Burning Embers

Chapter 1: The Ashes of Morning

I

James Ryder struck a fire in his hands amidst the murky waters of a mire far away from his home. He did so because the scarlet flame that ran between his fingers reminded him that there was hope to be good again; the tears inside could not fall, and the pain in his heart could no longer burn so bright; the cowardice in his soul not so feeble, and the duty to grow older not so frightening evermore. It was a burden to carry the fire in his hands, for it meant that he held power within him: the root of sin.

Uncle Alex had very specific wishes for his death; he wanted to be burned atop white birch wood in the center of the mire, under the scarlet leaves of autumn. James cut the tree himself and wrapped his Uncle in linens, a duty led by guilt and mourning. He was the one who told his crying Aunt of the news, and he was the one who was set to burn Alex to ash; the weight of the man's body when he dragged him to burn was greater than that of a boulder.

This is the way of the world, he thought. Yet it was hard for him to speak, and even worse not to cry. It was his fault, he had known, and the guilt would never leave his vengeful body.

James screamed when he cut the birch tree with his Uncle's ax, and he cried onto the scarlet leaves whilst he gazed at the incandescent sky above. In the ravenous stone mountains of his home, all the animals watched in the trees as the little boy gazed at the dancing flame in his hand and held his hound beside him, Rooster, as his only friend. He lit the candles near his Uncle's corpse as the sun rose with a golden kiss onto his pale skin, warming him in gentle faith. Although, the water below him drenched his knees when he moved the flame to the kindling, causing sparks to chirr and hiss like a serpent until the fire rose from the cinders, and the smoke from his Uncle's corpse climbed the sky for the watchers of the clouds to breathe. James wiped away a tear before it could fall and extinguished the flame from his hands as anger blackened his heart; his uncrying eyes gleaming an emerald while the crimson flames manifested into his shadowy pupils.

The corpse burnt the sigil of autumn; something James accredited to fresh smoke, cinnamon apples, and pine. The linens of the body were the first to scorch to black, and then it was his Uncle's flesh; it burned brighter and hotter onto James' skin as to remind him of his cowardice, of the sins he had done. Smoke rose unto the indigo sky, still lit by the moon as the golden sun had begun to spread in the valley, and the leaves beneath James' knees whistled about the ground through sinister water. The fire pierced his skin but caused no pain, though James had felt it; it writhed in his veins and to his heart as anger building with trifling faith.

Birds chirped and the fire rose with burning embers, seething into black smoke that journeyed beyond the stone mountains surrounding his humble farm; James Ryder, with the soul of a man and the body of a boy, knelt in the autumn leaves of silence as the guilt within him played hymns of the sky. There were voices of the watchers mourning his Uncle as he charred to ash from the fire in the boy's hands, and they were thankful for the smoke they could breathe.

Words broiled fervently into James's right arm: the whispers of the man of grey eyes, a man from his dreams. It's cold, isn't it? they said: tattoos from his nightmares to remind him of the sins he had done; the reasons all of them were gone, without anyone left.

Ashes are to remind us of the evil we have done, James Ryder told himself. The world was cruel and there was nothing but sorrow, but within ashes were simmering flames hungry to burn their warmth.

He held the tears from his face, remembering the day his Uncle told him that he was becoming a man; although, his heart was so terribly empty. I did this, he told himself, they're all gone because of me. No mother, nor father, nor hope to be found in the darkness of the barren crags; yet the woods had still glistened with their beautiful autumn, and the stone mountains surrounding his servile dwelling protected him from the outside world of Dran. The ancient stories his Uncle would tell him about the great crizarts—those who held the rarest power inside them given mystically by the watchers above—were outside of James' stark solitude. The wars that his father and mother fought in, the ones that they had died for, were over yet still lingering outside his highlands—within the eight realms; but here, James Ryder lived without war...he lived in silence, the most sorrowful of so.