The Girl in the Cinders
The tavern reeked of smoke, sweat, and spilled wine. It was the kind of place where hope came only to die, buried beneath laughter too loud and mugs too empty. A dozen fires guttered in braziers along the walls, but their flames seemed weary, as though they burned out of duty rather than desire. Shadows clung to the corners like forgotten secrets.
In one of those shadows sat a girl who wished only to remain unseen.
Her hood was drawn low, her cloak patched and threadbare. The fabric had once been fine, dyed in the deep crimson of a noble house, but years of ash and dirt had reduced it to something ordinary, something no one would bother stealing. Her boots were caked with mud, her hands roughened from work she had never been raised to do. To the tavern's patrons she was no different than the rest: another wanderer with no past worth mentioning and no future worth chasing.
But if they looked closely—if they caught her in the right angle of firelight—they might notice the mark on her wrist. A scar, jagged and deliberate, carved into the shape of a curling flame.
Once, that scar had been burned into her skin with a crown of fire. Once, it had proclaimed her as heir to the greatest empire in the known world.
Now it was a brand of exile.
The girl lifted the mug before her and tilted it toward her lips, though she did not drink. The tavern's wine was little more than sour vinegar, and she had no wish to dull her senses tonight. Not when every heartbeat felt like a drum calling her toward some inevitable reckoning.
A laugh erupted from the table nearest her. Six men leaned over their cards, their faces flushed with drink, their hands heavy with coin they could not afford to lose. One of them slapped the table and shouted something about luck. Another cursed the gods for turning against him. Their noise rolled through the tavern like thunder, and the girl let it cover her silence.
It was easier, sometimes, to pretend the empire had never existed. Easier to imagine she was only a poor wanderer, drifting from one ruined village to the next. The world had been kinder when she was faceless.
But fate was rarely so merciful.
The innkeeper appeared at her table, wiping his hands on a rag stained darker than soot. His beard was peppered with gray, his eyes sharp despite his age. He studied her as though trying to decide if she was worth the space she took.
"Another?" he asked, nodding toward her mug. His voice was coarse from years of shouting over tavern noise. "Or are you just here to haunt the corner like a shadow?"
The girl raised her eyes to his. They were dark, like coals that had burned down to embers yet still held heat. She offered him the ghost of a smile. "Shadows live longer than flames."
The innkeeper snorted, unimpressed. "And flames keep people warm. Pay if you want to sit, girl." He shuffled off before she could reply, grumbling about strange tongues and stranger travelers.
She let the faintest laugh slip between her lips. Shadows live longer than flames. It was something her mother used to say, though she doubted the woman had meant it quite like this. Her mother had spoken of love, of loyalty that outlasted the brightest fires. But her mother was gone, her words ash in the wind.
The girl leaned back, listening to the tavern's rhythm. Dice clattered. Men shouted over debts. A woman with a cracked voice sang a song older than the empire, and a few drunks tried to match her, slurring every word. The air was thick with smoke, but it was the kind of smoke that clung rather than suffocated—smoke that carried with it the faintest memory of home.
And then she remembered she had no home.
Her hand drifted inside her cloak, fingers brushing against a folded scrap of parchment. The seal was broken, the ink blotched from hasty strokes. She had read it a dozen times, though the words never grew less sharp.
They know you live.
Run.
The girl's pulse quickened. The message had reached her three nights ago, carried by a boy who had vanished the moment she'd pressed coin into his palm. She did not know who had written it. She did not know if she could trust it. But her instincts—those instincts drilled into her since childhood—told her she could not ignore it.
For years she had hidden among the nameless: a shadow in villages that had long forgotten the empire's glory, a ghost moving through the ruins of a land once gilded in fire. She had listened to the whispers of rebellion, to stories of noble houses turning against one another, to the endless chorus of despair. She had told herself she was no longer part of it. That the empire's fall had nothing to do with her.
But the scar on her wrist said otherwise.
It pulsed now, faintly, as though something beneath her skin had stirred awake. She curled her fist, hiding it from view, though no one in the tavern was watching her closely enough to notice.
The empire had not forgotten her. And if the message was true, its hunters were closer than ever.
She rose slowly, careful not to draw attention, and left a few copper coins on the table. The innkeeper would sneer at the meager payment, but it would keep him from asking questions. Questions were dangerous. Questions made shadows thin.
The tavern door creaked as she pushed it open. Cold night air rushed in, carrying with it the scent of woodsmoke and damp earth. The streets beyond were narrow and crooked, lit only by the flickering glow of lanterns. Houses leaned like old men too weary to stand straight, their thatched roofs dripping from the evening rain.
She pulled her cloak tighter and stepped into the night.
For a moment, she let herself breathe. The air here was cleaner, though it carried the same heaviness that seemed to cling to the empire's every corner. She moved swiftly, her boots splashing through shallow puddles, her hood low enough to hide her face.
The parchment weighed heavily against her chest. The scar on her wrist burned hotter.
The empire had once been a beacon, its banners golden, its armies unstoppable. People had knelt before the throne and believed it eternal. She had believed it eternal. But thrones are built on lies as much as stone, and even the brightest fires leave only ash.
A sound behind her froze her steps.
Footsteps. Soft, deliberate. Not the staggering shuffle of drunks. Not the quick scurry of thieves. These steps matched hers, shadow for shadow.
The girl's hand drifted toward the dagger strapped beneath her cloak. She did not look back. Looking back betrayed fear. Looking back made hunters certain they were seen.
She turned down a narrower street, one that twisted like a snake between leaning houses. The footsteps followed.
Her breath slowed, her mind sharpening. She remembered lessons taught in marble halls—how to walk without sound, how to read danger in the air, how to become the flame or the ash depending on what survival demanded. She had not used those lessons in years. But memory was its own weapon.
Another corner. Another echo of pursuit.
The girl stopped. Slowly, she let her hand rest fully on the dagger's hilt.
"You should not have come," she whispered to the night. Her voice was low, almost a hiss.
The footsteps halted. Silence pressed against her like a second cloak.
Then came laughter. Quiet. Cruel.
From the darkness ahead, a figure emerged, face hidden by a mask of polished black iron. Its eyes glowed faintly, like coals smothered but not dead.
The girl's scar seared her wrist, a heat so sharp she nearly gasped. For a moment she thought she saw flame flicker in the air between them, though the night was damp and still.
She did not yet know what hunted her. But she knew this: the empire had found its lost heir.
And it would not let her go again.