Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

Nexin absently shifted through the wreckage of what was once maybe a building of some kind, lifting broken wood with one hand, while his other held a flaming sword to provide light. With the sun down, it made for a very dark island. However, it wasn't because of the darkness he didn't really expect to find anything of note. This was the third small island they'd come upon on their trip across the sea.

And the third empty village, though this one was more destroyed than anything else. Not even big enough to call them towns, the settlements all had small docks, with the remnants of their fishing fleets lying broken in the water. Each also seemed to have at least one boat big enough to be considered a ship, likely capable of making the trip to the other islands he and Sol had found. It would make sense, letting the settlements trade with one other since they weren't that far apart.

Except those ships now sat more than half-submerged in the water at the ends of the docks. Without going down into the water to check—not really the ideal environment for fiery or icy wings—it was almost as if something had torn a hole in the hull of the ship to make it sink. Why, though? To prevent the people from leaving? If that was the case, where did they go? They certainly weren't hiding in their homes.

None of the buildings were left standing, like something huge had gone stomping through. Nexin spotted small similarities between the homes here and the ones on the previous islands—the technique used in the joints of the wood, and the style of the decorative carving—which reinforced his idea the islands were somehow loosely connected in culture. But through all the destruction, not a single body had been found. Not on any of the islands.

"Could this all just be leftover damage from the storm?" Nexin asked Sol, the man likewise poking around.

"It's possible," Sol said. "Snow is heavy. But, unlikely. Even if the buildings had collapsed under the weight of it—and they look strong enough to survive—the storm itself had special properties. It wasn't meant to destroy, but to… pause. People frozen by the snows would go into stasis, like you did within the ice. If anything, they would've come out healthier than when they went in. Sickness and disease cured, wounds healed, etcetera. Killing them would've released their Sparks—the Pyre's strength—back to Him, which is exactly what I didn't want to happen.

"Even the buildings would've been preserved by the strengthening magic. This wasn't me."

"Which means, what? When we were in Vestis, I'd figured the people there had left. Yes, there were signs of some kind of attack, but a city that size, for all the people to be missing… I thought they had to have made the choice to leave. You know, evacuating the civilians. But what if they didn't leave on their own? What if they were taken? Like the Ember?" Nexin wondered aloud, dropping yet another broken board back into the pile.

"These villages couldn't have had more than a few hundred people at the absolute most," Sol replied. "A big difference from a metropolis like Vestis. You could be onto something, though. Some people may've fled, while others were taken."

"But…" Nexin said, already doubting his own theory. "Even if that's right, this doesn't look like it was done by the same people. Or, things. Those little monsters that attacked us after we found the first village, I could see them assaulting a village like this too. I figured they were some kind of scavenger from the sea that thought we would make for a good meal."

"That went poorly for them. Are you feeling any better after that? You were… systematic in cutting them apart," Sol said.

"It was important to figure out what they could do," Nexin said a little more defensively than he'd intended. His words were true, but he couldn't completely lie to himself—he'd been frustrated at his mind going in circles over what his memories could mean. When a pack of what seemed like wild beasts had charged at him in the first village they'd found, he'd taken it as a good opportunity to burn off some of that anger.

Thinking back, he probably should've assumed the creatures had something to do with the missing people, but there hadn't been the same level of destruction. Then again…

"Too much collateral damage," Sol said the same thing Nexin was thinking. "They were small and fast, but they didn't have the strength to tear down buildings. If this was them, they brought their larger, angrier siblings with them."

"I don't know, they seemed pretty angry themselves."

"They did. Could you come over here, though? I think I found something. I need your flames," Sol said.

"Need to burn something?" Nexin asked.

"Ice doesn't produce much light to see by," Sol said flatly.

"Fair point," Nexin conceded. It only took him a moment to find the other man who'd moved over towards the edge of the settlement. "What did you find?"

"Look here," Sol said, pointing towards the ground. "Tracks of some kind?"

Nexin crouched down and held his fiery sword over the ground to get a better look at what Sol was talking about. "Definitely," Nexin said. He wasn't some kind of expert tracker, but it didn't take a professional to spot the clear print of a person's foot. "There's a lot of them."

"Heading towards the water, but not the docks." Sol lifted his head to look in the direction of the sound of gently crashing waves.

"Opposite direction of the other islands too. Further east?" Nexin suggested. "What's east?"

"The Isles of Pili, eventually," Sol said.

Nexin nodded without speaking, head down as he examined the tracks. "Lots of people, from the looks of thing. Unless one person really ran around a lot, and…" He trailed off as he did a double take on a small footprint. At first glance, it'd appeared to be a child's print, but looking closer, it only had three toes. And the soft earth between those digits was pressed down, as if the feet were webbed. "Those little monsters were definitely here. Pretty sure these are their tracks."

"How about this one, then?" Sol asked.

Nexin took one last look at the ground in front of him. Now that he was watching for them, he spotted dozens more of the little monster tracks. There had to have been a whole swarm of them, which would make sense for taking that many prisoners. But, where did they take them? With a shake of his head—he couldn't answer the question—he stood and took a few steps over to see what Sol was looking at.

In front of the man was a print nearly five feet across. Four digits, with deep gouges in the earth that had to have been caused by very large claws.

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"Probably what knocked the buildings down," Sol said.

"Probably. Any idea what it belongs to?"

"The little monsters' bigger, angry sibling?"

"As always, your answers are very enlightening," Nexin deadpanned.

"Of course they are," Sol said, starting forward. "Let's follow them. The tracks, not my answers. Though maybe we'll find some at the end. Answers, not tracks…"

"Stop while you're ahead. Or, at least not behind," Nexin said.

Sol turned around to look him in the eye. "I am ahead."

"Just go," Nexin grumbled, flicking his flaming sword to urge the other man on.

Sol didn't move immediately, though. "I've seen you create—and been the direct target of—a giant, flaming tornado, and the best you can do for light is your sword?"

"Don't think a firenado is really the answer here," Nexin pointed out.

"No, but if you can create that, can you not ignite up something that will provide more light? As far as I can tell, you don't need to be able to touch your flames to control them."

"I…" Nexin started, his mouth already forming the argument against the idea. Most Firestorm needed the electrum to focus their Sparks through. Sure, Nexin was an exception to that—and now El was too—but all Firestorm needed to be touching their flames to maintain them. Except, that wasn't true. Sol was right.

Nexin had, on more than one occasion, unconsciously controlled his flames well outside his reach. And a lot more consciously back in Vestis. It'd just felt so natural, he hadn't really thought about it. And if he could do that with something big like the firenado, didn't that mean he could do something smaller too?

Without saying another word to Sol, Nexin held up his left hand and ignited three fist-sized balls of fire. They rotated around above his hand, connected to his palm by thin streamers of flame, and all his training—all his years in the Academy and everything he'd seen—told him he needed those streamers to feed the flames. Now that he was looking at it, though, that wasn't what his instincts told him.

Willing the fireballs to lift into the air around him, Nexin cut the streamers of flame, half-expecting the fireballs to wink out as well, but somehow knowing they wouldn't. And, they didn't. The three self-contained flames rose to shoulder-height, then spread out, lighting up an area many times larger than his sword alone had. A thought moved one over to hover beside Sol—though the man just poked it gently—then he sent the other two out to the sides.

Before he could say anything, another vivid memory stole the surroundings from his sight. Again, he was in a black-stone room, with Anella in front of him. She ran and spun around the room, giggling the whole time as she chased small butterflies of fire. They practically filled the space, lighting up the lines and script etched in the stone, and making the electrum bowl in each corner of the room practically glow. The image shattered in the next second, with a sound like a door opening and the wisps of fire winking out.

Nexin was left with a cold panic spreading through his chest, like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The dark island materialized in front of him as he blinked away the memory, but he couldn't shake the ominous feeling. Whatever had happened after the door had opened… it hadn't been a good thing.

"Another memory?" Sol asked, his attention drawn from the fiery sphere to Nexin.

"And several more questions." Nexin nodded.

"I'm sorry if my suggestion has caused you discomfort." The man looked genuinely concerned.

"No, the more I remember, the more I need to remember. To know what it means… or why I forgot in the first place. There has to be a reason, right?"

"There does… though it may not be a reason you want to discover."

"I'll take that risk," Nexin said, the fading image of the young Anella dancing and playing in front of him helping push back the dread.

She was part of his memories—the only part he could really be sure about—but that also meant she was probably affected as well. What had happened to them when they were kids?

What had been done to them?

He had to know, for El's sake as much as his own.

"Come on, let's see where the tracks lead," he said instead of voicing his internal concerns. By the way Sol narrowed his eyes, the other man knew Nexin was purposely changing the subject. Mercifully, he didn't force the topic, and turned to continue following the tracks.

With the additional light, it wasn't difficult to track the progress of the group of captives. The ground around what had once been a village was mainly packed dirt from long usage, spread between sparse trees with few, arm-length leaves near the top. At surface level, there wasn't much beyond the unremarkable trunks and the occasional bush. It didn't take much effort to navigate around the plant life and follow the trail.

Even whatever had made that huge print in the dirt likely wouldn't have much trouble fitting through the trees.

"They must've had a wall or a wind break," Sol said absently as the two of them followed the obvious trail in a straight line towards the coast. "The trees wouldn't be enough to protect them from the weather."

"Does it get bad around here?"

"It's a small island in the middle of a large sea. I can't imagine they don't get their share of storms. Ah, storms other than the one I brought, of course," Sol amended.

"Of course," Nexin agreed as they stopped. With a thought, two of the floating fireballs glided ahead, illuminating the sandy beach. "What… is that?" he asked, and paused the first fireball over a large, deep divot in the sand. The second fireball he let continue until it reached the edge of the surf, water sloshing into the dug-out section of beach with each wave.

"I'm not sure," Sol said, continuing right up to the deep gouge. "I take that back, I think I have an idea."

"A ship," Next said. "There was a ship here, wasn't there? They'd need somewhere to take the captives if their plan was anything other than drowning them."

"Yes, look." Sol extended his hand and pointed along the trail in the sand that led to the edge of the furrow about thirty feet back, then vanished. "They must've boarded there."

"I've never heard of a ship that could beach itself and then get unstuck," Nexin said. "Then again, the sand here is wet. Would a higher tide be enough to dislodge them?" Even as he asked the question, he created three more balls of fire—bringing the total up to six—and sent them out to the sides. No, a high tide wouldn't have been enough. There was a clear line in several places showing exactly how high the water would get, with sand below and untouched bushes above.

"Perhaps the big, angry sibling played a role in unbeaching the ship," Sol said. "If that's the case, it was massively strong."

"What's the other option? The sea itself picking the ship up and dragging it back out?" Nexin asked.

"No, I find that equally unlikely. Either way, it raises an uncomfortable question."

"What's that?" Nexin ignited his wings and hovered directly above the furrow in the ground. Even with the water gently lapping in from the waves, it had to be almost fifty feet wide at the largest area, and more than three times that length? It wasn't a small ship.

"The creatures you fought, do you imagine them capable of sailing?" Sol asked, looking at where Nexin hovered.

"Burn it," Nexin cursed softly. "Somebody is working with those creatures? Slaves?"

"Probably worse than that," Sol said. "Somebody is controlling them. If the monsters were intelligent enough to arrange this, they would've run from you the second they realized they had no chance. Instead, they continued to throw themselves on your blades until you'd literally killed every one of them."

"Well, you didn't help," Nexin said half-heartedly, his mind reeling at the prospect of somebody directing these creatures from the background.

"You had it well in hand, and looked like you needed to blow off some steam."

"It was all for science," Nexin grumbled. "So I could tell other Firestorm what to watch out for if we ever come back."

"Sure, sure," Sol said flatly.

"Do you think this was the Pilish?" Nexin asked, pointing at where the ship had been beached. "Seems too coincidental, but…"

"It could be, but I don't know what they'd need these people for," Sol said. "We'll find out when we get there."

"And maybe El already has the answer. I hope she's okay."

"She's fine," Sol said. "Are you good to keep flying, or do you need a rest?"

"Pretty sure I was waiting for you on the last leg of our trip," Nexin said, snapping his fingers for the six balls of fire to vanish in a series of soft pops. Somehow that didn't prevent him from seeing Sol rolling his eyes.

"We should be to the Isles of Pili in a few days at most, but let's make a stop in Wirock to make sure they haven't met the same fate."

"Whatever this fate might actually be…" Nexin said, then launched into the night with Sol beside him.