SERAVEL ROVODIA, the son of the tyrant Fire Potentate, is a model citizen of all sorts. Obedient, punctual, and most of all, silent. When his friend and long-time confidante gets arrested for alleged sacrilege against the administration, Seravel sta...
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The walls of the prison wing looked harsher and rougher underneath the flickering light of the flames dancing in Sera's hand. As soon as the Palace slept and the servants went home for the night, Sera snuck out of his rooms despite the usual protocol to stay indoors for the rest of the night. He had to see Neylan. He owed his friend at least that.
After he had distracted the prison wing guards into checking out a commotion in the farther corridor of his own doing, he tore through the unlocked door and burst into the dark hallway leading to Neylan. At some point, when the scratches of the guards' soles against the stone floor had faded to nothing but a mere whisper, Sera raised his hand and summoned a sliver of his magic into his palm. The fire that burst from his skin and burned with ethereal light did nothing to calm his rioting heart.
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be anywhere near this place. If he was a good son he was pretending to be, he wouldn't dare.
But he was here. Inside the prison wing. Holding a meager flame against the famished darkness surrounding him. Looking for a friend who fell victim to the Potentate's tyranny.
There was no going back.
"Seravel?" a raspy but familiar voice bled into his ears. He swept his hand in a wide arc, gasping a little when his back hit the opposing metal grates marking the beginning of another cell. The sputtering light fell over Neylan's face. "What are you doing here?"
"Neylan!" Sera yelled a little too loudly. Someone grumbled from two or three cells away for them to shut up so he could sleep. He flinched, then, lowering his voice, he said, "I had to see you."
Neylan chuckled, albeit void of humor. It was bordering on derision. "What, so you can lord over me how superior you and your father are?" he shook his head and slapped the metal grails separating them with his hand. Small, metallic twangs echoed in the darkness. "Forget it. You won, okay? Now, my father would die in his old age alone while I rot in Gaimouth, inhaling volcanic fumes all day until I join him in Pidmena's embrace. What a fun way to live."
Sera didn't speak. He didn't know what to say anyway.
Then, Neylan's eyes flashed towards Sera. Despite the bruises lining his friend's cheeks and peppering his neck and exposed arms, the fire in his eyes never dimmed. It was a fire of hate, of fear, and of anger. "You little spy," he muttered under his breath. "You've been one all along, huh? Joke's on me for falling into it. Willingly, even."
Sera fell to his knees in front of Neylan's cell. "I'm not a spy," he said. "What makes you conclude I am one?"
"You're seriously asking me that, Sera?" Neylan said. "They know what I said, word for word. You were the only one with me in that alley yet they talk as if they heard it and jotted it down. That couldn't happen unless they were right there with us, somehow invisible, or you ratted me out."
Sera scoffed. He couldn't believe this was happening. "I did not rat you out," he insisted. "There was no one with us on that alley either. I checked."
