Eight years had carved themselves into Finnian. Ten winters ago, a bitter cold had gripped the Barren Wastes, stealing warmth from their meager dwelling. His mother had been out, scavenging for stray components in the rust-eaten skeletal remains of what once might have been a steam hauler. Finnian, just a boy, shivered by a sputtering oil lamp, its light barely chasing the shadows from the rough-hewn walls. He’d focused on the old boiler in their shack, a hunk of corroded iron meant to heat the water for washing. Ached for warmth, for the water to simply boil. Then, with a lurch in his gut, a raw, divine fire had blossomed within the boiler’s belly. It wasn’t the oil lamp; it was *him*. Metal groaned, the iron plates glowing cherry red, then soft and pliable like clay. Firewood had levitated later that evening. A splintered crate, buoyant against the pull of the earth, danced for his mother. She had returned, face etched with wind and soot, a satchel of scavenged parts slung over her shoulder. Finnian, beaming, had called out, “Mother, look! This scrap-wood floats!” No marvel graced her features. No flicker of joy. Resignation, heavy and cold, settled into her eyes. She’d reached out, her calloused fingers closing around the hovering wood, grounding it. Grounding him. “Finnian,” she’d said, voice raw, “we must make a promise. Never use that… that touch, carelessly. Never in front of others.” “Why?” Pout stretched Finnian’s lips. It felt like playing, like discovery. Suppressing it felt wrong. Mother had warmed thin, brackish water over a carefully tended ember, spooning it into a chipped mug. For the first time, she spoke of the world beyond their desolate perch, far past the haze-choked canyons and skeletal gantries of Veridian. “Down below the blighted peaks,” she began, “live the Architects.” Architects, she explained, were the heirs of the First Sparks, beings who had long ago descended to reshape humanity. They possessed immense command over the world’s raw matter, their abilities honed into a dark art, ruling as both masters and protectors. Others, born of mingling Architect and human blood, were called the Cinderborn. Like Architects, Cinderborn inherited that command, but their power was deemed lesser, their fate servitude. Finnian’s mother revealed his father had been a Cinderborn. She warned him: descend into the city, reveal his ability, and ruthless Architects would seize him. He would become their living engine, a forced cog in their colossal machines. “If Architects are the grand engineers,” she’d explained, her voice low and strained, “then Cinderborn are merely their tools. Sometimes, they treat a favored tool with care… but they can also scrap it, or break it, whenever necessity calls.” Architects held everything, yet they fought constantly for more. In their brutal conflicts, Cinderborn were always the expendable parts. Like a craftsman sending a prized wrench into the grinding maw of a failing mechanism, while he stood safely back, directing with a lever. Desolation he’d never seen before clouded her face as she spoke. “Finnian, do you want to live with Mother, for a long, long time?” “Yes.” “Then hide that power. If you don’t, wicked Architects will come. They’ll take you. You’ll never see me again.” “Okay, I promise! I won’t use it, not ever, in front of anyone!” Eight years later, that promise remained Finnian’s anchor. His mother had succumbed to the cough of the Wastes, her bones returning to the earth. Finnian stayed, a lone sentinel in the Barren Wastes, tending his meager subsistence. He avoided the Architects, those hidden masters who might one day seek him out. Refused to become their living engine. --- “Fools.” Finnian slammed shut the heavy, patched door of his dwelling. Before dawn, the lanky youths from Ash-Mound Hamlet had come. They'd confronted him about Kael’s death a few days prior. Clear signs of a Rust-Hound attack marred the old man’s corpse, yet they’d screamed accusations. Finnian, they insisted, had brought the beast, offered Kael as bait, wielded some strange, dark curse. He knew their true motive. They’d tried this before. Pin an absurd accusation on the isolated recluse. Later, at the next trade, they’d try to chip away at the value of his scavenged ore or purified water. Finnian had beaten the youths soundly, sent them sprawling back towards their dust-choked hovels. He’d simply use his fists again, ensure a fair deal, as he always did. Habit. Annoying, but predictable. Lost in thought, a sudden, sharp rap jolted him. Metal on wood, insistent. A heavy sigh escaped Finnian’s lips. He wrenched the door open, a growl rumbling in his chest. “Who is it now? Do you have a death wish?” Had they forgotten the lesson so quickly? Not the familiar, scrawny faces of the Hamlet youths stood beyond his threshold. A man. Mid-forties, perhaps. A dust-caked cloak draped over a sturdy frame. He offered an awkward smile. “Ah… my apologies, young friend. A traveler, I am. Hoping for a moment’s shelter, but it seems I’ve chosen a poor time.” A traveler. Finnian’s eighteen years had known only the Wastes, the Hamlet, and the occasional drone of a distant Veridian airship. His mind stalled. Someone so… leisurely. Someone not burdened by the grind. Finnian stepped back from the door, a gesture of entry. “No, not at all. Come in. Merely some unpleasant sorts, gone now.” His mother’s lessons on addressing elders, a formal cadence long unused, felt strange on his tongue. When was the last time he’d spoken like this? Before he realized all the Hamlet elders were self-serving brutes, Kael included. It had been a long time. “If you’ll excuse the intrusion, then.” Finnian should have sent the stranger away, preserved his isolation. But a hunger for conversation, for interaction free of hostility, gnawed at him. And if the man harbored ill intent? Finnian felt confident enough. “Have you eaten?” “Not yet.” “Nor I. Join me.” Finnian gestured the traveler to the small, scavenged table. He laid out their meager fare: processed scrap-meat, hardtack from a sealed tin, a lump of mineral salt. His mother had taught him: a guest, treated with utmost hospitality, would rarely dare harm their host. “A poor offering, in such a place.” “What nonsense? This is a feast! My thanks for the meal.” The traveler ate with genuine fervor, as if famished for days. Proper table manners, too, a stark contrast to the coarse slurping and spitting of the Hamlet folk. He didn’t speak with a full mouth, turned his head slightly when drinking from the chipped mug. Perhaps the traveler noticed Finnian’s own adherence to such forgotten graces. After a sip of purified water, he offered a kind remark. “You know basic manners. Your parents taught you well.” “My mother taught me.” The traveler paused, sensing the absence of a father in Finnian’s words. “And… is your mother in the Hamlet? This dwelling seems singular.” He must have noticed the lone sleeping pallet. Finnian nodded. His voice remained steady. “She passed from the cough, a few years ago.” The traveler’s face clouded. He bowed his head, placing a hand over his heart, a gesture Finnian had never seen. “My condolences. Having raised such a fine young man, she must surely tend the Great Crucible now, with the First Sparks.” “I hope so.” Once, just the memory of her had withered his appetite, reduced him to tears. Now, he could speak of it, a faint smile on his face. Had he simply grown up? Or had time truly dulled that sharpest edge of grief? A sudden gloom descended. Finnian forcibly shifted the conversation. “More importantly, sir, what brings you to this desolate place?” “Passed through a smaller Veridian outpost. Heard an old merchant grumbling about a Rust-Hound terrorizing his trade routes. Said he was seeking a… skilled individual. I decided to handle it. Confident in combat, I am.” “Alone?” A middle-aged man, not yet past his prime but far from youth, attempting to face a beast of the Wastes without so much as a proper rifle. Finnian’s astonishment drew an awkward chuckle from the traveler. “I am Cinderborn. Served House Volkov for sixty years. Rust-Hounds are no challenge.” The word ‘Cinderborn’ snapped Finnian rigid. A name his mother had whispered, a forbidden lineage. Servant of the Architects. But the tension quickly faded. No hostility in the man’s gaze, only a weariness. Finnian slowly relaxed. “Something wrong?” “Only… my first time meeting a Cinderborn. And you don’t look like sixty years’ service.” “Cinderborn age slower, live longer than ordinary folk. Seventy-five winters I’ve seen. A Cinderborn lifespan. Powerful Architects, I hear, can survive two, even three hundred years.” Finnian, hearing this for the first time, studied Kaelen. This man, of his own kind. Outwardly, indistinguishable from any other hardened wanderer. A sturdy build, yes, a healthy, resilient look. Nothing more. Crucial information. He could stand in the heart of Veridian, as long as his touch remained hidden, and no one would know. A chain binding his chest loosened, if only slightly. “Cinderborn are truly remarkable.” “Remarkable? Hardly! People like you, living in such a harsh place, where beasts roam, without raw power? That is remarkable. I couldn’t imagine it.” Kaelen misunderstood. The Rust-Hound was the first creature of its kind to pose a threat to humans in Finnian’s lifetime. Otherwise, his mother, however extraordinary, would not have survived in the Wastes alone. No, his mother, raising a child in this desolation, without the Cinderborn’s raw command, *she* was the remarkable one. “Now that I think on it, I didn’t introduce myself. Kaelen. Kaelen of Volkov – though, no longer. Just Kaelen the Wanderer. And you?” “Finnian. The Keeper of the Barren Wastes.” “A good name.” “You said you ‘served’ a House. You no longer do?” “My vassal contract ended a month ago. House Volkov offered to keep me until my last breath. But… I desired to travel. After sixty years, tied to a single forge, a single purpose, a man seeks broader horizons.”

A Flicker in the Soot