Zay's "place" was a cave carved into the side of a canyon wall, hidden behind a waterfall of what looked like liquid shadow. Inside, it was spartan: a bedroll, a small stack of supplies, and a fire pit where the flames burned a steady, unnatural crimson.
"Home sweet home,"
Zay said, gesturing vaguely.
"Don't touch anything. Most of it will bite."
He tossed me a canteen that felt suspiciously like leathery skin.
"Drink. You look like shit."
The water inside was cool and tasted like ash, but it cleared the dust from my throat. I sat on the floor, the E-Rank license a cold weight in my pocket.
"So,"
I started, my voice still rough.
"The fire. How?"
Zay poked at the crimson flames in the pit with a stick.
"You killed yourself, right?"
The bluntness of it hit me like a physical blow. I just nodded.
"Yeah. Me too,"
he said, not looking at me. His tone was casual, but the set of his jaw was tight.
"Ticket straight to the infernal VIP lounge. Or it should have been. But some of us… we don't just go quietly. We fight. We run. And a piece of that place… it sticks to you. It becomes a part of you."
He held up his hand, and a wisp of crimson flame curled around his fingers like a pet.
"This is it. The ember of the hellfire that was supposed to burn me for eternity. I stole it. Tamed it. Now it's mine."
He looked at me, his eyes reflecting the firelight.
"You've got it too. I can smell it on you. The stink of hell. It's why those Devileaters backed off. They don't know if you're food or a smaller, weaker version of me. So. Let's see it."
"See what?" I asked, bewildered.
"Your spark, idiot,"
he sighed, as if explaining to a child.
"The anger. The 'screw you, I'm not done' feeling that made you run from the path. That's the fuel. Now, find it."
I stared at my hands. They were just hands.
"I don't know how."
"Stop thinking,"
Zay snapped.
"Thinking is for people with time. You're dead. You've got nothing but time, and it's running out. Remember the feeling. The moment you decided to run. The moment you swung that rock at the Hound. That's not hope. That's not courage. That's pure, undiluted spite. That's what we run on."
I closed my eyes. I pushed away the fog of confusion, the fear. I reached for the raw feelings. The cold finality of the pills. The overwhelming panic in the city. The sheer, blinding terror as the Devileater coiled to spring.
And beneath it all, the one constant: a burning, defiant No.
A spark.
It was a tiny flicker of heat in the center of my chest. A pinprick of warmth in the perpetual cold of Purgatory.
"There,"
Zay's voice cut through my focus.
"I saw that. Your eyes glowed. Now, hold onto it. Don't let it go. Feed it. Feed it with every stupid thing that ever happened to you. Every bully. Every slammed door. Every reason you ended up here."
I fed it. The memory of laughter at my expense. The sound of that final door slam. The feeling of being utterly alone. The spark flared, growing from a pinprick to a steady ember. It began to hurt, a burning sensation deep in my sternum.
"It hurts," I gritted out.
"Good,"
Zay said, a vicious grin in his voice.
"That means it's working. Now, push it out. Not through your brain. Through your hands. Your hands know what to do."
I focused everything on that burning ember and pushed. I imagined it traveling down my arms, through my veins.
A gasp escaped my lips.
A tiny, sputtering flame, the color of fresh blood, erupted from my palm. It was no bigger than a candle flame, weak and dancing wildly. But it was there. It cast a faint, crimson light on the cave walls.
It was the most incredible, terrifying thing I had ever seen.
I was so shocked I lost my focus. The flame flickered and died, leaving behind a faint wisp of smoke and the smell of ozone and burnt sugar.
I stared at my palm, stunned.
Zay clapped slowly, the sound echoing in the cave.
"Congratulations, E-Rank. You're officially a matches-worth of useful. Don't get cocky. A stiff breeze could put you out."
He threw a small, rough-cut red crystal at me.
"Hellfire core. Crude grade. Absorb it. It'll feed the spark. Do it again. And again. And again. Until you can call it without thinking. Until it's as natural as breathing was."
I caught the crystal. It was warm and pulsed with a malevolent energy.
"Why are you helping me?" I asked, the question that had been burning in me finally surfacing.
Zay's smirk faded for a fraction of a second.
"Because down here, everyone is either prey, a predator, or competition. You're too scrawny to be competition yet, but I'd rather have you as a predator on my side than see you become my worst enemy. Call it a long-term investment."
He turned back to the fire.
"Now stop talking and start burning. We've got a lot of work to do before you're not completely useless."
I looked from the hellfire core in one hand to my other palm, where the ghost of the flame still tingled.
I had a power. A terrible, painful power born from the worst moment of my life.
And for the first time since I woke up dead, I smiled. It was a thin, sharp thing.
I closed my hand around the core, and got to work.