Whatever she awakened in him, whatever force snapped that spark to life and filled him with strength he never believed he’d touch, it’s draining away. In her presence he’d burned, fierce and blinding, his soul igniting the moment theirs collided. It had poured through him like a tide breaking free after years behind a dam.

  But she’s further now. Further with every heartbeat. And he feels the fire dimming, curling inward, collapsing back into the small, stubborn ember he’s always known.

  He knows that dimness. Lived in it. It’s been his cell, his ceiling, his curse. A hollow existence of stale ale and recycled jokes, drifting from one back room to the next, a man built strong on the outside but empty where it mattered. A body that fights well. A soul that barely flickers.

  Until her.

  He hadn’t realised how starved he was, how desperately empty, until the moment her soul brushed his. Until her body pressed to his chest, her fire bleeding into his. Until that surge ripped through him, too much and not enough at the same time. It was like a starving man tasting food again. Like lungs remembering how to breathe after drowning.

  For the first time he’d been alive.

  She lit something I didn’t even know I had. My fire, my Soul Fire, finally burning. The power everyone said I’d never touch, right there in my hands. And now? Now the idea of losing it, of going back, is unbearable. I can’t. I won’t. I’d rather die than go back to that nothing.

  His hand slips from his chest and drops to the table’s edge. He grips the worn wood hard enough to splinter it, grounding himself while his thoughts spiral, not with fear, but with a brutal, crystalline clarity. Everything is sharper. Sound. Breath. The faint diminishing pulse of the ember inside him.

  Was the world always this bright? Was I just depressed? Or is being a dim soul really living only half a life? Either way, no point sitting here.

  He shoves back from the table and stands. The tavern feels too tight, the walls too close. His heart pounds, panic climbing fast, scraping at his throat. The fear of losing what she woke inside him is worse than any knife he’s faced.

  He needs to find her.

  The thought of losing that feeling, the blaze she lit inside him, tightens his chest until he can barely breathe. To live without it now would be worse than never having felt it at all. He’s tasted fire, real fire, and nothing else will ever come close. She’s the only thing in his world that makes any damn sense anymore.

  His body moves before his mind decides anything. He drops a few coins onto the table, too many or too few, he doesn’t check, and steps out into the street. Midday light slams into his eyes, sharp and offensive, but he doesn’t slow. People shove past, clutching baskets and bundles, muttering about prices and rain and who owes what. None of them matter. Not anymore.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He can still see her, burned into him like a mark he’ll carry for the rest of his life. Skin warm and rich as dark caramel, catching even the tavern’s sickly light like she had her own glow beneath it. Eyes deep enough to drown him clean. Lips parted as if words had gotten trapped behind them. Even her scent lingers in his memory, fresh, alive, a shock of light against the rot of Marrow.

  Yes, she’d been afraid. Alone. Hunted. Anyone with eyes could see that. But that isn’t what stays with him. What stays is what she did to him. What she woke in him.

  Could be a trap. Could be a trick. What would she gain from lighting me up like this? I've survived this long by not sprinting headfirst into someone else’s disaster… but hell, I was already halfway to welcoming death. Maybe this is one last stupid adventure.

  His eyes sweep the street, faces, cloaks, shadows. No white-and-gold robes. Those robes don’t belong in Marrow. They belong to temples, to sanctuaries, to places untouched by grime and desperation. She doesn’t fit here. Not even close.

  Come on, Aarav. Think. You’ve bashed your skull against enough magic books. You felt her soul fire, that means something. But what?

  His jaw clenches. His own fire spits weak sparks, pathetic, fading. He should have spoken. Should have stopped her, reached for her, anything. But he’d sat there stunned, blinking like an idiot, letting the most powerful thing that had ever happened to him walk away.

  Now he’s left with silence. And he can’t live in silence anymore.

  The street splits ahead, one road rising toward the market, the other sinking toward the river. She could have taken either. She could already be gone.

  Flame Resonance. Feel her soul fire. Reach for it.

  He shuts his eyes and lets the noise of Marrow slide away. Something shifts inside him, not thought, not instinct, something deeper and older. A spark. A memory of heat. The echo of her fire pressed against his, still clinging like a handprint on his ribs. At first it’s barely there, a ghost of warmth fading too fast.

  But when he holds still, really still, he feels it again.

  Faint. Steady. Insistent.

  South. She went south. I… I did it. I used magic. I actually used magic. I can get drunk in celebration later, first I’ve got a damsel to save.

  It isn’t sight or sound that guides him. It’s a pull, a tightening in his chest, as though his own fire is leaning hard in one direction. South. Down toward the river. A thin, unbreakable thread running from him to her.

  He’s never felt anything like it. His fire has always been dim, a burden more than a gift, something he carried because he had no other choice. But now it burns, not for him, not from him, but because of her. Their souls touched for a heartbeat, and something in him caught fire.

  He doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t need to. It’s real. That’s enough.

  His eyes snap open, sharper than before. He will find her. The need tears at him, raw and ravenous, like a starving man catching the scent of a feast he’s been denied his whole life. His fire claws at his chest, demanding more, and he can’t, won’t, let it fade.

  First I find that priestess. Then maybe I’ll figure out what in all the hells happened. And more importantly, how she did it, and how to get it again.

  Now he knows what it is to burn. And there’s no universe where he goes back to that dim, empty half-life he’d been rotting in before. He’ll grip this fire with both hands, whatever the cost.

  He’ll do anything.

  Anything.