The night tasted of iron.
Kairo stood before the cracked mirror in the ruins of the orphanage, shirt peeled off, staring at the thing carved into his chest.
A mark.
No—a ring.
Faint but undeniable. Its edges shimmered like ash smeared on flesh, always warm to the touch, never fading. Crimson in color, but not of blood. Something deeper. Something ancient.
He had never told anyone. Not since he was a child.
Not after what the Headmaster said.
—
Years ago
He remembered the rain the night he was left on the orphanage steps.
Not drops—sheets. Like the sky itself was trying to drown the world.
He had been barely three, wrapped in nothing but rough gray cloth. A metal tag tied around his ankle read only one word:
KAIRO.
The headmaster, a tired, hunched man named Alric, had nearly tripped over him in the storm. He'd carried Kairo inside, set him before the fire, and peeled the soaked cloth from his chest.
That's when he saw the mark.
It pulsed faintly then—like a heartbeat. The ring curled like coals on the edge of going cold.
Alric had gone pale. He slammed the door. Closed all the shutters. Locked every bolt.
"Listen to me, boy," he whispered, kneeling before the fire. "You show this to no one. Ever."
Kairo hadn't spoken then. Only nodded.
Alric had gripped his shoulders so tight Kairo remembered the bruises for days.
"They burned a kingdom to ash because of a mark like this once," Alric said, voice hoarse. "There are bloodlines that curse the land, not bless it. You understand?"
Kairo had nodded again, wide-eyed, scared without knowing why.
"Good," Alric muttered. "Then maybe you'll live."
And from that day forward, the mark became a secret. A sin etched into skin.
—
Present day
Kairo traced the edge of the ring in the mirror, jaw clenched. It hadn't pulsed in years.
Not until yesterday.
After he'd been thrown against the wall at the Academy gates. After he'd watched the fire girl awaken. After he'd found the shelter destroyed and Ena gone.
Something inside him had stirred.
Like a whisper from beneath his skin. A call waiting to be answered.
Kairo turned away from the mirror and dropped his shirt. The mark would get him killed if anyone saw it.
He had to hide it again. Permanently.
He glanced down at the orphanage's broken stove. The metal pipe above it still glowed faintly from the earlier fire.
Kairo walked toward it, breathing through his teeth.
This was stupid.
But he had no choice.
He took a deep breath, gritted his jaw, and pressed the edge of the glowing iron against the mark.
Pain screamed through him.
He didn't cry out. He wouldn't.
He just bit down on his own arm, muffling the sound as the flesh on his chest blistered and hissed. Smoke curled upward. His knees gave out. He collapsed, gasping, twitching.
When he came to, the room was dim. The pain in his chest pulsed with every heartbeat.
He pulled himself to the mirror again.
The mark was gone.
Burned over. Covered by the raw wound of a scar that would never fade.
He'd made sure of it.
"I won't be the ash-marked child," he whispered. "I'll be no one."
Then why, he wondered, did the pain still feel… incomplete?
—
Five years ago
Kairo had just turned ten.
The orphanage was quiet that night. Alric had gone to the market. Ena was asleep in the far corner, curled up beneath her frayed blanket.
Kairo heard the knock. Soft. Measured.
He shouldn't have answered it.
But something in the rhythm felt strange—like it wasn't a beggar or a guard or a merchant. Like it was meant for him.
He opened the door.
A man stood there, wrapped in a long black cloak. Hood drawn low. His face was shadowed, but his voice was smooth. Gentle.
"I'm looking for a child," he said. "One marked by ash. Crimson ring, center of the chest."
Kairo froze.
The man tilted his head. "Do you know of such a boy?"
Kairo's hands clenched the edge of the door. "No."
The man paused. Then smiled.
"No?" he repeated. "How odd. I was told he lived here."
"I've never seen anyone with a mark like that."
"Mm." The man's eyes flickered beneath the hood. "You know, people lie. But blood doesn't."
Kairo stayed silent.
The man leaned in. "Tell Alric I came. And that the ones who remember are still watching."
Then he vanished into the night.
Kairo never told Alric.
But the next day, Alric took Kairo aside and gave him a knife.
"If anyone ever asks about that mark again," he said, eyes haunted, "cut them before they speak twice."
Kairo hadn't asked questions.
He just learned to sharpen blades.
—
Now
The wound still burned beneath his shirt as he walked through the alleys of Ironshade, pulling his coat tight around him.
He wasn't looking for anything.
He was trying to feel something. A purpose. A reason to still be here when the only person who ever mattered was gone.
But deep inside his chest, beneath the burn, something pulsed.
Not pain.
Not grief.
Power.
It whispered at the edge of hearing.
Come to me.
Come and reign.
Kairo shook his head. Madness. Grief.
And yet—
He remembered the look in the cloaked man's eyes. The fear in Alric's voice. The way his mark had pulsed the moment the fire girl awakened.
The blood of this world gave power to the born.
But what if something older still remained?
Something they had tried to erase?
Something they had burned kingdoms to bury?
Kairo's steps quickened.
He didn't know where he was going yet.
But the mark, even beneath the scar, had begun to itch again.
And somewhere, buried in the ash of forgotten ruins, something was calling him back.