Branches

Dilandau is seven, and he is in a room with the sun.

He has never seen fire burn before. Candles are nothing like this. Candles are small and weak and know nothing of hunger, of potential, of ambition. Candle flames cling quietly to the wax-wrapped string that is their entire world and wait, placid and content, for their lives to be snuffed. Dilandau is a fighter; he cannot respect something that has no spirit.

So it isn’t until he accidentally knocks over one such candle from its perch in his master’s study that he realizes what fire can do. His master notices the mishap instantly, of course, and rushes to stamp out the flames, cursing Dilandau’s clumsiness with each breath.

It will never occur to Dilandau to wonder why the fire didn’t die. It should have—the flame is small and the master’s boot is large and heavy—but instead it sparks and sputters and clings desperately to the dry cloth it has fallen upon. It darts through a forest of winding threads, one boot-step ahead of the curling smoke trail that the master frantically follows.

Dilandau watches, mesmerized, and does not hear his master snarl at him to don’t just stand there you foolish child! Help put this out! All he hears is the ragged crackle of the fire’s breath, desperate for life, fighting to survive and consume and rise.

Dilandau understands that desperation, and suddenly all he wants is for the fire to win.

Go! he thinks, and his fingers clench into the soft centers of his palms, where they feel—but don’t register—the heat budding beneath his skin. There, catch on the papers! And the tapestry behind the desk!

Dilandau doesn’t think it strange when the small blaze follows his mental commands. The fire is not a thing; the fire is a brother in arms. The fire is a kindred spirit. The fire is him.

Dilandau draws in a breath and he feels something break loose inside him like a crusty scab peeling away, like the roots of a baby tooth tearing from the pressure beneath: painful, startling, and liberating. Something hot kindles in his stomach.

The fire has caught a corner of the papers. It flares, bright and joyous in its success, and flings itself across the desk, spreading out as the master tries to beat it down with his coat.

Heat roughens Dilandau’s throat; it burns as though he’s run for miles. The kindling in his stomach catches with his next breath, and a fever floods through his legs and arms and wraps around his scalp. But none of this feels uncomfortable. None of this feels alien.

Dilandau does not feel as though he’s on fire; Dilandau is the fire. When he raises his hands up and fills his lungs, he is not even conscious of his motions; all he can feel is a fierce swell of triumph as the flames on his master’s desk snag the tapestry on the wall and begin to climb.

The flames will not touch Dilandau. He knows this instinctively, so it is without hesitation that he urges them to circle around the desk and cook the door’s circuits.

The enemy cannot be allowed to escape.

Seconds later, the fire has won, and Dilandau is standing in a room with the sun while his laughter drowns away the sound of his master’s screaming.