By midday the valley town had become a knot of noise and uneasy glances. Market stalls clattered open, but trade moved like a thing dragged through mud; most hands lingered, cups half raised, eyes drifting again and again toward the tavern stables where Sofia's caravan had taken refuge. Rumors spread faster than carts, growing with each passing voice until there was no single truth left, only shapes of fear.
A boy who burnt a man with bare hands, they said.
The Serpent's chosen, walking in plain sight, others whispered.
Keep him here and you end the peace, some declared, louder than the rest.
Before the sun had reached its apex, guards in blue sashes arrived, the town watch answering with the official clatter of authority. Their captain, a broad man with weathered skin and a face split by a laugh line that never quite relaxed, bowed stiffly to Sofia. His tone attempted civility but his eyes lingered on Leo with a barely concealed dread, as though he expected flames to leap from the boy at any moment.
"The council requests your presence," the captain said. "All of you." He did not add, but everyone felt it, that the request was less courtesy than command. Sofia said nothing for a heartbeat, weighing the consequence, then: "We will come."
The council hall sat on the edge of the square, squat and heavy, carved once with images of wheat and river fish whose edges had been worn soft by a hundred seasons. Inside the air smelled of old parchment and candles burned low. Five councilors occupied a raised bench behind a heavy oak table; townsfolk packed the walls, their faces pinched and curious. The head councilor, a gray-haired woman with hawk eyes and a staff scarred by knocks and use, rapped her staff and the chatter fell into an expectant hush.
"Silence," she ordered. "We are gathered to speak of the fire that split our square last night," she said, and her gaze cut straight to the boy at the front who had not been called forward. "And of the boy who carried it."
Leo felt the weight of so many eyes settle on him like the heat of a forge. The shard inside him thrummed, restless, a second pulse joining his heartbeat.
They fear you, it whispered. They should. Burn their fear into worship. He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached, keeping his hands iron-still at his sides.
The head councilor's voice remained cool. "Captain Sofia, your caravan brought this danger to our town. Tell us why we should not turn you all away, or bind the boy and send him to the Council of Domains where such things are handled."
Approval rippled through the chamber. Some faces were relief, others barely concealed triumph at the thought of someone else carrying the risk.
Sofia rose. Even seated, she had the habit of authority; standing she became a column of steel. "Because you saw what attacked us," she said plainly, eyes moving across the room to emphasize each word. "Cloaked men with serpent marks. Men who bent iron to dust and turned shadow into knives. Without him," she inclined her chin toward Leo, "we would be corpses on your square. That fire saved your people as much as mine."
"Saved perhaps," a thin councilor with ink-stained fingers muttered, tone skeptical and small. "Or doomed us by drawing attention. The cult came for him. They will come again, and they will bring more."
Owen, who had followed them into the hall with a paper satchel and trembling hands, stepped forward as though his footing came from conviction alone. His voice shook but was clear. "They will come whether he is here or not," he said. "Do you think handing him over will stop them? They will burn the valley looking for him. At least with him alive, at our side, we stand some chance."
The statement hung, bold and dangerous. Gasps rippled, some in agreement, others in fear. From the back a merchant cried out, voice rough with panic and profit at once, "And when his fire turns on us? What then, boy?"
Every eye snapped to Leo. The shard whispered louder, goading, a serpent's hiss of temptation. Show them. Show them what happens when they spit on your gift. He clenched his hands harder until his palms hurt, forcing words past the dryness in his throat.
"I didn't choose this," he said, voice tight. "I won't harm you, not unless you come for me."
Accusations erupted like sparks.
"Threats in the council chamber!"
"He speaks like a weapon!"
"Throw him out before he burns us all!"
The head councilor rapped her staff again, sharp and decisive. "Enough," she said. Her gaze lingered on Leo, then shifted toward Sofia. Her tone grew measured, coldly pragmatic. "Our verdict is this: you and your caravan may pass through our land, but only if you leave the boy behind. He will be kept under guard until the Domain Council sends adjudicators. That is our judgment."
A storm of voices broke anew. Some called it justice, others betrayal. Sofia's jaw tightened visibly; her hand drifted to the hilt of her sword, a small movement that could have become disaster if she had drawn steel. Instead, she folded her hands and spoke in a voice low and hard as hammered iron.
"That will not happen," she declared.
The chamber froze. Even the murmurs stilled to a brittle hum. Owen stood with his mouth parted, unsure whether to step between them or collapse under the strain. The head councilor settled back into her chair as if waiting for the next move, as if laws and precedent were a net for such moments.
Leo felt the shard within him purr, delighted and cold. Choose, boy. Bow to their chains or light your path. Either way, the world burns brighter now. He felt the pull of its words, his own blood like kindling. He breathed through it. The choice was a blade held at his throat.
Sofia looked to him, hard, searching. "You stand under my watch," she said, addressing the hall and him both. "If he comes with us, he stays bound and watched. He harms one of us, and I will take his head myself. If you force him from us, then these men will find that they traded one danger for a rolling inferno that will sweep them all. Think before you decide."
The head councilor's eyes narrowed. Around the chamber the townsfolk shifted, the balance of fear and gratitude wobbling in the air like dust motes. For a heartbeat the future felt like a held breath.
Outside, beyond the thin walls, the town breathed, the life of the market continuing yet altered now by rumor. Inside, the council's verdict hung between them, half a sentence, half a threat, spun into a choice none of them truly wanted.
Leo steadied himself. He wanted to refuse, to wrench himself free of the shard's claim and walk into exile alone if that spared other. He wanted, impossible and simple, to be dismissed as a foolish boy with an unlucky curse. He wanted to hold Mira's face in his memory like an anchor.
Instead, he felt the world tilt and heard the shard purr, impatient and triumphant. The room closed in, voices sharpening into edges.
The decision, though rumbling beneath like a distant storm, had already been made in the eyes of many. The path ahead would not be soft. It would be flamed and tested. The shard's warmth at least made that plain.
Sofia's posture did not change. She had delivered the line that would hold them together for now, and she had made it clear that if the council forced the boy from them, she would not obey passively. The head councilor sent a final, withering look at them both, and the chamber began to disperse into murmurs and plans and a rising current of unease.
Outside the hall the town moved on, but nothing could make that murmur settle entirely. Small groups clustered and argued, merchants tightened purses, and somewhere in the square an old man shook his head and spat.
Leo stood very still, feeling the shard's whisper like a constant heat, promising power and ruin in the same breath. The council's verdict had not freed him or condemned him; it had only tilted the world onto a narrower path.
Choose, it hissed. Bend to chains or light the way. Either way, the world burns.