“Then we have an accord.”

“An accord presumes that balance can be maintained. You seek from us a portion of our power but the only coin which will suffice is mortal power in equal measure.”

“That, allow me to assure you, will not be a problem.”

– Vaingloth the Eternal and the Primarch of the Seventh Flame concluding their negotiations.

I’m not a genius. My plans had no secret guarantee of success. I could have failed and I had definitely overlooked several things already. Despite the fact that failure was still very much a possibility though, it felt so delicious to have been proven right about my guesses.

Almost as delicious as the Central Fire Portal was.

I think it was the strange cackling sound that filled the portal room which finally broke through Vaingloth’s rage to wedge the first tendrils of real awareness of his situation.

And with awareness, fear came rushing right along too.

I could see it in his posture.

If he’d still had any eyes, I probably would have seen it there too.

That made me cackle louder. Oh, right, it was me cackling. Wow. That was loud. And didn’t really sound like me at all. Probably not an issue though. There was still lots of fire to dig into after all!

Which was kind of one of things I’d overlooked.

I’d known, or to be honest ‘strongly suspected’, that I would be able to do some horrible things to the Fire Portal thanks to both Sola’s blessing and the fact that I was partially something unbelievably horrifying.

What I hadn’t counted on was how much I would enjoy it though.

My teeth ripped into the flames at the center of the portal and tore off a huge gout that I drunk down like the sweetest of wines.

And it was far more intoxicating than any alcohol which had ever been brewed.

My skin was seared, not by the flames around me but by the fire surging within.

The fire wasn’t Sola’s and it wasn’t from the portal.

It was me. It was the wild, inhuman joy at finally, finally, holding the power I needed. 

I told the others that I could draw on the beast’s nature. That I’d need to dance on the edge of madness a little but that I could hold it together since I had so many burning reasons to stay connected to the world.

Reason doesn’t hold in the face of madness though and as I tore piece after piece out of the gates, I danced far beyond the edge of madness.

Why stop after all?

There was power there for a taking. Power that I needed. Power that I deserved!

Did I deserve it?

Did I need it?

Did any of that matter when it felt so unbearably good.

I’d been cold before.

I would never be cold again.

I’d been weak. Always so weak.

In the flames though I was power itself.

All my life I’d been Little.

Constrained.

Trapped.

A victim of forces far beyond my control.

As I consumed and consumed though I became a force beyond control.

The beast fragment had tried to take everything from me, but I was used to that.

This though? This was different.

This was my chance to take.

The world around me had a pathetic little tyrant wailing and gnashing and trying so very hard to unmake me.

It was wonderful and my laughter rang not off the ceiling of the Fire Portal’s chamber but off the dome of the heavens itself. I could feel Vaingloth’s fear rise at that. Could feel the fire in his heart turning to ice. He began tapping into deep reservoirs of power. Old old magics, like the kind they had called on to sabotage the gods and ensure the beast’s not-quite-complete victory.

I should have cared about that, but did I? Could I? No. Not in the slightest. Not with the blinding rush of power which was doubling and redoubling within me.

I’d thought I would be able to steal the portal’s energies. Take from the little gnat who was throwing spell after spell at me and use that as bait.

But why?

I had a plan didn’t I?

Why did I need bait?

Did it matter? I’d been wrong. It wasn’t the portal’s energy I could steal. It was the portal’s energy and all the fire it had given the gnat. All the power he had traded the lives of his people for.

And the more I took, the more I could take.

Words began to fade.

Thought began to fade.

What words does the beast need to explain its hunger.

What thoughts are there to think?

All is hunger.

All must be consumed.

All must be mine.

Glory and rapture.

The limits of form and sentience gone.

Power and more power until all is burned out and only absolute desolation can claim me.

Absolute…

Desolat…

A soul touched me. And then another. And another. And still more after that.

I’d been falling, fading, and dimming despite the overwhelming light around me, but they caught me.

Within the flames, I wasn’t alone.

What response could I make to the beast’s hunger? To the emptiness I’d always always felt? Souls don’t need words, but they gave me an answer anyways.

Their touch alone was enough.

The Kindling Tossed weren’t gone.

They hadn’t been lost.

Just lost to me.

“Mom? Dad?” I found my words at last.

No words answered, but I didn’t need them. All I needed was what they showed me.

That they were still with me. That they were a part of me and that I’d been a part of them and together were connected in a chain that carried the hopes of everyone who’d come before us and the dreams of everyone who would come after.

Unlimited power?

I was already part of something that didn’t have limits.

I was Little, but Little Hands Can Do Great Things.

I’d never believed that.

Had hated it for being an oppressive lie.

Except it hadn’t been.

It had been their hope and promise to me.

A new fire rose in me. It wasn’t greater than the fire I was consuming, but this fire I controlled.

It was mine. And it was theirs.

It was what the beast had lost.

In consuming and devouring everything, it had lost itself and everything it had been a part of.

I could easily have done the same.

Would have done the same for sure.

But I wasn’t alone.

It didn’t suck any less that all the people who’d been pitched into the gate had died. The world would have been better to have them in it. Their lives though? They had not been lived in vain. Each and everyone one of them had touched someone else’s life, and to touch one life is to touch them all.

I thought my world was dead, and maybe it was, but the dead can still have things to teach the living.

Outside the portal, Vaingloth’s spells were nearing completion.

Even stumbling drunk on power like I was, I found my appraisal of him as a ‘gnat’ had perhaps been a little biased by the ecstasy of the flame. I could sense the shape of his working as it built, and it was definitely going to a be problem.

Which, didn’t actually surprise me.

He’d caged Sola.

He’d stolen the power of a countless number of gods.

And he’d called the beast from beyond the bounds of reality to our world.

Sure he’d had help with all of those but he couldn’t even have been a part of those rituals without near perfect mastery of spellcasting and a deeper knowledge of the workings of divine power than anyone who didn’t bear the title of ‘Neoteric Lord’.

I’d had a plan for that though? Hadn’t I?

More power?

I turned to drink in more of the gate’s fire, fully aware that gambling on retaining my sanity when I did so was not a bet I was likely to win.

“No more,” a voice in the fire said.

Or…

No, the voice wasn’t in the fire. It was the Fire.

“You have consumed that which was bargained for,” the Lord of Fire on the other side of the portal said. “No more may be taken unless the balance is paid.”

“Balance?” I’d planned on consuming a frankly illogical amount of power. Far more than any mortal could ever handle. That had been a mistake. Not because I couldn’t handle it.

I mean, I definitely couldn’t handle it.

No the mistake had been that there would only be an illogical amount of power. There was so much more.

And Vaingloth was still ready for that.

His spell was going to bind me just like Sola had been bound. All the power I was carrying? Yeah, that was what was going to bind me. He was going to turn me into the the next Central Fire Portal.

I was going to be the one to burn up all the future Kindling.

So of course the right answer was to lash out at him.

To incinerate him with eternal fire. His eyes were going to burn forever and the same could be done to the rest of him.

Perfect right?

Vengeance, safety, and a use for the titanic amount fire I was carrying which was moments from being turned against me.

So, important question, why was I not doing exactly that?

I’m an idiot. I mean there’s plenty of evidence of that. In this case though, I wasn’t quite idiotic enough to do exactly what Vaingloth wanted me to.

It didn’t take much to avoid being that stupid though.

He was standing right there, seemingly purely focused on weaving his binding spell.

Raising no defenses.

An immortal who wasn’t trying to avoid permanent injuries?

And oh, look, what was that behind his metaphorical back? A freaking wagon-load of contingency spells? All waiting to capture anything I threw at him.

So yeah, I’ll just give him all the power I just stole fair and square. Sounds brilliant right?

Here’s a better idea though! How about I remember what my plan was? While I was working on that, I gave a little of the fire I was carrying back to the flame beyond the portal.

Not much, just enough that the spirit there wouldn’t be worried I was going to take anymore.

And then a tiny bit more.

So that they would shut the door.

And not reopen it.

Not unless someone had the heart of the portal I’d just consumed.

To be honest, that had not been part of my original plan. Mostly because I hadn’t known there was anything on the other side of the portal. Or at least anything that I could speak to.

I also hadn’t known I’d be able to chow down on the portal so thoroughly that I absorbed the whole thing. As my thoughts tumbled back together I remembered that I’d only needed to steal some of the fire portal’s power. Just enough that the other Neoteric Lords would think Vaingloth was as weak as they were ever likely to catch him.

Not that I was planning on letting the other Neoterics have him.

I mean, I might have let Helgon have some playtime with Vaingloth. That had seemed like it would be fun for Helgon and very much the opposite for Vaingloth. It would also have come with a lot of unknowns though. If Vaingloth’s spellcasting mastery was ‘near perfect’, then it was safe to assume Helgon’s was too and Helgon’s status as ‘dead’ might be a lot more negotiable than anyone else’s.

No, I wanted to make sure that when Vaingloth was taken out there wouldn’t be a ghostly version hanging around to haunt the world anymore than the memories of him inevitably would.

With my gift of fire to the flames, I moved one step closer to that goal and felt the inferno of the portal close around me.

That had been another escape, if I’d wanted one. When the portal closed, I could have chosen to remain on the side of the Infinite Flames. I had my own flames though, and my mind back, which meant my plan was in place too.

Vaingloth was speaking in three voices at once as the last of the flames died away. His words were ones even the darkest of gods would have considered unforgivable blasphemies.

And his spell was going to work since my choices were hit him with everything I had, and thereby give him all the power I was carrying while rendering myself powerless, or hold on to my stolen power and watch as his spell bound me for eternity.

He was on the last word when I nodded for the next stage of the plan to begin.

That was all it took for me to take flight.

Not of my own power.

Though I was burning as hot as Sola ever had, Zeph didn’t seem to mind at all as she raced us both out of the city at celestial speed.