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“My name was Hikari Ignespiravit. I abandoned that name, but my powers still come from my mother’s bloodline. The pyromancy does, at least. When I was young, even though we were far from home when I was born, she would tell me stories of our family and of how we had the power to control fire. She taught me how to do this.” Hikari gestured in a halo around her head, the blue and lavender flames she wore like a wig swaying as her fingers brushed them. “It was a tradition, since none of us ever had hair. I guess it still is, since it survives with me.
“I was young when they vanished; too young to really remember what happened or when I first noticed they were gone. What I do remember is being saved by a kindly monk passing by our campsite. He took me to a nearby town, offering to ask around to see if anyone had seen my parents. If something had happened and they had gone for help, it would have been the closest stop. He was true to his word, but… Well, nothing came of it anyway. I was alone, or would have been if not for his generosity.
“I cried for hours, maybe even all day. When we couldn’t find any trace of them in town, he offered to feed and house me there, in case they came looking for me. I wasn’t even ten, so I wouldn’t say I had much of a choice. Still, I wasn’t afraid of him and was grateful for the help. I had nowhere to go and no one else to turn to, and he took me in without demand or question. He even offered to take me under his wing and tutor me in magic. You see, he was also a skilled sorcerer.”
“Not to make you self-conscious, girl,” he had said, “but your flames make it quite obvious. You have a natural talent for magic, don’t you? Well, then I will share with you a secret: I am as well.”
“The people in town had looked at me strangely and whispered to each other as we’d passed, probably because I hadn’t thought to douse my hair. I was afraid they would run me out of town, but his words were patient and gentle. He made me feel safe.
“He introduced me to his people, the Order of the Charred Claw, and showed me the old, abandoned church they lived in and operated out of. It was an odd arrangement, but they were just as kind to me as he’d been. He taught me their tenants: to seek the truths of their god and - through their faith and studies - return him to his rightful place in our world. They were all people with profound, personal understandings of loss, just like me. Each had their own tale, and I learned all of them over the years I spent there. Even now, I carry the memories of their grief with me. Alongside gathering knowledge, they aimed to free others who were mired in their own sorrows.”
“We help grieving souls find new life, purpose, and hope. In doing so, we achieve the very same for ourselves. It is His will, His way. That is why I couldn’t possibly help but offer you aid in your time of need. You are very much one of us, and you are welcome here so long as you wish to stay.” Placing a hand upon my head, he had smiled down at me from the recesses of his hooded robe. I could see scars racing up the lengths of his pale, boney fingers, knotting the skin of his wrist, and continuing up his arm. Their edges reached at least as far as his lips, and I felt an overwhelming sense of empathy, both for and from him.
“When I was old enough, he offered to train me in the ways of necromancy. He said that, with enough practice - with enough power - I might be able to see my parents again. He described speaking with the dead as not a forbidden art, per se, but a dangerous one in the wrong hands. It made sense, like everything else he’d taught me. Affairs beyond the bounds of the mortal realm were normally out of reach for a reason; they must be handled with care and respect. I recognized the danger, or so I thought, and accepted that patience would be paramount. I dove into my studies with voracious ambition.
“Eventually, with his guidance, I mastered both my innate pyromancy and the arts the Order offered me. They even taught me how to summon beings from planes beyond ours that could aid in ways we mortals could not.” Head still lowered, her eyes slid briefly to the shaman, sitting in the grass next to the paladin and herself. “It took me far longer than it should have to realize those beings were demons. I admit, at the time I just didn’t want to see it. Looking back, I could say the same thing about a number of red flags I overlooked.”
“Hindsight is 20/20,” the shaman cooed, placing a shaky hand on Hikari’s knee.
“Even so, I should have questioned things sooner. The first time I was forced to face the nature of the Order’s gifts was when they backfired. Before, I had used my summoning like any other power: the solution to a problem. Maybe I took them for granted. Eventually, a demon I summoned broke free of my control.” She lifted a hand, eyes lingering on the delicate scars running the length of her palm like silk threads only she could see. “I knew my limits: I never summoned anything I couldn’t kill if need be. That was the first rule he’d taught me. But it didn’t go down easily. It was…messy. As I struck the killing blow, I was bathed in its blood. It was pallid and viscous and bored into my skin where it stuck, etching itself across my veins, dying me pale as the ghost I might as well have been.”
“So that’s why…” the paladin muttered under her breath, chin between two fingers. When she caught Hikari watching her, she immediately straightened her back and shook her head decisively.
“I think it intended to curse me, but instead, it melded with my powers. Where had been but a candle erupted into a pyre burning at my core. The demon’s blood resonated with the source of my powers and amplified them, much to my master’s delight. They had already elevated me to head of the Order’s warlocks and he claimed it was proof of my fit for the role.
“By that point, I was already losing my sense of self and had begun to think in terms of only ‘us’ and never ‘me.’ I was a tool, a limb of the Order’s body, a vessel for the will of their god. Every day was study and training. Every thought was of power, control, and my goals, if they even were my own goals anymore. I hardly thought of anything else: hardly tasted the food we ate, hardly spoke except to give orders or ask questions, hardly even slept. I tossed my old name aside and took up a new one: Hikari Tenebris. It was supposed to be proof of my rebirth, of my ascension. ‘How could I have thrown away my last connections to them?’ I didn’t even think about it until much later. I still don’t think I have an answer for myself.
From the corner of her eye, Hikari watched the shaman’s hand, feeble and trembling, reach half-way for her knee again before being silently retracted.
“On my 20th birthday, I saw something that finally forced me to wake the fuck up. If losing my parents had left me free-falling, this was my face meeting the ground below.
“Although they never allowed us to meet for long,” Hikari locked eyes with the shaman, “the questions you asked left me uneasy. Why indeed were the order’s many artifacts off-limits to even us? To forbid their use would be one thing, but to forbid us even the knowledge of their function seemed careless. Shouldn’t their strongest soldiers know of their strongest weapons in case of emergency? The monk wouldn’t give me any straight answers, and the others either dodged my questions or feigned ignorance. I pretended to lose interest, but eventually I took matters into my own hands and snuck a peek into the crystal ball.
“I found out why that man wouldn’t answer my questions: he had been the very one to steal my parents away from me. I watched helplessly as the ball replayed the events of that day with a clarity my memory couldn’t offer. I watched them be dragged off, to the very church he brought me to. In yet another room forbidden to us were the artifacts known as flesh cauldrons: fusion engines that take in bodies or other artifacts and cannibalize them, rebuilding a fresh horror from the sacrifices offered. To resurrect their demon lord, the Order had fed many to them, including my parents.
“I don’t know how, but he found me out. I don’t know if he was trying to kill me or just teach me a lesson, but the monk who had saved me all those years ago - the man who had taken me in and raised me - took me back to the cauldron room, saying there was another special rite I would need to know in order to fully embody the purpose of the Order. He made me watch as they threw you in with the bear.”
The shaman shivered, hugging themself tight with both arms.
“Yes! You see?” The monk gave a grand sweep of his hand towards the shambling monstrosity of sinew and ichor, its new form still coalescing as it clawed its way out of the toppled cauldron. “New life. New purpose. And indeed, new hope! Hope!” he shouted. “For us! And for our great Lord! Ahahahaha!!” He threw back his head with a wild, toothy grin, his mad cackling reverberating through the rafters of the violated sanctum.
“I barely survived that fight. I think without that demon’s power, without its blood, I might not have made it. I felt something within my soul clinging to life even as my consciousness faded, something unwilling to do anything but fight back. Maybe I should be thankful for its sacrifice. I don’t know.
“After that, I was so thoroughly disgusted with the Order that I vowed to destroy them. But I wanted to save you first,” Hikari muttered, almost as an afterthought, with a sheepish glance towards her predecessor. “Just because everything they taught us was a crock of shit doesn’t mean I have to abandon the principles I came to believe in: that to ease another’s suffering was the greatest act of service. It was your words that broke me out of my stupor in the first place. Helping you came first.”
Finally, Hikari lifted her head, turning to the paladin.
“And you, ma’am: thank you for your help. They’re free now, back in their rightful body thanks to you. And I am free to pursue my revenge.” She bowed deeply, until her forehead pressed lightly into the warm grass.
The woman stared at Hikari for a long while, regarding her closely and occasionally turning her inscrutable eyes to the shaman as well.
“So,” she said, her deep, dry voice like the roll of a log, “you want to stop them, then? You now count yourself among the many enemies of the Cult of the Charred Claw?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in the warlock’s voice.
A smile crept onto the corner of the older woman’s lips.
“Well then. I suppose you have an ally as well.”
“Two,” the shaman piped, sheepishly holding up two fingers.
“Esperanza Crecienterca.” She laid a hand over her heart in a salute, the black metal of her gauntlet making a deep clinking sound as it tapped against her breastplate.
Hikari looked from one to the other. “No. This isn’t your fight. Either of you.”
Esperanza pushed herself to her feet with a grunt, grabbing the handle of her scythe and standing it up by her side.
“Too bad. This is my job. So, from now until the last of those evil bastards fall, my blade will guide us both.”
The shaman mimicked the paladin, though their mirrored movements only accentuated the weak shuttering of their limbs, their muscles still recovering from the ordeal of unfusing.
“And you’re wrong,” they said, voice similarly trembling. “This is my fight too. I owe you a debt and even if I didn’t, I want to bring the Cult to justice. So, please, don’t ask me to stand aside now.”
Slowly, Hikari stood as well, at a loss for words. Unable to believe that in losing everything for the second time in her life, she had gained something so precious as the trust of two new allies.
“All right. Thank you. Both of you. In that case, I suppose we’d better devise a plan.”
“Let’s find some shelter first,” Esperanza said, taking the lead. “There’s a town not too far from here that should have a place where we can have our little war council.”
As the trio made their way out of the woods, Hikari could hear the shaman mumble to themself in oddly good spirits, “A paladin, a shaman, and a warlock walk into a church…” and felt the ghost of a smile tug at the very edge of her mouth.