Fragmented Flames [Portal Fantasy, Adventure, Comedy]

The next week passed in cycles: Train. Eat. Rest. Repeat.

At dawn, Ember rose first, nudging Kindle awake and watching as she nudged Pyra and Ash in turn. Cinder, of course, was already awake and ready. They slipped outside under predawn skies to train, pushing the limits of their speed and pyrokinesis in the chill morning air.

The rush of flame through flesh left trails in the sky behind their sprinting forms. They chased each other across the frozen earth and launched fireballs that split the cold with heat and light. Practice, experimentation, teamwork—all honed into an edge sharper than any steel.

By mid-morning, breakfast sizzled on their tongues, full of energy but lacking flavor. Oats, more oats, occasional eggs or sausages if they were lucky. Nutrients to replenish what their bodies spent in every burst of fire and leap across the sky. Taste came second to function.

Afternoons brought meetings, tactical discussions that swirled around them in currents of ink on parchment. Plans for counteroffensives, contingencies in case of betrayal, preparations to retake land that had been lost before it had ever been contested. Cinder contributed insights, Ash questioned details, and the others chimed in or drifted off as attention span and patience allowed.

Evenings ended where mornings began—in the barracks with cold food between fingers and warmer words shared among the five.

"Pass the potatoes, please." Kindle nudged Ember, pointing towards a bowl sitting at Cinder's side of the table.

"They're practically turnips," Pyra complained. "What's the deal? We kill a dragon and still have to eat leftovers?"

"Would you believe resources are tight?" Ash chimed in, amusement quirking her lips. She plucked up her own forkful and chewed thoughtfully. "Still... this hardly qualifies as cuisine."

"At least there's seconds." Ember waved her spoon towards the larger bowl.

"Comforting." Cinder deadpanned. "Exactly what I wanted to hear about the quality of our nutrition plan."

Ember snorted. Around the table, the others hid smiles or exchanged glances or made mock-toasts with tankards that held plain water. The fare might be simple, but at least the banter remained hearty.

"Think of it as..." Kindle tapped her chin. "Carrot-tunips. New, improved. Like us, really. Multifaceted and multitalented."

Pyra laughed, a bright sound that dissolved some of the day's tension. Ash grinned and even Cinder's stoicism cracked slightly. Ember herself shook her head, affectionately exasperated with her sister-self's relentless pursuit of a silver lining in any situation.

Later, as they lay on cots or cushions or bedrolls, darkness cloaking the room, talk turned towards the horizon and those that waited beyond.

"In two weeks..." Ash whispered, her voice drifting through the shadows like smoke, "...the dragons will have had more time to entrench their hold. Will we be able to take it from them?"

"We'll be fine." Cinder's reassurance came soft, edged with fatigue. "The army's doing what it can. And we're... getting better ourselves. Not fast enough for my liking, but hey. It is what it is."

Pyra grunted agreement. Kindle made a noise of acknowledgment. Ember let out a long, thoughtful breath.

Tomorrow, they'd try again to shave milliseconds off their integration, to compress and layer their flame more densely, to find any advantage they could to alleviate the strain and push beyond their seeming limit.

But tonight, with stars peeking through shutter slats, and blankets pulled close, they'd rest, gathering strength for whatever dawn delivered.

Corwin's workspace occupied a corner of the keep's library, separated from the main reading room by heavy curtains that muffled sound.

The enchanter had claimed three tables and covered them with parchment—diagrams sketched in charcoal, notes written in cramped script that looped and tangled like thread pulled from a spool too fast.

Ember knocked on the doorframe.

Corwin looked up from where he hunched over a particularly dense page of symbols. His eyes held the particular redness that came from staring at small writing for too long. "Ah. The Fragmented Flame. Come to check on my progress?"

"Something like that." Cinder moved past Ember into the room, her gaze sweeping across the accumulated work. "How's the spell development going?"

"Slowly." Corwin set down his quill with care, as if afraid sudden movement might scatter his thoughts. "Mental magic is delicate work. One wrong syllable in the incantation, one misdrawn sigil, and the ward collapses—or worse, rebounds on the caster."

He gestured to a parchment covered in failed attempts, each one crossed out with aggressive strokes. "I've discarded seventeen variations already. The dragon's influence operates on frequencies I've never encountered before. It's not domination in the traditional sense—more like... harmonizing. She makes their thoughts align with hers until they can't tell the difference."

Ash leaned over the table, studying the diagrams with interest. The symbols made no sense to Ember—arcane shorthand that meant something to those trained in formal magic. "And you can counter that?"

"I believe so." Corwin pulled another sheet forward, this one showing a different configuration of symbols arranged in concentric circles. "The key is creating mental static. Not blocking her influence directly—that would require more power than any human possesses—but disrupting the harmonization process. Making it impossible for thoughts to align cleanly."

His fingers traced the outer circle. "The caster maintains a constant internal dissonance. Uncomfortable, exhausting, but effective. The dragon's influence slides off like water on oiled leather."

"Sounds miserable." Pyra made a face.

"It is." Corwin's agreement came without apology. "But it's better than conversion. And it only needs to last four hours before mental fatigue makes it impossible to sustain. Long enough for combat operations, then rotation to rear positions for recovery."

Kindle circled the table, peering at different parchments. "How do you even develop something like this? Just... trial and error until something works?"

"More or less." Corwin pulled off his spectacles, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I start with established mental protection techniques—shields against domination, barriers against suggestion. Then I modify them based on what I learned from touching that servitor's mind. Adjust the frequencies, change the resonance patterns, test the theory against simulated dragon influence."

"Simulated?" Cinder's eyebrow rose.

"I can't exactly ask Nethysara to let me practice on her." Dry humor threaded through Corwin's exhaustion. "But I can recreate the sensation based on memory. It's not perfect, but it's close enough to know whether a variation has merit or not."

Ember watched him work, noting the careful way he handled each parchment, the methodical process of creation and elimination. "Must be nice. Having a systematic approach."

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"Nice?" Corwin barked a laugh. "It's tedious. Frustrating. Every time I think I've found the answer, some new problem reveals itself." He gestured at the failed attempts. "But yes, it's also reliable. Magic follows rules. Learn the rules, apply them correctly, achieve results."

"Unlike us." Ash's observation came quiet.

Corwin's attention sharpened. He studied them with the focus he'd been applying to his spellwork. "Your abilities are... unique. I noticed during our reconnaissance that you maintain constant mental contact with each other. Not communication exactly, but awareness. You know where the others are, what they're experiencing, without needing to look or speak."

"We share thoughts sometimes." Kindle confirmed. "Not always, but when we want to. Or when emotions run high—those bleed through whether we want them to or not."

The enchanter's fingers drummed against the table. "Fascinating. That's not magical in nature. I would have sensed it if it were—mental magic leaves signatures, creates resonances in the ambient arcane field. But your connection generates nothing. It's invisible to magical detection."

"So what is it?" Pyra asked.

"Psychic." Corwin said the word like he was testing its weight. "A natural phenomenon rather than an arcane one. Similar to the Mnemosynes, actually."

Silence settled over the room. Outside, footsteps echoed in the corridor—soldiers moving between duties. The curtains masked most of the sound.

"We trained under them for a little while," Ember said finally. "They were the only ones who seemed to understand how this..." she tapped her temple "... works. The connection, I mean."

"Then it's fortunate that you've met them." Corwin replaced his spectacles, peering at them through smudged lenses. "They can manipulate memory and thought without using magic. It's an inborn ability, part of their fundamental nature. They're born with it the way you're born with eyes or lungs."

He stood, moving to a shelf and pulling down a leather-bound volume. The pages crackled when he opened them, showing diagrams of human heads with lines radiating outward.

"Enchanters like me have to learn mental magic. Study it, practice it, channel arcane energy through specific patterns to achieve effects. We're using external power—the background magic that permeates reality—and shaping it with will and knowledge."

His finger traced one of the diagrams. "But psychics generate the effect internally. No external power source needed. No spells to cast. They simply... do it. The way your bodies generate heat without drawing on elemental fire planes."

"So we're more like the Mnemosynes than like you." Cinder's voice held consideration rather than judgment.

"In that regard, yes." Corwin closed the book. "Which is why the dragon's suppression doesn't affect you. She's dampening arcane magic—making it harder to draw power from external sources, disrupting the patterns we use to shape that power. But your abilities aren't arcane. They're psychic phenomena paired with some form of internal combustion that generates actual flame."

He set the book aside, returning to his workspace. "I've been trying to understand it, honestly. The psychic link makes sense—consciousness distributed across multiple vessels but remaining unified. But the fire? That should be impossible without drawing on elemental planes. Yet you generate it naturally, as if your bodies contain miniature suns."

"We're weird." Pyra's summary lacked eloquence but hit truth.

"You're unprecedented." Corwin corrected. "And potentially the key to understanding new frontiers in both psychic and arcane research. After this war ends, assuming we survive, the Magisterium will want to—"

"Hard pass." Cinder's rejection came instant. "We've already had this talk with your Archmages, no less than four times now. We'll solve our curse then we're out. We don't want to become some Magisterium project. Or their new weapon."

"I expected as much." Corwin didn't seem offended. "But the offer will be made regardless. Valerian sees everything through the lens of research potential."

He gathered several parchments, rolling them carefully. "In any case, my spell development continues. Another week and I should have something testable. Then we'll see if theory translates to practice."

"And if it doesn't?" Kindle asked.

"Then I start over." Simple acceptance colored his words. "That's the nature of magical research. Failure is just information about what doesn't work."

They left him to his diagrams and formulas, emerging back into corridors that felt warmer after the library's chill.

Ember mulled over what Corwin had said—psychic rather than magical, natural rather than learned. It matched what the Mnemosynes had told them, but hearing it confirmed by someone approaching from a different angle gave the knowledge new weight.

"So we're freaks of nature." Pyra said it cheerfully, as if being unprecedented was an achievement rather than an oddity.

"We already knew that." Ash pointed out.

"Yeah, but now it's official. Magically certified freaks."

Their laughter echoed off stone walls.

The keep's common room held clusters of officers bent over maps and mugs. Ember recognized most faces by now—Guild members arguing about patrol rotations, Magisterium officials debating supply allocations, nobles whose names she'd memorized but whose purposes remained opaque.

Lysander Moreth stood near the central hearth, his armor catching firelight in ways that seemed calculated. He held court with three lesser nobles, their conversation carrying across the room despite obvious attempts at discretion.

"—positioning matters." Lysander's voice carried aristocratic certainty. "House Moreth's contingent must be visible during the assault. Prominent placement where our contribution is obvious."

"The vanguard?" One of the lesser nobles suggested.

"Too risky." Another disagreed. "First wave takes heaviest casualties."

"Then second wave. Close enough to matter, far enough to survive." Lysander gestured with his mug, sloshing wine. "We need something to bring home. Something that proves House Moreth's strength and commitment."

Ember caught Cinder's eye, reading shared distaste. They'd heard variations of this conversation before—nobles jockeying for position, treating the war as opportunity for advancement rather than necessity for survival.

Near the room's far corner, Viktor Grehm hunched over ledgers with two quartermaster assistants. His stylus scratched rapid calculations, crossing out numbers and writing new ones with the focused intensity of someone trying to make impossible mathematics work.

"—can't spare three wagons for that." Grehm's voice cut through the room's low murmur. "I've already allocated every transport we have. You want more supplies, find another way to move them."

"But the medical corps needs—"

"The medical corps needs what everyone needs. More resources than exist." Grehm looked up, his face showing the particular exhaustion that came from wrestling with limitations. "I'm not saying no out of spite. I'm saying no because physics doesn't care about our requirements."

The assistant deflated. Grehm returned to his calculations.

Across the room, Kaelin Reed stood alone near a window, her mechanical arm resting against the sill. She watched the courtyard below where soldiers drilled in formation. Her expression revealed nothing, but something in her posture suggested thought rather than observation.

Ember approached, her footsteps loud enough to announce her presence. Kaelin glanced over, nodded once.

"They're getting better." Kaelin gestured toward the drilling soldiers. "Learning to fight in formation while maintaining mental wards. It's not pretty, but it's functional."

"Functional wins wars." Ember joined her at the window.

"Sometimes." Kaelin's mechanical fingers drummed against stone. "Other times, brilliant tactics win wars. Or overwhelming force. Or pure luck." She turned, fixing Ember with dark eyes. "You wanted to hunt the dragons alone. Part of me thinks you were right."

The admission surprised her. "Then why—"

"Because this isn't about optimal tactics." Kaelin cut her off, but gently. "It's about what happens after. If you kill all the dragons while everyone else sits idle, what does that say? That humanity can't defend itself without special individuals? That we're so weak we need transcendent humans to solve our problems?"

She gestured toward the drilling soldiers. "Those people need to matter. Need to contribute. Need to feel like they earned their liberation rather than having it handed to them by outsiders."

"We're not outsiders." The protest came automatic.

"Aren't you?" Kaelin's question held no malice. "You're powerful enough to kill dragons. Fast enough to cross territories in hours. Immune to the suppression that cripples our mages. You're part of the coalition, but you're not like the coalition. That separation matters, even if you don't want it to."

Ember stared down at the courtyard. The soldiers moved through formations with determination that couldn't quite mask their fear. They knew what waited in the north. Knew the odds. But they drilled anyway, preparing to face something that had already defeated them once.

"I just want to minimize casualties." The admission felt like weakness.

"I know." Kaelin's hand—the flesh one—squeezed Ember's shoulder briefly. "But you can't protect everyone. Sometimes you have to let people risk themselves because the alternative is robbing them of agency."

The words settled heavy. Ember didn't respond, didn't trust her voice.

Kaelin moved away, heading toward where Grehm wrestled with logistics. Ember remained at the window, watching soldiers prepare for war while nobles plotted glory and quartermasters fought mathematics.

This was the coalition. Messy, political, complicated. Nothing like the clean efficiency of hunting alone.

But maybe that was the point.