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JARON

The Ash Wastes - West Incendia

Early Frostfall

Jaron Thorn was afraid of neither man nor monster.

From the time his parents left him and his little brother in the care of their uncle, he'd faced each morning with a brave heart and a steady mind, ready to carry on his life like his mother and father hadn't left a gaping hole in his chest. When he departed from the small harbor-town he called home, he didn't look back even though his absence left holes of his own making. Even when he'd been lined up against the walls at the training grounds of the Incendian Navy, he'd stood strong as obsidian, waiting his turn to face an emberblood and hoping to the gods his flesh would heal soon after.

But now, as his gaze trailed up the monstrous volcano before him, fear took root in his heart, spreading through his veins like weeds that didn't belong. Smoke billowed from its top, the air surrounding him reeking of sulfur, a clear sign of imminent explosion. He'd die from the fumes or magma, whichever got him first.

He should be far away from West Incendia, searching Cerulia for the pirates who'd pillaged his harbor-home years ago, but the whispers, always creeping in the edges of his mind, told him to come to this barren wasteland instead. Jaron cursed himself every moment he spent sailing through the Frozen Gap and riding horseback across the Ash Wastes. He tried to ignore the whispers completely, but they were there, scratching at the back of his mind with rusty nails.

Dig.

The whisper was so sudden it made him nearly jump out of the thick cloak he wore. He looked around, taking in the remains of what used to be a forest, thin spikes of bone-white wood sprouting from the pale, cracked dirt. The whispers had first come to him during the loneliest of nights when a leap from the nearest cliff seemed better than facing another day, when there was nothing left for him to live for.

And they'd offered him everything.

Dig.

More firm this time, a command. Dig? Here?

The whisper repeated themselves again and Jaron dropped the satchel from his back to the ground with a clunk and unbuttoned the collar of his cloak, removing it from his shoulders so he could roll up his sleeves. The broad end of the shovel he'd brought with him all this way gleamed against the bits of sun hidden behind the clouds and smoke. If the whispers wanted him to dig, then he'd dig. Maybe then they would leave his head for good.

Whoever or whatever the whispers belonged to, they didn't stop, even when his shovel broke earth. It continued its cadence, becoming a song that mirrored the rhythm of his strokes.

Dig. Dig. Dig.

He was knee-deep in a hole when the words became his own thoughts, a part of his every breath.

Dig. Dig. Dig.

When the height of the dirt walls reached his shoulders, his blistering hands went numb and the whisper became his own. "Dig," Jaron grunted with each scoop of earth that he threw above him. "Dig. Dig." The wretched whisper screamed back at him, an echo only Jaron could hear.

The sun disappeared and the moon took its place when he discarded his shovel at the top and began digging through the raw earth like a crazed animal, losing more of himself than he ever knew he had within him. Blood mixed with dirt on his hands, skin peeling away from his fingers with each strike of his hand into the ground. The bone forest above had been quiet before, but now it seemed even the volcano ceased its grumbling to watch him fall apart, his grunts and yells filling the silence, darkening the area even though the dawn of the next morning tried to peak through the clouds.

Dig. Dig. D—

Jaron's fingers scraped against something hard and he stilled. For a flicker of a moment he wondered if it was only a rock. Then he started digging faster than before, brushing away the dirt until the outline of a long ebony box emerged.

Take it.

The sudden change of lyrics in the whisper's song took him aback. He'd thought of the whispers in his head as blind ambition or sheer insanity, and maybe some tale he'd heard had brought him to this dark place. But perhaps it was more after all. Perhaps his losses hadn't riddled his mind like the other Scouts jeered about.

He stayed in the hole he'd dug and laid the box on the unsettled ground in front of him. His gaze lingered over the etchings mirroring tendrils of ebony flame as vast as he'd ever seen. Bottomless. Threatening to swallow him if he stared too long. His mutilated hands remained at his sides, quivering.

Why aren't you taking it? It'sss what you came here for.

A shadow grew around the edges of the box, blossoming from beneath as if it were awakening from a deep sleep. A piece of him—maybe the sliver of him he'd left behind in Port Hullscar—knew he should be scrambling out of the hole, but instead he only leaned closer to the allure of the treasure he'd dug up.

I can give you everything you want. Everything you need.

Power. Strength. Revenge.

Jaron traced his bloody fingers over the box, mumbling his lost brother's name and promising to find him as his voice cracked like the broken man he was.

Wield the Flame and the Torch. Be my champion. Do what othersss before you could not, and you will have it all.

No longer hesitating, he curled his fingersaround the box and for the first time in his life, he took something forhimself.