Chosen Through Fire

Synopsis

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Chosen Through Fire
Synopsis

After fleeing from the scene of a deadly failed heist in San Francisco, Katya breaks in the back door to hide in a magician's shop. The mage offers a place to stay for the night or to stay as family with his friends down the street. Katya chooses to join the group of close-knit criminals specializing in asset redistribution to the highest bidder. She settles in not just as a hired hand but as family. The rules for working with her new family: tell the truth and don't kill anyone unless you must. But following those rules goes against all her experience.

Her secrets are dangerous not just for herself, but also for those around her. Long ago she learned of her power over fire with the ability to sprout it from her hands, though never reliably on command. Other people can use magic, mages and shamans, but her power's far different and far more powerful. Unreliable. Dangerous. But if she can't trust herself and fears her own power, how can she trust others not to fear her?

The second rule of the house, "Thou shalt not kill unless necessary," is foreign to Katya. It's not that she seeks out killing; she shoots before anyone can return fire and then just moves on. Her morality concerns one of her partners, Killian, but he's impressed by her effectiveness, as well as having quite the crush on her. So, he keeps trying to get it through to her—and puts the family at risk rather than pushing her to the curb.

Anna, the little sister/daughter to the entire group, also has powerful control over magic, though with more control than Katya. Healing power like hers is a magnet for people seeking to use that power for their own means, and word of her somehow escapes the family. Shortly after Katya joins the family, Anna is kidnapped by a mega-corporation—the same corporation responsible for bringing chaos and magic back to the world in 2025 with a high-altitude EMP blast. Despite the danger, nobody in the family will just walk away from her.

Anna's captors send the family on short jobs important to the corporation. When faced with a life-or-death situation, Katya's fire washes over the entire room, incinerating her enemies but leaving the family unharmed. Regular magic never would have left them all standing. The secret's out. But instead of recoiling in horror, they hold her close and care for her. After another brush with unnecessary killing and Killian's anger overflowing, Katya reveals her second truth: why she's so quick to kill. Why she's so scared of her own power. Her honesty draws Killian closer to her, despite her being oblivious of his feelings.

Still reeling from horrific images of their forced employment, the family visits the president of the company. She makes an offer: Anna's life in exchange for Katya's. There's only one acceptable answer.

Meanwhile, the family back home searches for a way to break Katya out of the mega-corporation, poring over plans and plots all leading nowhere. Killian's desperation builds with every day she is gone.

The tortures they subject Katya to escalate as the days wear on—until she's pushed a hair's breadth too much into sheer, hopeless, and unadulterated rage. She incinerates everything in her cell. Upon summoning her, the president of the corporation explains that the torture and pain was all in the best interests of the world; no consolation to Katya's mind.

Shortly after Kayta's conference with the president, the rest of the family breaks into the facility to extract her from her prison. But Katya's scars on her skin pale to those in her mind. PTSD has settled in hard, but for now, it's time to find a new home and help her heal.

Anna and Katya bond while they recover from their time in captivity, but not enough label either as 'well.' In fact, Katya implodes with a bullet to her chest. Anna races to Katya's side and heal what the rest of the family could not. While the girl mends the physical damage from Katya's brush with suicide, demons still haunt her tortured mind.

Over the next months, Katya's heals and helps on a job, with accidentally explosive results. Killian cautiously draws her out of a panic after she nearly kills again and she relaxes a little, safe with a friend, safe with family, safe with him. But their enemy is on the prowl again and on their heels. When the corporation catches up to them once again, Katya resolves to end the fight on her terms. But she must fight alone. It's too dangerous for the family to join her for the main fight.

What should have been a simple scuffle takes an unexpected turn as the corporation president from the family's previous trips transforms into a huge golden dragon. It explains calmly that all the corporation's efforts—the dragon's efforts—were to bring magic back to the world for good. To make Katya's plans even harder, instead of being well on their way to safety, soldiers march the rest of the family in to stand with her. It takes the dragon almost killing her family to bring out the fire and the dragon falls in a spectacle of sulfurous fire.

Though Katya learns to use her power reliably, she lacks trust in others and herself, especially after Killian admits to betraying that trust he had so carefully built up. It takes an act of love—selfish though it may be—to regain her trust. After learning of his revenge on her jailor from long ago, Katya finally sees Killian's love not as a brother, but as more.

Katya's trust in those around her bolsters her trust in herself. With their unconditional acceptance she finds family. She finds home. She finds herself.