The days after that passed in a blur. Fengour had wards of another sort of magic able to keep demons out around it—I was safe. But still I needed to keep moving. However, I could not bring myself to leave the comforts of the great city, where everything was provided for. Where I was safe and could ignore the magic in my veins even though I could still feel it bubbling deep beneath the surface. Like I felt at…home. It was growing on me, and within a week of eating not the nomadic food from my pack but the intricate but simple layers of Eastern food, I was beginning to forget. Forget like I had promised myself not to, forgetting the exquisite tastes of the food back home.
I couldn't pull myself out of it, couldn't remove the filmy sheet, like a steamy pair of glasses, that had been secured over all my memories of Kaleveh. It annoyed me to no end, yet whenever I told myself I would check out and leave the next day, I always found something new and fascinating that kept me there.
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On a particularly warm night when I decided to browse the streets at night, content to weave in and out of the glowing lights in the asphalt jungle, I glimpsed a small crowd gathered in the middle of the square. Pushing my way to the front, I saw that some steakhouse's staff were giving out free samples of an aromatic steak grilled over an open fire. I wanted some, but I pushed too far in front. I was entranced, drawn in by the dancing ribbons of flame illuminating the barbecue grill, and a sleepy beast deep inside me opened an eye. I had not heeded my Gifts for the longest time, and now I could feel what Aquanaya's words had meant. I fed almost directly off Aithnaton and Alderhawke's power, but there was always a part of the magic deep within me, like an ancient storeroom. A week and a half—maybe more, I didn't know—of not touching my magic, and the crates in the storeroom had piled up, threatening to bust out of the door and flood the world with the goods hidden inside. Now, so close to the fire, it pressured me to let it out, to unlock the door and save it the trouble of breaking through itself. Just like that night so long ago, when my skin had turned balmy despite the final chills of spring, now heat rose uninvited up my neck, and I had the sudden urge to dunk my head in a freezer like I used to during the most torrid summers back home.
The fire seemed to see me, blinking at me with sleepy eyes. My mistress, it called me. And I went towards it, hindered by the crowd in real life but not in spirit, reaching out my hands. I've missed you, it said. Indeed, it brushed up suggestively against me, and I petted it gently like I might pat a good dog. Come, let's dance.
Yes. And it took me, in the world where none but us two existed, it twirled me and dipped me, spinning me into a complex dance of motion and flame. I felt alive. And it did too, with someone to control it at last, without a master no more. It was mine.
In the square, the fire reared up with our rapid waltz, suddenly exploding outwards in excitement. I cleared my eyes, and I suddenly saw people screaming in fright, burn marks glistening on exposed skin, a burnt smell filling the air.
My heart leapt into my throat.
It looked like…it looked like that dream, that nightmare, that vision sent to me in the land of sleep. Of Kaleveh burning. My home going up in smoke.
I stopped at once, the disappointed glimmer of flame slinking away. The flames receded. The shrill yells died down, to reveal people cradling burned limbs and singed clothes. A path of soot streaked across the cobblestones. A flurry of ash settled on the crowd like an evil snowfall. Seeing what I had done, I turned tail and shouldered through the crowd, the shame of my carelessness following me like a shadow. I didn't think I could escape this, but somehow, my breath ragged in my throat, I ran all the way back to my hotel without sirens wailing after me, without people shouting in my ear about what I'd caused. They would never know. And they would turn into people lingering the in corner of my memory, just like the dwarves. More who I had caused harm to needlessly.
I couldn't stop replaying the moment as I stacked my belongings into the rucksack, sweeping my trinkets off the tables into the bag.
I checked out of the hotel that very night, and by the morning I was far away from Fengour.