“Alvalar?” a voice murmured nearby. Another voice asked, “You mean el hijo de Mérida?”

“Al?” Karollus asked with a curious tone as though he was wondering why the birthday boy wasn’t going up to receive Inferno. “What’s wrong?”

This has to be a mistake, Alvalar thought, his hold on Karollus’ finger waned. He slowly began taking steps back, one foot after another while a cold chill enveloped his being for a brief moment as a zahrah phased through him. Perhaps it’s just a giant misunderstanding. I-it’s… it’s a dream! That’s it! This is all a dream!

Alvalar waited for the dream to come to an end, but the murmurs in the crowd only grew as he refused to climb onto the platform and accept the legendary sword.

A balled-up copper fist came into view from the overhead of the crowd folk and suddenly threw something into the sky. Was that simply confetti? Or was it something more nefarious like blasting sand? Alvalar squinted his eyes as he tried to deduce what it was by how the light from luz piedra radiated off the strange substance—

BBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMM!

The blast was deafening and left Alvalar’s ears ringing. Everything was muffled for a few minutes, but as soon as he regained his hearing, it sounded like it was hell on earth. Cries and screams of people that were pushed back by the explosion echoed through the air as the stench of burning skin was carried by the wind, making their pain ten-times worse by the air’s touch.

As the flames engulfed the platform that held the nuns and abbots, the smell of fabric and wood mixed in with the smell of burning flesh as some abbots tried to smolder out the fire, but that only made things worse for themselves when they found that the fire was simply climbing up by the fabric of their robes. Those who were uninjured scurried into a panic as they either tried to run away by fighting against the crowd or allowed themselves to be trampled upon as they desperately searched through the burned bodies to find their half-dead kin.

As Alvalar watched, he found himself stricken with fear and panic. His heart was beating at what he felt like a million beats per minute while his hands were trembling as he gazed upon the chaos. What do I do? His thoughts raced through his head, all trying their best to be the first one to get through. I-I can’t move! I can’t speak! I can’t b-breathe! I-I can’t do anything!

“Marisol!” a withered, old voice called out. “Marisol! Mari-”

Frozen by fear, Alvalar found his eyes glued to the viejita that had her head suddenly decapitated as she searched through the pile of bodies for presumably her granddaughter, Marisol. Clothed in an orange robe-dress that had loose, wide sleeves and was tightened at the waist by a golden sash, lightly covering the trousers that barely reached her knees, the woman’s body immediately crumbled to the charred grass beneath her and blood oozed forth like a lake of crimson, swallowing up everything within its path.

The object of the elderly woman’s sudden death then revealed itself as though whoever was wielding it was trying to show off: a blood-soaked sword with the same strange design on the hilt as Huǒ-Hè’s blade. Alvalar felt his eyes travel up the brown hand that gripped the weapon but found the murderer’s identity was hidden behind a snake mask while their body was dressed in armor and chainmail like a mercenary. The mask had eerie look to it as it only but a few small slits carved into its scaly, animalistic appearance.

Whoever the person was, they carried the elderly woman’s head gently in their arms and carefully placed it in front of her body, trying their best to cover her slit throat with her white hair. They gazed at her corpse for a brief moment as though to apologize for their actions, like it was something that needed to be done but they also regretted it at the same time, and then they suddenly turned their head, locking eyes with Alvalar.

“KAROLLUS, GET ALVALAR TO THE FOREST!” Smoke yelled through the screams of those who ran about and somehow managed to be the loudest of all. His voice brought Alvalar back to reality and allowed him to finally take the breath that he was searching for. “DON’T STOP! HIDE IF YOU MUST! JUST PROTECT HIM!”

“NO!” Alvalar gasped and reached out his hand to grab ahold of his father’s shirt, pants, arm… anything that will hold him back from getting himself murdered just like that little old grandma.

Perhaps Smoke didn’t hear his son’s plea or see the pained and scared look on his face. Whatever it was, Alvalar’s words didn’t reach him and the Master Metalsmith ran straight into the chaos, his body engulfed by the crowd.

Suddenly Karollus’ hand gripped Alvalar’s wrist and didn’t let go as he pulled him along through the terrified crowd in the opposite direction. It left him no other choice, but to run alongside him should he want to be next behind that snake person’s blade.

As the two ran and ran through the stalls and army of people, Karollus’ hold on Alvalar never faltered or wavered. He held onto him like his life depended on it, as though if he suddenly let go, his whole world might just collapse. Alvalar tightened his grip around his former-lover’s hand as well. He wasn’t going to let him die.

Not now.

Not ever.

The smell of smoke faded more and more as the two grew farther and farther away from the festival’s epicenter and merely became one with the atmosphere. Explosions and groans grew louder and more often, making Alvalar’s heart tremble with anxiety for his father.

Turning his head back, another explosion graced his ears. He slammed his eyes shut as though bracing for the eye-watering touch that usually followed a powerful explosion and its smoke, but once he opened them again, it was as though his worries had been for not.

Despite blood oozing from the cuts made upon his skin and the burns that left their mark on his copper complexion, Smoke was following behind them with much of his life intact. Peaking over his shoulder was Inferno itself, with its handle and quillon crafted of gold, tightly strapped to the Master Metalsmith’s back with the help of a leather baldric, emulating the very same way that his brother likely had carried the infamous blade all those years ago.

“DON’T SLOW DOWN, ALVALAR!” Smoke yelled angrily as he motioned with a bloody hand to keep on running.

Curiously, Karollus turned his head back and a look of surprise and relief upon his face as well. Unfortunately, that didn’t last for long, as though punished by the Patron Ancestors themselves, Alvalar tripped over a lantern and dragged not only himself but Karollus to the grass.

As though boiling with anger, Smoke forced himself to quicken his pace. “WHAT ARE YOU TWO WAITING FOR?” he barked as he passed them. “TO GET KILLED?”

Certainly not wanting such a fate, both Karollus and Alvalar quickly got to their feet and ran after the Master Smith. With their sweat-drenched hands now bound together once more, Alvalar glanced at the back of his former-lover’s head with a sense of regret for being foolish. A foolishness that could’ve nearly costed both of their lives if that snake-masked person was the one that was rushing after them instead of Smoke, all because he was too worried with what was happening behind him. “Sorry, Karo,” he wheezed out with a slight wispiness to it.

“It’s okay,” the baker’s son responded. His voice had the same tired sound to it as though it was draining to run and speak at the same time. “Don’t worry about it.”

The jungle that surrounded Esperanza had finally made itself known by the overabundance of zahrah that drifted about within its mitts and it was getting closer and closer; its gnarly, branching ceiba trees with trunks large and sturdy enough to be home to the Giant Fire Ants that slept in the canopies above; large bushes that shrouded anything that decided to hide either within it or behind it.

When Smoke leaped high in the air into the zahrah jungle, Alvalar and Karollus followed. When the soles of his boots touched the forest’s loose dirt floor, Alvalar felt his body demand for rest as it forced him to his knees. Coughing and gasping for the air that his lungs craved, he glanced about and saw Karollus and Smoke were doing the very same, either leaning their bodies against the trunk of trees or laying on their backs against solid earth as they gazed at the starry night sky and wheezed.

As sweat slide down his forehead, Alvalar could still remember the primal fear he felt when his ears caught wind of the death rattles of those that were still barely alive and the bubbling noises of liters upon liters of blood oozing from wounds. No matter how much he tried to shake it from his memory, his ears still picked up on it as they were still not far away from the source.

“I’m not cut out for running like this anymore,” Smoke confessed through his gasps. “O’ to be thirty-three years younger and go on adventures again as a strapping sixteen-year-old, Estrella in hand, constantly on the run… That’s the life!”

Alvalar raised a hand, but that still didn’t seem to last long either. Every muscle from his face to his toes ached and groaned. “P-papi, this is some kind of dream, right?” he desperately asked. “This isn’t real, right?”

Whether it was because he was still reeling from all the running or thought the question was stupid, Smoke didn’t answer right away. He suddenly groaned as he forced himself from to his knees and crawled over to Alvalar. When he was close enough, he gestured his son’s chin upward and locked eyes with him, forcing his apprentice to sit-up properly in his presence.

Physically drained, Smoke looked like he had just returned from battle; his copper skin radiated a subtle smell of charred oak that deeply seeped into his pores, mixing with the stench of blood that slithered down from the cuts on his arms. His once white undershirt was now painted with brown streaks of dirt and burned here and there, his trousers and boots caked with mud like he had fallen over a few times. Upon further inspection, bulbous blisters, both big and small, scattered about over the surface of his dirtied hands and fingers, obviously exuding a lot of pain each time he moved them. It was a miracle that his Tilithian wedding wristlet and Idro Beads still remained bound to his wrist. It was as though they were invincible. “Unfortunately, mijo, this is no dream. Trust me on that.”

“But this has to be!” Alvalar roared. “I-I can’t be the Weapon Wielder of Navasar! I just can’t!”

“And why not?” Karollus shot back. He slowly made his way over and placed a hand on Alvalar’s shoulder. His words might’ve been heated and filled with anger, but his touch was not. “Why can’t you be? Think about it, Alvalar: Fire, or anything heat-related for that matter, doesn’t hurt you like it does Smoke and I, and whenever you get angry or embarrassed, this wave of steam rises from your very skin. Even when we would have sex, it got to be unbearable at times since your skin was so blistering hot that I couldn’t even kiss you or hold you for as long as I would’ve liked and don’t get me started on the humidity that would engulf my bedroom the longer we went on. If none of those are signs pointing to you being the Navasarian Weapon Wielder, I don’t know what is.”

“So, you knew about it, Karollus?” Alvalar glared.

“No,” he growled, not liking to be accused of things. “Honestly, I always thought it was odd. At first, I thought you swallowed a fuego piedra when you were a babe or something, but that theory didn’t hold up the more I thought about it. Eventually, I just accepted it as a part of you, but when you were announced to the Weapon Wielder of Navasar, everything immediately made sense.”

“Karollus speaks the truth,” Smoke confirmed. “The process of discovering the Weapon Wielder of Navasar happens a few hours after birth while the actual coronation is just a formality. At birth, every single Weapon Wielder, regardless of national origin, resemble their respective element in various ways so it’s easy to identify them when the time comes; the Athesanian one was near freezing and had patches of snow on her skin and hair when she was pulled from her mother’s womb; her Tilithian counterpart weighed as much as a twenty pound boulder and her skin turned a boisterous red under her mother’s warmth; the Bilithgoric one is a bit mysterious to pin down since the records sealed away from the common people’s curious eyes due to accounts in past generations where wealthy parents would bribe doctors to forge documents that claimed that their child was the Weapon Wielder of Bilithgorn. According to Esperanza’s birth records, however, you fit the exact criteria of being the Navasarian Weapon Wielder: your temperature was nearly two hundred degrees when you were born, but that slowly tapered off to merely a hundred-and-fifteen. Still a high number for a newborn, the doctors checked for any conditions you might have that could cause this high of a temperature but none were found, and whenever you wailed, steam always rose from your skin. It got to be so unbearable that even your mother couldn’t hold you without a pair of mittens or breastfeed you for very long as you’d burn her.”

“But, still, I can’t,” Alvalar replied with a defiant shake of his head. “Papi, this has to be a mistake. I can’t be Tio Alejandro’s reincarnation. I can’t be. I mean, I’m nothing like him. Remember those stories you told me about Tio and how he would get so overwhelmed and angry that he would transform into something that resembles fire in human form? I’ve gotten overwhelmed and have been angry plenty of times, but never have I ever slipped into something that scary. Besides… I’m not as great as Tio.”

Smoke laughed like he thought his son’s reasonings were silly. “Alvalar, if you think that just because you are nothing like my brother disqualifies you from being his successor, you are mistaken. Alejandro was nothing like the Navasarian Weapon Wielder before him – Shastiyah the Hothead – an infamous pirate who was known to buy and sell Navi, raid and burn ports to the ground and kill those who crossed her. When the Head Abbot at the time refused to hand over Inferno to her during her Coronation, she annihilated him with blasting sand. She was also unlike her predecessor, Antonio the Pirate-Hunter, but Inferno still obeyed each and every one of them and unlocked their dormant pyroizing abilities.” As though dealing with something made of the frailest of glass, Smoke retrieved the legendary blade, scabbard and all, from inside the leather baldric strapped to his back and placed it in Alvalar’s hands. He then caressed his son’s cheek; his hooded golden eyes were filled with fatherly love while his lips softened into a smile. “Just like it will work for you too, mijo. I know that this is all confusing and scary right now, but you mustn’t keep denying it any longer. You are the seventy-fifth Weapon Wielder of Navasar. You can’t go back in time and change it. You are what you are. But don’t worry – I know you can do it. You’ll be the best Navasarian Weapon Wielder in History, just you wait ‘n see!”

Although Karollus didn’t add anything, he still intertwined his fingers around Alvalar’s. His grip was a strong one as though he agreed with every single thing that Smoke was saying with all of his heart.

No longer filled with that special type of warmth, Smoke then turned his eyes over to Karollus as he ordered him to protect the newly crowned Weapon Wielder of Navasar and even presented Estrella to him. Letting go of his hold on his former lover’s hand, the baker’s son took the sheathed-dagger and held her carefully as he listened to how Smoke proclaimed that Estrella now belonged to him, but Alvalar didn’t pay much attention beyond that.

When he looked upon the legendary blade, it felt like his breath was taken away... Inferno was beyond anything he ever imagined; its wooden scabbard was coated in a thick layer of red lacquer while gorgeous golden-red crocosmia flowers were painted in full bloom on top like they were rowing down a stream of shiny crimson. Surprised by its heavy weight and the tight yellow kakory silk that was tightly strapped to the sword’s golden handle, his eyes grew wide as he further appreciated the craftsmanship that went into the quillon’s detailed engravings that illustrated a bare-bodied woman with long wavy hair being gifted Inferno by the sun while carnage and corpses surrounded her like she was the sole person who reigned supreme in an ancient battle.

Alvalar couldn’t put his finger on it, but something inside of him began to build and build the more he held Inferno within his grasp. Nostalgia? Power? Confidence? No matter how he tried to classify the feeling, none of them felt quite right. What he could classify without an issue, however, was the feeling of wrongness that slowly crept into his heart. Do I really deserve this?

Suddenly, his garnet-colored Ezra beads bursted from their hold on his wrist and splattered onto the jungle floor like they were being used in a game of marbles. Tightly furrowing his brows, Alvalar couldn’t help but stare at his wrist with bewilderment.

Óroya, or Local Wise-women, bestowed the bracelets with the ability of acting as a bridge between the two worlds, helping the people communicate with the Patron Ancestors that the women were so innately attuned to. Depending on the skill of the Óroya, the link was a powerful one that should never break.

However, Esperanza’s fifth generation Óroya and Aureliano’s mother, Leona Alfonso Fuentes, did mention a cause for a bracelet’s sudden rupture once when Alvalar met her for his Coming-of-Age Ritual on his tenth birthday. The only thing that could cause such a connection to break is something of greater power than me, but that something does not dwell here in the physical realm like you or I, Óroya Leona explained to the crowd of newly-turned ten-year-olds that sat in a circle in the middle of the zahrah jungle during twilight. For it to break, the Patron Ancestor themselves, whichever you are going to choose tonight, must have absorbed a wicked energy to protect you from a premature death, causing the string inside their respective bracelet to snap. This can only happen once, regardless of the number of different Patron Ancestor beads you may hold in the future.

But what type of premature death was Ezra trying to protect Alvalar from? He was already away from the fire’s clutches and able to breathe in mostly clean air. Not only that, but there was no blasting sand to be thrown at him or swords to tear into his flesh, so what was it?

“I’m sorry,” Huǒ-Hè’s voice suddenly arose as clear as day.

“AL, GET DOWN!” Karollus shouted after he let out a sharp gasp. Before the metalsmith apprentice could continue his questioning as to the sudden destruction of his Ezra beads, the baker’s son leaped across the air, protectively wrapping his arms around Alvalar as he forced him to the ground.

Still wrapped snuggly in Karollus’ arms, Alvalar gazed back to where he once stood and watched Smoke have his head taken from him as a sword tore through his neck like a knife to paper.

With blood splattering high in the air with the ferocity of a waterfall, the birthday boy’s chestnut eyes grew wide with disbelief as he watched, his mouth agape. His hold on Inferno faltered, tumbling to the floor and clattered like a thick bar of iron. Hesitant at first, tears soon quickened their pace more and more with each passing minute, scurrying down those fat and ugly cheeks of his while his heart became increasingly cold.

Words escaped his grasp as he witnessed how his father’s headless body wavered about, unsure whether it should lay against the roots of a tree alongside his severed head or all by its lonesome upon the shifty dirt. Smoke’s corpse finally decided to lay beside his decapitated head, acting like it was but a curtain that unveiled the snake-masked woman who stood behind them all, crimson-soaked sword in hand.

Even though her identity was shrouded behind that vizard, she was still the owner of that strange, tornado-like sword whose style he could not place a few hours ago and had that very same voice that once mesmerized him: Huǒ-Hè Zhuó.