Part 2 · Chapters
The Last Light in the Dark
An unexpected encounter opens a door. Climbing out is still up to you.
The deepest darkness does not kill at once. First it invents a reason to give up. Then, in a gentle voice, it urges a person to forget their pain, their name, and everyone waiting for them.
The black fire began showing Xiao Jin things that did not exist.
He saw himself never entering the trials, still hauling coal every day. He saw himself lower his head and walk past the alley as Yan Tuo bullied Xiao Hui. He saw himself hand the ice that was not cold to a guard after the Heart of Fire vanished, then go back to bed.
There was no glory in those visions. There was no pain either.
A voice in the darkness told him, “If you never get up again, you'll never fail again.”
Xiao Jin leaned against the rock, too weak even to lift his hand. Those words were so gentle, as gentle as a thick blanket that could cover every hurt.
“Sleep,” the voice said. “No one is waiting for you.”
He almost closed his eyes.
Then something went wrong in the vision. Xiao Hui stood beneath the old water tower, with no one in front of him. When the black fire fell, he did not cry. He simply disappeared.
Xiao Jin's eyes snapped open.
“That's wrong.”
If he died, Xiao Hui would still take the evidence back. The Ash District would still wait in the cold for the Heart of Fire. That child, weaker than he was, might even walk into the council chamber again, where no one would believe him.
If he too believed that no one was waiting, the figure in black would truly have won.
Xiao Jin opened his charred left hand.
“Burn.”
The first word brought no flame.
He bit the tip of his tongue, using the pain to stay awake.
“Burn!”
A red glow rose from the lines of his palm. Black fire rushed in at once, trying to smother it. The tiny flame bent almost flat beneath that storm of darkness, but burned more steadily than ever before.
It could not light the whole abyss.
Only a single step beside Xiao Jin's feet.
Beside that step lay half a footprint, thick with dust.
Xiao Jin crawled along the trail of footprints. Whenever the fire threatened to go out, he thought of another child still holding on aboveground. The prints led him deep into the rock wall, where a stone door slowly emerged from a veil of black mist.
An ancient passage lay beyond it.
He had barely entered when stone scraped overhead. A blind rock beast hung upside down from the ceiling. It had no eyes, but its ears spread like enormous thin wings. Following the sound of his breathing, it swooped down.
Xiao Jin put out his flame just in time and held his breath.
The monster swept past his face.
He picked up a pebble and threw it far away. The sound drew the beast off, and he crept low before it turned back. Gradually, he felt how the air shifted around its enormous moving body, even without light. Whenever it lunged, a cold current pressed against his skin first.
For the final stretch, he closed his eyes. Guided only by the air, he evaded three attacks in succession and slipped through a narrow doorway. The blind beast struck the entrance and roared in frustration.
At the passage's end stood a ruined stone hall.
At its center floated a red light weaker even than the one in Xiao Jin's hand.
An ancient voice came from within it.
“After all these years, someone has finally come here for a reason other than power.”
A low tremor ran through the stone door.
Xiao Jin looked down at his palm.
All that had answered the door was that small, almost extinguished warmth.