The screaming faded, muffled by the heatwave he radiated.

  The walls of the city behind him began to bcken. The sections closest to him began to melt.

  The closest men advanced to within a hundred meters. Ember closed his mental grip.

  Large plumes of fire rose into the air where the men had been, three hundred bonfires that burned at the same time. Whether it was stupidity or just simple inertia, the hundreds of men following that first wave didn’t stop. More plumes of fire shot up into the air to match the ones already still lit.

  How pathetic. Ember thought, the familiar burning screams of men rising into the air.

  The next wave hesitated, standing just outside the burning line. They guessed the attacker’s range and stayed back.

  The air above him warped, five tears carving through the space itself, each a hole as wide as a man. Gouts of fire shot through those holes. Not normal orange fmes. These fmes burned pure white. Ember slowly walked forward, even as men screamed in front of him. Where his fire touched, not even armor remained.

  It took the opposing army surprisingly long to start using their Gifts. Avanches of earth, hurricanes of razor-wind, tidal waves of water, and even more fire. All of them disappeared under his bouts of roaring fme.

  “Perhaps I should make a show of it.”

  Ember clicked his fingers. Large maelstroms of fire rose in front of him, reaching towards the skies themselves. These were tornadoes made of bck fire. Three of them slowly rolled forward. The screams of dying and burning men and women faded in the wake of those fmes. Ember did not move. He simply sat, watching the army in front of him burn.

  It took surprisingly long for the men to rout. He had promised that whelp that he would save the city, not that he would go and kill every st man.

  Something burned behind him. He paused, turned his head. Saw a blue-haired girl standing, staring at him in horror. She looked down at her own hands, then back at him. She wore a more eborate version of the uniforms of the army Ember had set abze. Some kind of champion, then. Perhaps someone else might know her name. Ember did not.

  He hadn’t burnt her just by his presence. He smiled. “Girl, what is your name?”

  “Y-you!” The girl hissed and pointed a hand towards him. “Who the hell do you think you are! I’ll kill you!” Tears ran down the girl’s face, and her extended arm shook violently. “Do you have any idea how many people you’ve killed?!”

  “Nine thousand, three hundred and thirty two.”

  The girl stared at him. Her eyes widened, and then hardened. A torrent of water erupted from her hands, a wave that would have swept most ordinary men away. Ember didn’t feel her using much mana. Talented indeed.

  The water ignited long before it reached him, and more ash fell to the ground. A physical impossibility.

  “Girl, do you think water cannot burn?” Ember asked.

  The Girl stared at him with even more horror than before. Ember did not know why she was so surprised. Did she not see the army screaming and burning before her?

  “Girl, would you like to join me?”

  She screamed, more water erupting behind her, this time in the shape of three towering dragons, made purely out of swirling water.

  The Girl had much mana. A shame then, that her Intent was strong. She would have made a proper Hero.

  Ember sighed and reached out a hand towards her. He clenched his fist. An invisible battle raged, one that sted only for a moment. The dragons behind her were set afme, now his creations rather than hers. They fell on her even as she fell to her knees from the shock of it.

  She screamed as she burned, her dragons dispelling before they’d even had the chance to move.

  "A pointless st stand," Ember murmured. "How cliche."

  “You sure had fun.”

  “Indeed. It is rare to see something this pleasing.” He turned his head and regarded the silver-haired woman who stood a few paces away.

  Ember had felt her. Felt the air warp and colpse under the weight of the woman’s Intent.

  “Hmm. I don’t really see the appeal, but whatever.” Silver smiled. “I have them.” She reached out into the air to her side. The world warped, her hand sank into nothing at all. From nothing, she pulled out a ledger, tossed it to the God.

  Ember paused, catching the ledger. “A success, then?” He hadn’t expected anything to come from this little venture at all.

  “A while ago, actually.” Silver smiled. “I was just there for other fun reasons.”

  Even a God couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow out of curiosity. “Fun? For you?” Silver might py at being amused often enough, but something told Ember this time she actually meant it.

  “There was a rather interesting Girl. One who I think has a rather interesting Gift. A rather interesting Intent.”

  Ember waited. Silver looked at him, paused for a while, pouted. “And she had a Godbde. Used it to kill Sarim.”

  The God didn’t react. He didn’t need to. The air around him was set on fire in an instance, a vortex of fme that sted a moment before winking away.

  “Oh, so you are curious after all.” Silver smiled, unharmed. “I didn’t even mention which one.”

  Ember stared at her. Even he could be overcome by curiosity. “Which bde?”

  The woman smiled. “Defiance.”

  Ember did something he hadn’t done in a very long time. He ughed. The sound was harsh and grating to the ear, only contrasted by the fading screams around them.

  “I thought you might like that. Vindicta’s ghost haunts the world still. You should thank me, I had to keep Mordain from strangling that babe in its crib.”

  Silver sshed the air to her right with her hand. The air ripped apart, leaving in between a featureless dark.

  Ember projected the barest of his Intent, mental fingers that coiled around the woman. Her clothing singed. The air around her began to burn, small motes of bck fmes stopping just inches from her skin.

  Silver rolled her eyes, moved towards the portal, and was gone.

  He didn't follow the woman's power. Instead, he projected it onto the space in front of him. The air burned. No, the world itself burned, until an opening of fire seared into reality itself. Ember walked through it, the opening closing shut behind him.

  The screams had died down by now as the army ran. It is rather unlikely that they would try this again. They would spread word of what happened here. One day, this battle would only be known as the ‘Battle of Ten Thousand Pyres’.