Everest Gilliant's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Everest sat cross-legged on the stone floor and counted her breaths. The walls around her glowed faint orange, built thick to hold heat that should not exist. Sleek sprinklers waited above her head. She had come here because the old cabin outside was already a ruin, its blackened beams curled like dead fingers around an empty foundation. She would not let it happen again. She would learn to hold her fire. Her crimson hair lifted. The ends caught light, small flames licking the air. She did not flinch. For weeks she had treated the fire like a thief at her door. Tonight she set the carved wooden fox in her lap, the last thing her mother had touched, and pressed her palm against its smooth back. "Not an enemy," she said aloud. The words felt strange. She stopped fighting the heat in her scalp and let it move. The flames brightened, then steadied, curling around her shoulders without spreading. The sprinklers stayed dry. The stone stayed cool beneath her knees. When she opened her eyes, her hair still burned. But it burned where she told it to. Everest set the fox on the floor and stood up slowly. The fire followed her like a held breath. She had not put it out. She had agreed with it. And now she had to learn what that agreement would cost.