The knife stayed at my throat for six full breaths.
I counted them.
One. Her eyes didn't blink.
Two. The flickering firelight caught the shimmer of her tattoos—glowing lines that pulsed across her collarbone and throat like veins of light.
Three. The others stood in a silent half-circle, unmoving. Watching. Judging.
Four. My heartbeat matched the rhythm of the crackling fire.
Five. I didn't flinch. Maybe I should have.
Six.
She pulled the blade away.
Not out of mercy. Just evaluation.
She spoke again, voice low and sharp. The language was fluid, full of harsh vowels and guttural edges. I caught none of it, except for one word that repeated like a pulse:
"Ashava."
She said it once. Then again. Eyes narrowed. Not a question anymore—an accusation.
She pointed to the faint gray mark along my chest, just below the collarbone. I hadn't noticed it before. A streak of soot or pigment, maybe—except it wasn't coming off. It was faintly warm. Like something had burned itself into me.
I remembered the crash. The chase. The heat.
And then… nothing.
A flash of flame.
And now this mark.
Was this what they meant? Ashava?
I tried to sit up. Pain lanced through my ribs. Several of them were cracked. Possibly broken. My whole body felt like it had been dragged through a furnace.
I coughed once. Tried again.
"I… I don't understand you," I said hoarsely. "I'm not your enemy."
The woman tilted her head, the way a hawk might. Her hair was braided tight against her skull, streaked with ash or silver—I couldn't tell which. Her blade hadn't returned to its sheath.
A male voice spoke from the shadows. Deeper. Older. One of the others. He approached and knelt beside me, holding something in his hand.
A glowing crystal.
No—wait. Not crystal. Tech. Old-world tech. Human tech.
He tapped it once. Light flickered. A static voice crackled through:
:: —emergency protocol override engaged. Language reconstruction initializing— ::
I blinked. "A translator?"
The man—no, the elder—looked at me curiously. He held the device up like a sacred artifact.
"You speak the metal tongue," he said slowly, the words rough but understandable now.
"I… yes. I'm from the stars. A crash. My ship—my people—" I coughed again. "Please. I need help."
The woman scoffed.
"Help?" she echoed. "You are bait."
The word dropped like a stone in water.
She stepped closer, blade low.
"They marked you. The predators followed. We saw the smoke trail across the sky. Fire from the heavens. And then, you. Alone. The Ashava."
"I didn't choose that," I whispered.
"But you carry it." She pointed at my chest. "You are either cursed… or chosen."
That drew murmurs from the others. Some bowed their heads. Others looked away.
The elder held up a hand. Silence fell.
He turned to me.
"If you are Ashava, you must walk the flame," he said.
I tried to sit up straighter. "Walk the what?"
He gestured toward a large open space beyond the fire pit—what looked like a path between two giant rock faces, lined with smoldering embers.
"The Trial of Ash. You survive, you live."
"And if I don't?"
He didn't smile.
"Then the mark was never yours."
They didn't give me time to recover.
Two of them hoisted me to my feet—carefully, but without sympathy.
The woman stayed close. Watching. Always watching.
My legs trembled as we reached the start of the path. The smoke was thick, but not suffocating. The ground glowed with heat but didn't burn. Yet.
The air shimmered with waves of pressure.
Far down the path, I heard movement.
Low. Heavy. Breathing.
Something waited in the dark.
The elder spoke once more. "Do not run. Do not turn back. You walk, or you burn."
I looked down at my bare feet, at the cracked stone beneath.
I looked up.
At the ash drifting from the sky.
At the stars that watched silently overhead.
At her.
She didn't say anything. But her hand flexed around her blade. Her face unreadable.
"Right," I muttered. "Walk or burn."
I stepped forward into the fire.