"I'm fully aware this is probably it for me. Even if I try to be hard‑headed now, I'm pretty sure I only ended up in the way. I was drunk on feeling even remotely competent, and I ended up here."
"How so? And where, exactly, is this 'here' you speak of?"
Even as he addressed me, he seemed oddly preoccupied with feeding the fire, adding kindling at precise intervals as though compelled by some unseen rhythm.
It didn't bother me, but it drew my attention every single time.
I told him about the inverted voids the same way Cosmo had screamed it into my ear when I nearly hurled myself into one not too long ago.
It turned out he had a different term for what I described. He called it–
"The Axis. If you stood so near a force that perilous, why persist in such a reckless fight? Even withdrawing from that place would have carried no disgrace."
"Well, the last thing I expected was to end up falling in."
He stared at me for a long moment, and I could immediately tell he was judging me.
His expression shifted from confusion to pity.
And after a moment, he finally said something thoroughly vexing.
"By any chance, are you an innocent simpleton?"
"I don't want to hear that from you!"
I really didn't. Especially not from someone who had the same face as him.
And besides, he was ignoring the most pressing matter.
"What was that message about, anyway? I didn't understand at all what you wanted from me."
At that, I felt a sudden spike of consternation.
He rubbed the back of his head, visibly apprehensive.
Then he sighed and turned back toward me.
"I'll have to disappoint you. That message wasn't intended for you."
Safe to say, I was stunned.
It wasn't that I had hoped otherwise, nor that I expected anything grand. But it was wholly unbelievable that such an apparently important message had been ruined by something so absurdly simple.
"In truth, you were not the sole receiver of that message," he continued. "Igneus… my loyal subordinate, and a friend I held dear, met his final battle at my command. Yet, when it had ended, he was nowhere to be found."
For the first time, he expressed a deep regret, and I felt an odd obligation to at least try to understand him.
"I was seized by a fear I could not name, and by a hollow sense of loss. It drove me to pursue the faint sparks of flame that scattered during his final clash, clinging to the hope that. Even in his absence, the strength he bore might yet find purpose. I wished only to see his will fulfilled, carried forward by the very power he left behind."
"He must have been a good friend."
I said what I truly felt, not as consolation. But simply because it struck me how much he must have meant to him, for the King to act on such grief while his own circumstances were apparently just as dire.
"If Igneus had indeed fallen, I knew his heart would not be lost. It would seek another through whom his labor might begin anew. Thus, I turned to the bond our souls once forged and sent my call through every fragment of his power I could reach. In this way, I might speak on Igneus' behalf to whosoever had received his strength."
"Then, when you say I'm not the only one, you mean this could all be for nothing, and that desperate act was based on a guess."
"It is, in truth, more of a gamble. Should Igneus yet live and fare well, then our cause has little to fear."
I couldn't agree with that. If his friend was truly alive, then it felt almost shameful for the King to have made such a spectacle, only for it to be rendered useless.
Then again, it was better for an alternative to be unnecessary than to fail and be left empty‑handed.
"Just how many people have met you here before me?" I asked.
"I cannot say. The one who stands before you is but an echo, severed from its origin. I am naught more than a message bound to the faint spark that lingers in your heart."
So I'd technically be the first one he'd met, even if others had spoken to him before me.
Weirdly enough, that comforted my heart a tiny bit, though I couldn't explain why.
"If I bear any regret, it is for those who received the message yet will neither grasp nor fulfill the role it proclaimed. And for those who will perish, believing they had let some great splendor slip beyond their reach. I was too shortsighted to grant each spark a memento for safeguarding. Had I done so, you would not be in this predicament."
He truly seemed to mean it, but that was beside the point.
He had said something strange.
"What do you mean by that? Is it really something that underwhelming? What exactly is your expectation for the one who receives Igneus' heart?"
He let another handful of fuel fall into the fire before raising his head and meeting my eyes.
"It is up to them to decide."
"What?"
"As I have come to understand it, the most fitting tale is thus: 'Of all the pillars that uphold humanity's right to endure, hope remains the lone sin yet unmade. Thus, at the height of iteration, both our fates become sealed. We shall meet our end, so life may begin anew.' Beyond this, I can see no more."
That was all he offered, without the slightest attempt to explain. Then again, it wasn't as if he had to. Even though I didn't understand the details, the broad implication was clear to me.
"It is nothing so grand as you might believe. Were it mine to choose, I would have kept this path hidden altogether. Yet I cannot speak of granting them free will while denying even the straightforward choice to Igneus's successor."
"You're… surprisingly thoughtful." Once again, I said what I was truly thinking, and he chuckled in response.
"Such praise is undeserved, especially from one I scarcely know. I am merely laying my burdens upon a stranger, and in that, I see little that could be called benevolent."
"Don't mind me, I'm just unconsciously comparing you to someone else. Also, you don't have to feel bad about what happened to me. I doubt anything could have saved me from the effects of the void."
"Child… the Axis was never the matter I spoke of. Your predicament lies elsewhere."
I was once again lost. He suddenly pointed at my chest before telling me something.
"What drew you so near to death, and delivered you to this place, was not the battle, but a wound wrought by your own nature, a peril born of the power you carry."
"You mean…"
"You, child, are a vessel ever on the verge of breaking. By all rights, you should have shattered many times over. Yet each time, you were drawn back from the brink. Mended by a flawed, but steadfast, intervention."
In other words, I was a dead man walking, and I owed the length of my survival to someone else.
That revelation made me more uncomfortable than I'd like to admit. I hated the thought of owing my life to him, of all people, so I internally denied it.
"Tell me… have you begun to feel the shape of the one responsible? The answer has already taken root within you, whether you dare name it or not."
"It doesn't really matter now, does it? But I wonder if you recognize the signature of the power you claim is holding me together?"
He shook his head.
"Never have I encountered a power akin to this. It bears no root, and no rightful place in any order I know. Its very form is an aberration, bound by more chains than freedoms, a thing that should not exist, yet persists all the same."
"I see…"
Then, it dawned on me.
I had been curious as to how Cosmo was suddenly able to restrain my flames the way he did, but when I thought about the true nature of his authority, it made sense.
He had definitely pirated my Authority long ago and simply never mentioned it.
But shouldn't the catalyst of his "Usurper" be a battle with another person he understood? Or was there another catalyst he didn't mention?
Still, I had to wonder how long he had been doing it.
"Do you think you could trace how long it has been in effect?"
I asked awkwardly, but we were met with a small yet troublesome issue.
"I know not the measure by which your world keeps time."
My mind raced for a solution for a moment, during which he added more kindling to the fire.
"Forty‑nine seconds,"
I muttered.
I revealed to him that he fed the flames every forty‑nine seconds by Earth's metric. Then I used that to explain the sequence of time in my world to him.
"I see. By that measure, you have been in a state of deterioration for thirteen of your Earth‑years, though your allotted span should have ended some seven months past."
So I would have to accept that meeting him had quite literally saved my life?
The timing he mentioned was far too convenient for me to deny, no matter how disgusted I was.
My own stubbornness would have killed me.
Unfortunately, Cosmo's efforts were already in vain.
"Regrettably, your condition has advanced beyond reversal. This is the price of suppressing a power fashioned to erupt. Even so, you still possess a considerable amount of time that may be cherished."
"What are you talking about? That period is over now."
I had been ignoring it, but he had been speaking as if I had a future beyond this moment.
"I must confess, you have perplexed me from the moment you appeared. You speak as though you had wandered into the Axis all this time, even while that has remained fastened at your waist."
I reluctantly looked down at what he gestured toward, and what I saw made me acknowledge this day as the worst day of my life.
When I saw the length of white fabric wrapped tightly around my waist, I realized that being grateful to Cosmo twice in one day was an embarrassment I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
"Well–"
The King suddenly stood.
"With that in mind, it would be discourteous of me to send you back without some manner of assistance. Meetings of this nature are seldom without a trace of providence, would you agree?"
He pointed upward, once again pretending that something I was certain hadn't been there before had always been in his sight.
Above me was a flaring, blazing sphere of flames burning in countless colors. It only seemed spherical because of the curvature, but no matter how far I widened my view, I couldn't see where it ended.
"Are you sure this is just a spark?"
I asked, and the King laughed before reaching up and touching it.
"Select the flame that best accords with the challenge before you. Yet take heed. Its use will quicken the decline that afflicts you."
"Do you think that's enough to make me back down at this point?"
Honestly, I was relieved that it came at a cost. It made me feel less shameless as I reached my hands into the flames.
I somehow knew immediately what the flames would give me when I touched them. And when I found the right one, I had to say one thing.
"I'm not fond of borrowing someone else's flames. But I can't be ungrateful enough to reject help when I desperately need it. I want to help those I care about, so please… let me borrow your fire, Igneus."
At this, the King smiled.
"You may fall, but you must never yield. Warrior of fire."
He said, before his hands clapped together.