Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

"Do you think we waited too long to start looking?" Nexin asked, glancing at where Sol sat beside him on the small island's tallest point. Waves crashed gently against the beach ahead of them, with nothing but blue beyond. They'd stayed in the city the night before—as Sol had suggested—then flown all day to find the missing ship.

Except they hadn't found anything but water and this one small island. Hundreds of miles, maybe thousands, and no ship. Like it'd completely vanished—or never existed in the first place.

No, it wasn't my imagination. That ship was definitely there—until it wasn't.

"I don't think so," Sol finally said. "Nor do I think we made the wrong choice to follow it out to sea."

"Are you just saying that so you don't wonder what would've happened if we'd stayed to search the city longer?" Nexin asked.

Sol's lips vanished in a thin line as he grimaced, but then the man shook his head. "I know you searched around the city last night when you were supposed to be sleeping."

"I was restless," Nexin said. "Besides, my Spark will keep me going."

"And you didn't find anything there. I took a look outside the land exit while you made breakfast," Sol continued. "Nothing. The Ember was definitely taken from the city, or one of us would've sensed it. I'm sure of that. I'm also sure of something else now."

"This better not be another comment about not adding enough salt. We had bacon. It's plenty salty on its own," Nexin said.

"No, it's not about your cooking—though the eggs could've used another minute—but about the fog we encountered. I don't think it was natural," Sol said.

"Magic?" Nexin asked. "And the eggs were perfect."

"If we'd had toast to go with them, they… never mind the eggs," Sol said.

"You brought them up," Nexin growled. "Whatever. Fog. Not natural."

"Correct. I didn't even notice it until we got further away from it, but it was dampening my senses. Not just sight and hearing, but also my feel for Embers and Sparks," Sol explained. "It was so subtle, I didn't even notice the difference until we were miles off the coast. I suspect whoever took the Ember sent the fog in ahead of them to inhibit us. They might've been planning to try and steal it directly from us…"

"Good luck with that," Nexin said, his fist clenching on his knee.

"That would not have gone well for them," Sol agreed. "When we put the Ember in its shrine, though, they saw an opportunity and took it. I'm not sure how the suits of armor we fought are part of this, but they could've been a piece of the plan of attack. Whatever the whole plan was, the fog prevented us from noticing the preparations, or tracking them after they stole the Ember."

"Back to who 'they' are, you still think it's the Pilish?"

Sol shrugged. "I don't see who else it could be. Their armor and their ship. And their nation is so far away, they can't expect we'd have the ability to follow."

"Then where did that ship go?" Nexin asked the same thing they'd asked a dozen times since they'd started their flight. "Did it sink from the damage it had? Do they have some kind of magic to hide it from us, similar to what they did with the fog?"

"Magic to create illusions or hide entire ships isn't within the scope of what I know the Pilish can do," Sol said. "But… there's a very good chance there are things I don't know. It's not like I studied them extensively, and they've had hundreds of years to progress. They could have all kinds of magic—or technology like the armor—we aren't aware of."

Nexin reached down to dig at a loose rock where he sat until it came free, the dirt gritty in his fingers. Rolling it around his hand while he thought, he eventually spoke the thing worrying him the most. "I hope El is okay. If this really is the Pilish doing this, we have no idea what she walked into."

"Your sister is more than capable of taking care of herself," Sol said. "She didn't stop the Pyre by accident."

"I know. Doesn't stop me from worrying about her, though. She'll always be the little sister I need to look out for," Nexin said.

"Do you really need to?"

Nexin tossed the rock up, caught it, tossed it, caught it, tossed it and caught it one more time. "Maybe not. Maybe it's just a habit. It's just been us since our parents died. Even in the orphanage, I made sure she stayed out of trouble. Protected her…"

Even as he said it, another flood of memories washed away the tranquil beach in front of him. Dark stone walls surrounded him on all sides while a young Anella—she was six at the time, he was sure of it—curled up on the floor behind him. Tears stained her cheeks and blood ran from her nose while she cried.

Flames curled and twisted in Nexin's right hand, a poor approximation of a sword, but the best he could do at his age, and he stared down the people who'd hurt El. In his memory, he focused on the adults in front of him, their clothes burning and twitching, like a false image overlaid the real one in his head. Brown sweaters and dark pants seared apart to reveal long white coats, then resealed themselves to hide the white again. Lines like paper burning appeared across the bodies of the three people in front of him, patches of white revealing themselves as the damage spread.

"You need to go back to your room so we can take Anella to the nurse," one of the voices said, a familiar kindness spreading warmth through Nexin's chest. His fingers loosened on the sword in his hand, then tightened again as the warmth grew hollow. Empty. Part of him looked at these people and saw the ones who'd fed him, patched him up when he'd hurt himself, and cared for him when he was sick.

The other part of him, though, saw the people who'd forced terrible "medicines" down his throat. The people who'd hurt him so badly, he needed to be patched up. The people who'd made him sick in the first place.

Just like they were doing to Anella.

Flames in the corners of the room flared, like somebody had dumped fuel on them, and Nexin squeezed his fingers tighter. No longer twisting like it was trying to get away from him, the fiery sword in his hand audibly snapped tight. Gone was the flickering orange of a torch, replaced by a solid bar of sun-like plasma in his hand.

"Don't touch my sister," the young Nexin said. Threatened.

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The three adults in front of him shifted away from the weapon in his hand, but a fourth moved behind them. The headmaster! Kind and gentle, he was like a father figure stepping forward with his ever-present green sweater that always smelled like pine trees. He'd understand. He'd help them…

The green sweater burned off his shoulders, the black leather of a Firestorm uniform beneath. Nexin blinked as the image shifted back and forth. Green sweater. Firestorm jacket. Green sweater. Firestorm jacket. Green…

Swift and brutal, the headmaster moved in and kicked out, so fast Nexin barely saw the man's foot move before something crunched into his chest. His ribs—those of a small child—snapped like twigs beneath the force of the blow, blood ejecting from his mouth at the same time he launched backwards to trip over El and crash hard to the floor.

The fiery sword vanished from his hand in an instant, all his concentration on simply trying—and failing—to draw in the next breath. Darkness crowded around him along with the four adults in white coats, while his sister cried on the floor.

"…xin? …exin! NEXIN!" Sol's voice punched through the memory, shattering it as Nexin gasped for breath. The dark stone dissolved around him, and his breathing came easier with each passing second. The soft sobs of his sister faded beneath the gently crashing waves, and the whole memory grew foggy, disappearing like a dream even though he grabbed on to try and keep the images close.

Something… something was very wrong with how he remembered his childhood. These things he was seeing—they didn't happen! Did they?

"Sorry," he finally said, his voice catching because his throat was so dry. Hands still shaking, he reached around to his pack and pulled out the small flask of water he kept with him. His Spark made it so he didn't need to drink often, but this was definitely one of those times. His ribs didn't hurt anymore—and why would they from a memory?—but that emptiness lingered.

The flask touched his lips and the water passed over his tongue and down in throat, warm from being so close to him. A second gulp to calm his nerves, but his hands still shook, and his heart raced. What was he feeling? Fear. He was afraid.

Since the day he'd joined the Academy to become Firestorm, Nexin had felt a lot of things, but soul-deep fear like this wasn't one of them. Even when he'd battled Sol or the Pycrin golem, he'd had a healthy fear of his opponents, but nothing like this. Nothing so… out of his control.

"Nexin." Sol said his name quietly. "What's going on?"

He took one more gulp of the warm water, leaving the flask half-full, then rested it on his knee and took a deep breath. "I wish I knew," he started, the words coming out slowly. "I've been getting these weird flashes lately, like memories, except they're of things that didn't happen."

"What kind of memories?" Sol asked. "Battles?"

Nexin shook his head. "Not that kind of thing at all. They're from my childhood. When I was really young. Shortly after my parents died."

"El mentioned that happened when you were both quite young," Sol said, tilting his head to the side as if he was thinking. "Why do you think they didn't happen? Could they just be things you forgot?"

"No," Nexin said immediately. "If these things happened, there's no way I could forget them. They're too… serious. It's not like a conversation at the dinner table or a game with friends. These… memories—if that's what they are—aren't something somebody would forget."

"Tell me about them?" Sol asked. "Sometimes talking about a thing makes it less scary. Maybe it will even trigger more memories to clarify what you think you're remembering."

"Sure, but I can't promise you won't think I'm crazy," Nexin said.

"I've eaten your cooking," Sol said flatly. "I already know you're crazy."

Nexin narrowed his eyes at the other man and seriously considered igniting a sword.

"Sorry," Sol said at the look. "I'm still struggling with when humour is most appropriate."

Despite everything, Nexin chuckled. That momentary distraction did a surprising amount to banish some of the dread from his chest. And, with it gone, the pressure on his shoulders lifted and he found his thoughts ordering more quickly. "No need to be sorry, that was the perfect time for a joke—even one as bad as that."

"It wasn't actually a joke…" Sol said slowly, but Nexin waved away the rest of the man's words.

"When Anella and I were little, after our parents died, we got placed in an orphanage with other kids who'd lost their parents in the war," Nexin said. "Maybe she told you about it. Anyway, despite having just lost our family, the orphanage wasn't a bad place. We had friends there—good friends—and the adults in charge took good care of us. We celebrated holidays, ate around a big table with each other, played games, and took classes together.

"They even helped me and El get into the Firestorm academy when we got older," Nexin said, tilting his head back to look at the clouds rolling across the blue sky. The sun was warm on his face, but it wasn't the same kind of sweltering heat he'd felt in his memories. "Most of my memories from the orphanage are really vivid," he continued. "At least, they were. I haven't really thought about them in years, but now when I try to recall our time there… things are… blurry. Faces I was sure of, I can't bring them into focus anymore.

"The rooms we played in are… broken. No, burned. Like a painting held over a candle too long, with parts of it scorched through. I can't remember our friends' names, even though I said them every day. And then there are these new memories, the things that never happened."

"Like what?" Sol prompted.

"Stone rooms with bowls like what you put the Ember in," Nexin said. "Things like… tests. Not the written kind, but physical tests, and El crying. The adults—I can't call them anything but that because I can't remember their names!—wearing white coats instead of the sweaters I'm sure they wore every day. It's like I'm combining my memories of the people who raised me with Felps and his assistants. I probably don't need to tell you how scary that is."

Sol nodded. "Can you tell me what your parents were like? El said you remembered them, though she didn't because of her age."

Nexin opened his mouth, but paused. That wasn't the question he expected. "Sure," he finally said. "They were Firestorm like us, but they died in the war with Guld."

"I didn't ask you to tell me about them," Sol clarified. "What were they like? Tell me about their appearance. Things they said. How your mother smelled when she hugged you, or what your father got angry about when you misbehaved. Tell me what they cooked for you when you were sad, or what they gave El on her birthday."

"Okay, they…" Nexin didn't get more than a word in before his voice trailed off. The first thing he thought of when it came to his parents was the day they flew off to join the frontlines. The vivid fire of their wings and the way their leather armor creased. The awe he felt looking at them, and knowing he wanted to be just like them.

But, above the collar of their leather jackets, both of their faces were a blur.

"My father's hair was black… no, brown," Nexin said, the image in his mind shifting and running. "Mom's hair… Mom's hair…" he tried, but it wasn't any better. Everything else about the image was crystal clear. He could count the small feather-like embers falling from their wings, and the electrum weapon-hilts on their belts. Their faces, though? A complete blur.

Nexin shook his head to move on to other memories of them, but no matter what he did, he couldn't picture their faces. As for Sol's other questions…?

"I have no idea," he finally said. "None of it. I'm sure we celebrated birthdays, but I can't recall a single one. I don't know what's going on."

"I suspect the Pyre had something to do with it," Sol said.

"The Pyre?" Nexin asked. "What?"

"Hrm. No, maybe not the Pyre Himself, but the Church," Sol amended. "You know how they were able to manipulate emotions and personalities through their Sparks. Memories wouldn't be such a stretch. Especially those of young children whose memories are already so malleable."

Nexin blinked at the statement. That couldn't possibly be true. Could it?

"Even if—even if—that were true," Nexin said, forcing his way past his own disbelief. "Why? What would they gain out of it?"

"That is the real question," Sol admitted. "And I don't have an answer either. I could be very wrong, and maybe it's nothing more than your imagination…"

"It doesn't feel like my imagination."

"I didn't think so. And the timing is suspect," Sol continued. "How long have you been recalling these unexpected memories?"

"A few weeks now," Nexin said.

"With the Pyre's power dormant and the Church broken, there is nobody left to maintain the illusion placed over your mind," Sol suggested.

"But we beat the Pyre months ago," Nexin pointed out.

"True, but we are talking about the power of a god. It likely wouldn't dissipate immediately," Sol said. "Again, though, this is all guesswork."

"Yeah, guesswork," Nexin said. But, what if Sol's guesses were right? What if his childhood wasn't what he thought it was? How could he tell what was a lie and what was real?

And—his heart clenched at the thought—what if Anella wasn't really his sister?