Ashfen smelled of roasted lamb and pine smoke that night.
The whole village had gathered in the common square, benches dragged from homes, fire pits dug fresh, torches stuck in iron holders. Banners stitched in red and green flapped overhead, their colors faded but carefully mended, as if the cloth itself could hold back the encroaching winter.
The emissary from Keldra had ordered it. Or rather, suggested it with the sort of firmness that wasn't to be argued against. If fear gnawed at the people's marrow, he'd said, then warmth and wine might remind them of unity. Brenn had muttered about wasted coin and sore backs, but even he was laughing now, a tankard in hand, sweat gleaming on his forehead from the spit-fire's heat.
Mira sat at one of the long tables near the back, grease and ash still clinging to her fingernails despite her scrubbing. She was only half-listening to the fiddler sawing away at a quick, uneven reel. Her eyes wandered over the crowd: children chasing each other around the torches, women ladling stew into bowls, men hammering rhythm on the tables with mugs.
Lysa slid onto the bench beside her, hair braided with little sprigs of dried rosemary. "Don't sit there brooding like some widow," she scolded, shoving a plate into Mira's hands. "Eat. Drink. Pretend you're alive."
Mira glanced at the meat pie steaming before her. "I am alive."
"Could've fooled me. You've been staring like a crow all evening." Lysa tore into her bread, cheeks flushed from cider. "What's wrong now? Don't tell me the forge is calling to you."
"The forge doesn't call," Mira said, though she felt a tug anyway. That pull of the anvil's rhythm, the hammer's bite. It always hummed at the edge of her nerves, even here amid laughter. "I just… can't settle. Not after the shardfall last night."
At that, Lysa sobered. For a heartbeat the music and chatter felt brittle around them. Everyone had seen the sky splinter with blue-white light, had woken to ice glinting on roofs. Nobody spoke of it long, but no one forgot.
Before Mira could say more, the emissary mounted the platform near the largest fire. He was overdressed for Ashfen's rustic feast, his silver-threaded cloak catching the flames like water. His voice carried clear over the fiddler's last note.
"People of Ashfen," he began, lifting a goblet, "you have shown me your warmth. In times such as these, when whispers of frost threaten even our hearths, it is this—" he swept his arm at the tables, the laughter, the meat and bread "—that must endure. Neighbors breaking bread, villages standing firm. Keldra sees you. Keldra honors you."
A cheer went up, half pride, half nervousness. Brenn muttered something into his drink that Mira caught only as "fancy crow talk." Lysa elbowed her to stifle a laugh.
The feast surged on. Musicians struck a slower song; couples spun clumsily in the torchlight. Mira found herself pulled into dance by a gangly farmer boy she scarcely knew, and though her steps faltered, she managed a grin. For a fleeting moment, she felt almost part of it—part of Ashfen, part of the warmth.
Then the ground shuddered.
It was subtle at first, a tremor beneath boots, mistaken for the thudding dance. But Mira felt it deeper, in her teeth, in her veins. The fiddler's bow screeched to silence. Torches flickered wildly.
From the hills north of the village came a sound like glass cracking across the sky.
Screams rose.
Mira's eyes snapped upward. Above, the stars seemed to smear and fracture, streaks of pale blue light spidering across the heavens. A shardfall, but closer, fiercer, than any before. Shards of frozen light rained down, hissing as they struck the earth beyond the square.
One speared straight through a roof beam on the edge of the feast, spraying splinters and ice. People scattered, overturning tables. Children shrieked.
"Mira!" Lysa clutched her arm, eyes wide.
Another shard struck the platform where the emissary stood. The wood buckled, burst apart in a storm of frost. Mira saw him for a single instant, mouth open mid-command, before the ice swallowed him whole. When it shattered, he was gone—his silver cloak crumpled, rimed in blue, body twisted and still.
The feast had become a massacre.
Mira staggered back, heat rushing through her skin despite the sudden cold pressing in. The torches guttered, flames dimming under a breath of unnatural wind. Her chest ached with that same dangerous spark that had flared in the forge. The ember inside her wanted to roar.
And all around her, voices rose—not in grief, but in panic.
"She was near him—did you see?"
"The fire-girl, it's her! She drew it!"
"Cursed child!"
Eyes turned on her like knives.
The square dissolved into madness.
Benches toppled, spilling food into mud. The fiddler's bow lay broken in the dirt, trampled under boots as villagers surged toward the edges of the feast. Mothers snatched their children, fathers shouted for order, though none came. Every torch sputtered low, their flames curling as if afraid.
Mira stood rooted, her breath frosting before her eyes. A copper tang stung her mouth. The ember inside her chest flared against the cold, a pulse that begged release, a heat that might burn them all if she let it.
"Stay still." Lysa's hand was on her sleeve, nails biting through cloth. "Mira—don't let them see."
Too late. Heads were already turning. Whispers sharpened into shouts.
"She's the one!""I saw her hands glow—like kindling!""The emissary looked straight at her before he fell!"
Mira's throat closed. She hadn't moved, hadn't raised a hand, but she could feel it: the warmth rising against the frost, the same terrible spark from the forge, from the hearth. And the villagers could feel it too—fear sharpened their gazes, made suspicion into certainty.
Brenn shoved through the crowd, his broad shoulders parting the knot of panicked villagers. He looked as though he'd been woken from a long sleep into a nightmare: face red, beard bristling, eyes wild. His hammer hung at his belt, but his hands were empty, palms raised.
"Enough!" His voice cracked like an anvil strike. "The girl did nothing!"
"She brings the shardfalls!" a farmer roared, spittle flying. "Every time she's near, the frost grows stronger!"
"You think frost listens to a blacksmith's daughter?" Brenn bellowed back. "Use your heads, damn you!"
But reason could not pierce terror. The emissary's body lay shattered on the platform like proof carved in ice. The villagers pressed closer, half a mob, half a flood.
Lysa darted in front of Mira, arms spread as if she could shield her with nothing but her own slight frame. "Stop it! She saved me—do you remember that? When the hearth fell last week, she pulled me out! Does that sound like a curse to you?"
Some wavered. A few lowered their eyes. But grief is a fast poison, and fear faster still.
"Maybe she saved you because she controls it," another voice hissed."Witchcraft!" someone shouted."She's marked—look at her skin, it steams in the cold!"
Mira glanced down. They were right. A faint mist curled from her forearms, where her veins ran hot beneath pale flesh. Her heartbeat thudded like a bell in her ears.
"I didn't—" Her words cracked in her throat. She tried again, louder. "I didn't do this!"
But her voice was drowned beneath the roar of accusation.
A stone clattered at her feet. Another struck her shoulder, sharp pain blooming.
"Get back!" Brenn surged forward, catching the next stone on his forearm. His growl was low, dangerous, a wolf cornered. "I'll break the hand of the next fool who tries!"
For a moment, silence hung. Brenn was not a man to cross lightly. Years at the forge had turned him to iron, and every soul in Ashfen knew it.
But fear was heavier than respect.
A fisherman edged forward, gripping a broken bench leg like a cudgel. Others followed, anger rolling off them in waves. The villagers of Ashfen—faces Mira had known since childhood, voices that once sang harvest songs together—looked at her as if she were plague itself.
Her knees weakened. The spark inside her chest ached to burst, to scorch them all, but she pressed it down with everything she had. If she let it free, she would only prove them right.
"Brenn," she whispered, voice shaking, "they'll kill me."
"Not while I've got breath in my lungs." His stance widened, like a wall of muscle and rage.
Lysa's grip tightened on Mira's arm. "We need to get you out of here. Now."
Mira wanted to run, but her legs wouldn't move. The emissary's silver cloak gleamed in the torchlight, his body still frozen where it had fallen. His eyes stared blankly, glassy as ice. All she could think was: They'll send word to Keldra. They'll blame me. And they'll be right.
A voice rose from the crowd, steadier, colder than the rest.
"The hearth has collapsed," said Elder Cael, stepping into the square. His staff struck the ground once, silencing even the mutterings. His face was carved stone, eyes unreadable. "And where the hearth collapses, the fault lies in the one who cannot keep it."
His gaze pinned Mira like a blade.
Elder Cael's staff struck the ground again, the crack sharp as ice breaking on the river. The villagers hushed, their fury distilled into silence as his words carried.
"This village has stood three centuries against frost and famine," Cael said, voice steady, ancient. "We have buried kin under ice, rebuilt when storms broke our fields. But never has the hearth itself failed us—until now."
He turned his gaze on Mira, and it was colder than the shardfall. "And never has the hearth failed on the night a stranger from Keldra came bearing warning. Do you think it chance? Do you think the gods are blind?"
A murmur rippled outward. The crowd leaned in, breathless, hanging on Cael's voice as though it were scripture.
"She carries the heat that answers to the frost," Cael intoned. "Heat that twists, that flares when none is stoked. Mark her hands—mark the breath that steams when others shiver. She is not ours. She is a rift, a breach."
"No—" Mira tried to speak, but her throat caught. Her palms burned, the glow threatening again beneath her skin. She pressed them against her skirts, but heat bled through the fabric. The villagers saw, and fear broke loose in fresh cries.
"She'll bring the shardfalls on our heads!""Cast her out before the whole village freezes!""Witch! Witch!"
Mira staggered back. Her heart was hammering too fast, each beat a flare in her chest. The ember inside roared against her will, clawing for release. She could feel her veins running molten. If she lost control now—if flame spilled into the square—Ashfen would never forgive her.
"Enough!" Brenn thundered, stepping between Mira and Cael. His fists were clenched, ready. "I've seen her since the cradle, Cael. She's mine as much as this forge is mine. You call her a rift? She's a girl!"
Cael's gaze narrowed. "Would you stake the village on that, blacksmith? When her presence already calls the frost closer?"
The crowd wavered. Cael's authority was older than Brenn's strength, and his words carried a weight that no hammer could break.
Mira's vision swam. She saw faces she knew—neighbors, friends, people she had laughed with on feast days, traded bread with in lean winters—now twisted into masks of fear. And above it all, Cael's judgment pressed down, a stone she could not move.
Her heat surged again, violent this time. Her breath caught fire in her throat. For a heartbeat, green flame licked along her fingertips, mingling with sap-veins that pulsed beneath her skin. Gasps tore through the square.
"She burns!""Gods preserve us!""Get her out!"
"No!" Mira cried, clenching her fists tight to smother the glow. But the sound only sharpened their panic.
The fisherman with the cudgel lunged forward. Another villager snatched up a stone.
Brenn roared and shoved them back with both arms, shoving bodies aside like sacks of grain. "Back off! She's not your sacrifice!"
"Lysa—move!" Brenn barked.
But Lysa was already at Mira's side, tugging her arm, eyes wide with terror. "We have to go, now, before they—"
A rock whistled past Mira's head, striking the post where the emissary's body lay. The sound snapped her free of her frozen terror. The villagers weren't listening. They wouldn't stop until she was broken, or gone.
Her body obeyed before her mind could catch up. She ran.
Brenn's bulk cleared a path, shoulders slamming into anyone who blocked them. Lysa clung to Mira's arm, breath ragged, urging her through gaps. Behind them the crowd surged, shouts rising into a wave that followed them through the square.
"Don't let her escape!""She'll bring the frost on us all!""Seal the gates!"
The night air hit Mira like knives. Her lungs burned, every breath torn between frost and flame. The ember inside her chest pulsed brighter, aching for release, but she forced it down with every desperate stride.
They didn't stop running until the square was lost behind them, the mob's cries muffled by distance and snow. Brenn shoved them into the shadows between two thatched cottages, chest heaving like a bellows. His face was red, furious, but beneath it—fear.
"They won't let this go," he muttered, voice raw. "Not after Cael spoke. Not after…" He didn't finish. He didn't need to. The emissary's lifeless eyes were burned into them all.
Mira leaned against the wall, shaking. Her hands still glowed faintly, pulsing with heat she couldn't smother. Tears blurred her sight. "I didn't mean—"
"I know," Lysa whispered, cupping Mira's face with trembling hands. "I know you didn't. But they don't care. They're too scared to care."
Brenn spat into the snow, the steam rising like smoke. His jaw was iron. "We'll find a way to fix this. But right now—we keep you alive. That's all that matters."
Mira closed her eyes, but Cael's voice lingered, heavy as stone: She is not ours. She is a rift, a breach.
And in her chest, the ember throbbed. Hotter than ever.