A thin young man with a haggard face stepped from the cargo hold of a damaged ship into open air. Snow fell in thick, slow curtains, settling on his shoulders, on the chains crossing his wrists and on the back of his neck where a metal collar sat flush against bare skin. The cold burned as Ash hissed through his teeth.
'So cold.'
Each chain link clinked in weary sequence as one of the captain's men hauled him forward by the lead. The ramp was steep, and his legs had forgotten their purpose after weeks of disuse. He nearly went down on one knee against the metal grating before the chain corrected him with characteristic indifference.
His boots found snow-covered ground. Ash looked up.
The sky sat white and low, the kind that held more snow behind it. Wind moved through in short, impatient bursts, driving flakes sideways across his face. Between the structures ahead it whistled thin and unrelenting.
A line of people, similarly chained, stood arranged ahead of him. Unlike Ash, who was gaunt-faced, visibly diminished. The others appeared hale. Their clothing was layered and respectable. They stood straight. None wore the expression of someone who hadn't slept properly in weeks.
That distinction was deliberate. Ash hadn't eaten in days, and sleep had been eluding him with something approaching personal conviction.
All of that sat behind him now. He was finally here. One of Apex's settlements. His objective could continue.
He shifted his gaze toward the front of the group.
Two factions faced each other in the snow, breath rising in pale clouds. The tension between them read clearly even at distance. Thier weapons were drawn, bodies angled forward and voices elevated past any threshold of civility.
The first faction's leader was a broad-shouldered man with a thick neck and a jagged scar dividing his left eyebrow into two unequal halves. He wore a long charcoal duster over tactical gear. Knives hung from his belt. A pistol sat in its holster. The men behind him wore the roughness that ships like this one reliably produced.
The other faction's leader was a woman in her forties. Blonde hair drawn back with military precision. A crisp black tactical suit. She stood still, and the troopers at her back stood the same way, though they wore matching black helmets that concealed their faces entirely.
Both groups had their weapons trained on each other.
The scarred man ground his teeth. His head turned, and when his eyes found Ash, something in his expression rearranged itself. A smile followed that made Ash profoundly uncomfortable.
'Weird bastard.' Ash thought.
The scarred man turned sharply to his men.
"Oi—lower your weapons, the lot of you. You think we'd last five seconds against Apex's finest? Put them down before someone does something irreversible."
One of his crew edged forward.
"But Captain, they drew first—"
The captain's expression flattened.
"Did I ask? Did I put a question to you just now?"
The man closed his mouth. One by one, the crew lowered their weapons.
The captain rolled his shoulders and turned back to the woman, pleasant, as though the preceding thirty seconds hadn't occurred.
"Commander Joane. Lovely as ever. Any chance you might persuade your people to stand down? I'd rather conduct this without someone putting a hole in me by accident."
Joane held still a moment, then glanced behind her and gave a small, economical nod. Her troopers lowered their rifles in unison.
The captain exhaled.
"There we go. This is precisely why I've always held you in some esteem. A reasonable woman."
He clasped his hands.
"Now. All I required was repair money for my ship. A reasonable request, as I trust you'll agree. You won't meet my price, which is your prerogative. Fine. I'll accept your rate for the captives. I'm a flexible man. But..."
He paused, gaze drifting sideways.
Commander Joane's eyes narrowed.
"But what, Matthew."
He didn't answer. A small tilt of his head toward the man beside Ash. The chain at Ash's neck jerked, and Ash was hauled forward into the open space between them.
Ash stood there rather awkwardly as snow accumulated on his head, looked at one, then the other, then composed himself and knelt. His head dropped forward. Black hair fell across his face.
The captain grinned, something in it not entirely steady.
"This one was never part of the arrangement. Never intended for sale to Apex. But life is generous with its surprises, and I'm afraid he'll cost you a little extra."
Joane frowned, studying Ash from above.
"Extra. For this."
She looked back up.
"Matthew, he looks as though he hasn't eaten in days. Give me one compelling reason to pay extra for that."
The captain grin widened.
"Because he's not merely some unremarkable captive, Commander. That, right there, is a very important person. A substantial reward attaches to him, and I have it on excellent authority that the upper echelons of Apex will be extremely interested in his arrival."
He let the pause settle.
Joane crouched before Ash and tilted her head. Her eyes moved across his face with care and found nothing she recognised. She rose.
"He's just a boy. I don't know what I'm supposed to be seeing. What are you actually talking about?"
A short laugh from the captain.
"You looked directly at his face and still don't recognise him. Can't be helped, I suppose. You've been buried out here in the snow for five years? Six? The world has moved along considerably."
"Out with it."
Matthew pointed down at Ash.
"This is Ashley Burns. Youngest of the Burns family. One of Flame's sons."
A pause.
"And yes. That Flame."
Murmuring erupted behind Joane. She straightened sharply.
"Are you out of your mind? You expect me to stand here in the cold and accept that you, of all people, captured one of Flame's sons?"
She glanced at Ash.
"Look at him. His hair is black. Every Burns I've encountered had red hair. Every single one."
Matthew nodded slowly.
"As expected. You've really missed quite a lot."
Joane frowned. Matthew smiled as though her frown were something he was privately savouring.
"Years ago there were reports of a young boy carrying three soul cores. I trust that even this far out you heard something of that. That boy is this boy, kneeling in the snow before you. The hair is black because it came from his mother's side. He's a tier five Ascended with a Hybrid soul core."
Joane absorbed this, composure intact.
"And how, exactly, did you capture him?"
Matthew's smile softened into something almost fond.
"Ah. That part is actually a rather good story."
"Then tell it."
"Well... It was easy. Genuinely, embarrassingly eas—"
Commander joane laughed. It was short, sharp, entirely without warmth.
Matthew blinked. The laugh had caught him off guard. His eyes narrowed slightly.
Joane composed herself.
"Right. So you want me to believe you simply, easily captured a tier five Ascended carrying three soul cores. Matthew. Do you understand what that means? That would make him one of the most formidable Ascended alive. And you, a tier 3.4, brought him in chains and breathing."
She gestured at Ash.
"And you want me to pay extra for him."
Matthew's grin had vanished.
"What exactly are you implying? That a boy like this could best me?"
Something shifted in his expression.
"Ah. I see the difficulty. I keep forgetting how much you've missed."
He waved a hand.
"The boy is tier five, yes. But he remains at the first stage of his soul and has sat there for some considerable time. Something's wrong with him—he cannot ascend to stage two. Marooned there, by all appearances, indefinitely. So what you're actually dealing with is a tier 5.1 Ascended."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Do you genuinely believe I would lose to a tier 5.1?"
Joane said nothing.
The captain cleared his throat.
"You still don't believe me. Fine. You want to know exactly how we came to have Flame's son in our possession? Alright... We didn't capture the boy. Not in any meaningful sense."
A pause.
"The boy walked onto one of my ships in the middle of the night. Unassisted. He descended to the cargo hold, located an empty cell, and locked himself inside it. Voluntarily."
Another pause.
"We didn't even know he was aboard for the first two days."
Silence held as Joane stared at him.
"What?"
"I know."
"He locked himself in?"
"That's what I said."
"On your ship."
"On my ship. Yes."
Matthew's voice had gone quieter.
"I've transported some genuinely appalling people in my time. Murderers. Warlords. Men who unsettled my crew simply by breathing in their general vicinity. Every last one of them behaved strangely around this boy... I noticed it, I simply hadn't understood why at the time. But here is what truly gave me pause."
He looked down at Ash.
"He sat in that cell for forty-three days. Ate almost nothing. Slept very little, by all appearances. No requests, no complaints, no disruption of any kind."
A pause.
"And he didn't speak a single word. Not once. He sat staring at the wall as though awaiting something only he'd been informed of."
Matthew looked back up.
"Something is genuinely wrong with that boy, Commander. I say this as someone with extensive, hard-won experience in troubled souls."
Joane's hand moved slowly to her sidearm and rested there.
"Matthew. If this is some manner of game—"
She stopped. Her hand went to her earpiece. Her expression shifted entirely.
"Sir."
A slight pause.
"His eyes, sir?"
A shorter pause.
"Understood."
She lowered her hand and turned to one of her troopers.
"Check his eyes. Now."
The trooper approached with caution. Joane kept her gaze on Matthew.
"I've just received word from above. If he's genuinely one of Flame's sons, it will show in his eyes that it's crimson. The Burns bloodline marker."
She let that settle.
"And Matthew, I want to be entirely clear. If you're wasting our time, I've been authorised to execute you and your entire crew on the spot. Right here. In this snow."
The captain spread his arms wide, unmoved.
"Joane. Honestly. Have I ever lied to you?"
She said nothing. Her gaze fixed on Ash and the trooper. The trooper gripped Ash's chin and tilted his face up toward the flat, pale sky.
Ash permitted this without resistance as torchlight found his eyes.
The trooper's breath caught.
"...Crimson red, Commander. His eyes are crimson red."
The settlement went quiet. Even the wind relented, though the snow, indifferent to occasion, continued falling.
Joane closed her eyes. When they opened again, her posture had reorganised itself entirely.
"Matthew."
A pause.
"I'll be candid. This is the most significant thing you've ever brought in. Quite possibly the most significant thing anyone has ever brought in."
The captain smiled—the smile of a man who had been waiting a considerable while to hear precisely those words.
Joane straightened and extended her hand.
"I've been authorised to pay triple our standard rate for all captives, plus a separate and substantial sum for the Burns boy. Do we have a deal?"
The captain took her hand without deliberation.
"Yes. That will do just fine."