The gatekeepers allowed Kite and Snapper to enter the town without incident. As they arrived, the setting sun cast long shadows through the streets, and lamplight flickered from several windows. The two travelers stopped at a streetside cafe to purchase food.

When the meal arrived, Kite collected his portion and stepped out, “for a minute.” Snapper stayed at the cafe to rest his knees after the long walk.

A minute turned into five, then fifteen. Snapper finished the meal and slowly sipped a cup of hot water. Soon, the hot water was finished as well. As time passed, he wondered whether Kite had gotten lost, and perhaps whether he should go looking for the youth. Snapper quickly decided against it. He had already spent enough time walking today; if Kite wanted to frame Snapper and drag him away from his home, then Kite could take full responsibility for getting lost.

The cafe manager began to send Snapper impatient glances whenever he passed Snapper’s table. Many other customers had come and gone, yet Snapper was still sitting at the same table, surrounded by empty plates and an empty cup. Snapper pointedly lowered his hat and brought the empty cup to his mouth.

The manager huffed and grumbled, but Snapper ignored the noise. Kite had paid the manager good money for the food; as far as Snapper was concerned, the manager could put up with his presence until Kite returned.

Half an hour after wandering off, Kite’s dark cloak reappeared at the door.

“Just arranging a few things,” the youth said vaguely.

They left the cafe to find shelter for the night. The town had a maze-like network of streets, but Kite seemed able to navigate them with ease. Snapper followed the youth’s lead, wishing all the while for a map.

As the two newcomers walked down the main street, they passed a crowd gathered around a small torch-lit stage. Street performers were acting out a play. Kite took one look at the stage and immediately wandered over to join the crowd.

“Ah, this is a good story. One of the classics,” Kite said. He elbowed his way into a front-row spot with a clear view of the stage.

Snapper followed, unwilling to lose the one person he knew in an unfamiliar environment.

Atop the stage, costumed performers spun together in an elaborate formation. One actor wearing a red military uniform and a flame-shaped mask twirled across the stage. The bright colors of his costume seemed to glow under the torchlight. He waved a wooden sword draped in red and orange ribbons.

The back row of supporting performers stomped, clapped their hands, and chanted in unison.

“Emerging from seclusion, unveiled the Sun’s ambition.”

Red-clad arms pointed toward the sky, and hidden doors slid aside to reveal a hole in the stage floor. A cloud of steam emerged. Firelight shone up from below, setting the steam aglow. An actor in grey climbed out of the hole, haloed in light and crowned in silver.

A disorganized horde of supporting actors rushed in from backstage to kneel and bow before Grey. After everyone was prostrated, Red stepped to Grey’s right side and sank to one knee.

Red and Grey froze in this position for a moment. Another actor came to the stage now: a swordsman in green who knelt by Grey’s left hand, possessed of authority equal to Red’s own. A cheerful musical interlude began. When the last sounds of flute and strings faded, the back row chorus spoke again.

“Cleansing the faithless, upheld the Cloud’s justice.”

Rising from prostration, Green stabbed Grey in the back. Grey cried out and collapsed.

Red retaliated with a vicious attack. Red and Green fought a few rounds before Green fell to the ground, defeated. Music sounded again, solemn and heartbreakingly slow.

A woman in white appeared at the back of the stage. Red picked up a broom and rushed to White’s side, sweeping the floor before her feet. When they reached the dead swordsman, Red’s broom swept Green off the stage entirely.

White was crowned. Under her reign, lines of supporting actors marched across the stage in orderly formations. Each one wore a mask painted with a happy face.

This time, the music that played was a fast whirl of ascent and descent. As the music went on, Red used his broom to sweep away those actors who deviated from the formation.

“Descending in flame, raised the Gold’s acclaim.”

Tense music swelled with a crescendo. Green climbed back onto the stage, and the supporting actors scurried away until only Red and Green faced each other.

Red fought Green in another sequence of flashy combat choreography. This time, Green won by tripping Red off the stage. Red fell in slow motion, suspended by a hidden rope as he was lowered from the stage to the ground. Colorful paper confetti poured over Red from a hidden window in the stage.

White dropped to her knees, letting loose a piercing wail.

The yellow merchant from the first act came to the edge of the stage to watch red’s fall. A glittering crown sat upon Yellow’s head, and the mask over Yellow’s face sported an enormous grin. He raised one arm in victory.

Regal, pompous music sounded in the well-known tune of the imperial court’s national anthem.

The actors froze in this scene as the national anthem played. Green and Yellow stood triumphantly at the edge of the stage, peering down as though the entire world lay beneath their feet. White knelt to the side with hands over her face, mournful and defeated. Red sprawled below the platform, still partly suspended from the stage by a rope.

When the music finished, the supporting chorus gave a single, unified clap.

All of the performers, live and dead, returned to the stage and lined up. The actor in red leapt into a series of flashy sword routines that culminated in a heroic pose.

“Three reigns crowned by one life, let his legend be known forevermore: the Kingmaker of the West.”

The audience cheered—all but one. The hooded fellow at the edge of the crowd elbowed the old fisherman by his side.

“Psh. What Kingmaker? More like Kingfisher, am I right? Hehe…”

The fisherman ignored Kite’s words completely, still staring at the stage even though the show had ended. Sometime around the second act, Snapper had gone pale and motionless. He had not made a sound during the performance, but his mouth often twitched as though preparing to speak.

When no response came, Kite looked at Snapper. They were close enough together that the shadows of Snapper’s reed hat could not conceal his wide eyes and thunderstruck expression.

“Snapper? Are you still with me?”

“…” Snapper’s left eyelid spasmed, but he otherwise remained frozen. His feet were planted on the ground as though braced for a fight, and white-knuckled fists were clenched at his sides. The air around Snapper shimmered like a mirage, heating and cooling in time with his rapid breaths.

“Alright, time to go.” Kite dragged Snapper away by the arm.

As they passed the stage, Kite left a generous stack of gold coins for the performers.

They went to a nearby inn. Kite secured a room on the second floor and brought the shaken fisherman there. The room had two sleeping mats, a moveable partition, and a table with two chairs. A basin of water and an empty bucket sat in one corner. There was one partly shuttered window, and the fading afternoon daylight cast the whole room in a diffuse glow.

Snapper sank into a chair. Kite lounged in the opposite one, propping his boots on the table. The ill manners irritated Snapper, who had enough sensibility not to put his feet where food was served, but he was perturbed enough to merely grimace instead of scolding the other.

Kite’s fingers drummed against his sword, tapping an irregular pattern on the hilt. “What are your thoughts? Did the play... remind you of anything?”

“Treachery and broken oaths,” Snapper wanted to say, but the words lodged in his throat. The promise of fire rushed through his veins, pulsing a steady drumbeat in his ears. If he called upon the power within, he could set right all that was wrong in the world. Yet the events of the play were all in the past, remnants of truth whispered amid old stories, while he was here in the present. No desire could change what had already been done; the power he possessed now could not mend what had been broken long ago. Snapper stared at the floor for several seconds before he felt stable enough to speak.

“There is one part I don’t understand. The green general. Why did he betray a king who granted him the highest honors? Why resort to low tricks during an honorable duel against the red general?”

Beneath those words, a deeper question stuck in Snapper’s throat: why had red and green stood in opposition when they could have reshaped history, had they only united for a common cause? Yet Snapper knew, with a fathomless dread, that such an alliance was not meant to be. So long as the red and green generals were equal in will as well as capability, they could not coexist in harmony, for even the slightest difference in oaths and philosophies would one day diverge, and thus their aims must collide.

Kite’s eyes narrowed, and his tapping fingers clenched around the hilt of his sword. Snapper tensed, ready to leap from the chair if Kite turned violent. Leap from the chair and—and nothing. They were sitting within arm’s reach of each other. If Kite attacked, summoning fire would not stop that sword from piercing Snapper’s organs. Caster or not, steel in the right place would send anyone to an early grave. The cursed steel of Kite’s energy-draining blade would lead to the same result even more quickly.

“Who knows why that one tossed away everything he’d accomplished? If it were me, I wouldn’t—not for that reason, anyhow. But if tricks work, then who has the right to call them low?” Kite replied. One hand fluttered through the air in casual dismissal. “In any case, it’s best not to interpret old stories too literally. What we saw is only a play. Don’t overthink it.”

“Only a play. Right,” Snapper repeated, closing his eyes. The scenes lingered, sights and sounds of the performance burned into his memory. He pulled a breath of cool air into his lungs and slowly exhaled it. “Only a play.”

After a few minutes of meditative breathing exercises, Snapper heard a chair scrape across the floor. A hand hesitantly patted his shoulder. Then, Kite’s footsteps retreated from the room, and the door swung closed.

Left to his own thoughts, Snapper reflected upon the source of his disquietude. The performance stirred a deep sense of wrongness within Snapper’s mind, but he could not isolate one single problem. Was it when the green general had stabbed the grey king, failure and heartbreak sealed together in one sweep of the blade? Was it when the red general fell in defeat, his flames unravelling and purpose unfulfilled? Was it when the final winner had been that merchant in yellow? That one had no right to the throne—that power-hungry con artist, that conniving fraud had duped the whole kingdom into giving him the crown. That one deserved to be buried alive in his own golden treasure vaults, forgotten as dust to be swept away from beneath the rightful heir’s feet.

Snapper’s hands clenched to fists upon the chair armrests. A crackling sound buzzed below the pulse pounding in his eardrums. Smoke drifted to his nose, acrid and woody. Eyes popped open. On the armrests of the chair, black scorch marks outlined two clenched fists. Grey wisps lazily spiraled up from beneath Snapper’s hands. He flinched away from the smoldering wood, blowing on his palms to cool them down. How could a mere scene evoke such emotion? He had never heard the original story before, and here he was, flying into a rage over imagined details that were not even shown in today’s performance.

Fresh air would help. Snapper flung open the wooden shutters of the window. With his upper body hanging halfway outside, Snapper drew several deep breaths and tried to focus on calming his racing heart. The crisp breeze soothed his nerves, caressing his face and ruffling his hair like a gentle hand.

The window opened out toward the back of the inn. From this second floor vantage point, Snapper could see a little ways up and down the narrow alley. It was sparsely traveled, with the most common occupants being a few local pigeons chasing scraps of food amid the loose dirt, but the rare person would send the flock of pigeons flying with a chorus of panicked squawks. This repeated twice, and each time, Snapper smiled softly at the flutter of grey wings.

Another person came down the path. Snapper recognized Kite’s dark grey clothes and sword. The pigeons took flight again, but one was too slow to dodge Kite’s kick. The crunch was audible from Snapper’s high window. The poor bird tumbled away with one wing askew.

Kite pinned the struggling bird under one boot, ready to finish the job, and Snapper could not watch anymore.

“Oy, Kite!” Snapper called, waving from the window.

Kite glanced up, boot lifting as he turned. The injured pigeon hopped away. A grin spread across the youth’s face. “Hello, old fellow. Feeling better?”

Snapper nodded and pointed at the parcel that Kite was carrying. “What do you have there?”

“Something useful.” He sounded happy.

A woman carrying a basket of vegetables came up the path behind Kite, whose current position underneath Snapper’s window had blocked most of the alley. She paused a respectable distance away and cleared her throat.

Kite turned around. “What?”

“Sorry, I just wanted to pass—” The woman stopped with a sharp inhale. Her basket fell to the ground, scattering carrots and lettuce across the path. She jabbed a finger at Kite. “You! You’re the one who attacked my caravan last month.” Glancing up at Snapper, the woman shouted, “Old man, cover your eyes!”

The woman waved both arms in a complicated arc, and the shadows near her feet began to crawl with a life of their own. Tendrils of darkness spiraled through the air, turning her figure into a blurred silhouette.

Snapper gasped. “Careful, she’s a Caster—”

Steel plunged into flesh. The shadows vanished, and the woman was sprawled out with Kite’s sword sticking out of her neck. Kite had thrown the sword with lethal aim from several paces away. Once the body stopped twitching, Kite advanced to reclaim his weapon. His fingers brushed the sword hilt, and the pinned body began to shrivel. Flesh folded in on itself until only an ancient-looking husk remained. When Kite extracted the blade, bright metal gleamed without a trace of blood.

Snapper pressed a hand over his mouth. The unfortunate Caster’s last words had been a warning for Snapper’s sake, yet Snapper’s own warning to Kite might well have contributed to the Caster’s sudden demise.

“If you’re going to puke, use the bucket. I’ll be up in a minute,” Kite said. He grabbed a handful of cloth and dragged the corpse away.

Being outside was too much for Snapper. He sank to the floor next to the window, resting his head on his hands.

A few minutes later, the door opened. A parcel dropped onto the table.

“All better, old fellow?” Kite looked immensely pleased. “Check this out.”

With one hand resting on the sword pommel, Kite waved the other hand in front of his face. Shadows floated from his fingertips to settle over his features. The effect was similar to the natural shadows that might appear while wearing a cowl or broad hat, but this patch of darkness lingered even when Kite stepped into the sunlight streaming from the window.

“More fashionable than using a handkerchief like common bandits, right? A pity that it would fade in a few days. That Caster was weak.” Kite waved his hand again, and the shadows dispersed.

“You can control shadows? How?” Snapper’s gaze drifted to the sword hanging at the youth’s side. It looked like an ordinary weapon in every way, but the horrific death of the impaled Caster lingered behind Snapper’s eyelids. “That ‘Rifter’ of yours...”

“Just a trick I learned from a wandering sage,” Kite said, repeating his words from earlier. His fingers curled around the sword’s hilt. “Don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t find it interesting.”

Snapper took the hint and fell silent. He had heard stories about Caster artifacts that could drain energy—lumps of rock, intricately crafted mechanisms, even weapons. These artifacts could give their owners a significant fighting advantage against enemies. Unfortunately, Snapper had not given the idea much thought in the past, preferring to focus on the practicalities of daily work as a fisherman. Old rumors had been too distant from his life back then. Now, when faced with a working example of a Caster artifact, Snapper found the whole concept fascinating.

Whether Snapper would be interested in Kite’s methods was something only Snapper felt qualified to judge. In fact, he was most certainly interested. However, as always, the weak must yield to the will of the strong; Kite had a sword of unnatural capability, while Snapper had neither weapons nor the experience to use them. If Kite did not want to discuss the sword’s strange properties, then Snapper ought not to press lest he meet the same fate as the other victims.

He turned away, searching for a diversion. Asking about the merchants that Kite had allegedly attacked would not ease the atmosphere, though Snapper could not fully quash his curiosity. Glancing around, he spotted a better distraction on the table.

The parcel that Kite had brought back was a book with plain covers and a copper-embossed title. Letters in the common speech denoted the title as, “Mastering the Way of Flame, Volume I of IV.” Below that was scrawled a line of glyphs in Northern Script, proclaiming the book as, “Mastering the Road of Cooking, Chapter 1 of +.” Snapper’s mouth twitched, and he traced the addition symbol in the second line with a fingertip.

“A training manual for fire Casters,” Kite explained. “You were once a master of these techniques. Read and study well. Once you learn these skills, we should seek refuge in the Empire. Your village militia cannot pass its walls. Talismans are strictly monitored there—no one would dare to seal your power again.”

Whether by overexposure or simple lack of understanding, Kite’s face betrayed no sign of humor at the absurd book title. Snapper withdrew his hand and rearranged his own bemused smile into appropriate seriousness.

“Empire,” Snapper echoed. The word was a promise of safety, unity, purpose—a good word, though no more real to Snapper than any of the other old stories. No one from Snapper’s village was likely to venture as far west as the Empire’s borders; they only spoke of it as a distant and fantastical place where powerful Casters went, never to return to the humble outlands.

As the old tales went, “The Empire of Gold welcomes outlanders bold,” and precisely no one else. Decades ago, the Empire had built a wall dividing its prosperous cities from the wilderness of the outlands. Travel between the interior and exterior had thus been heavily restricted. Only outsiders with the potential for valuable contributions were allowed to enter—the finest artisans, the most accomplished soldiers, or the sharpest minds of the world beyond. However, people committed crimes all the time; two fugitives fleeing a murder charge were far from exceptional.

“The Empire’s walls enclose no major seas or lakes. What use is a fisherman to the Crown?” The question slipped from Snapper before he could temper the sudden and unquenchable thirst for a real purpose beyond simply existing.

"This fisherman is more useful than you know.” Kite nudged the book forward. “Go on, take a look. After your power is restored to its full potential, we shall contend for rank among the elite Casters of the Empire. Think of the fame and riches we could earn!”

Snapper did not care much for material rewards, and official rank meant little to someone who spent his days far from any hierarchy, but the prospect of better understanding an integral part of himself was too tempting to let pass. He reached for leather-bound parchment.

The first page of the book had a simple candle-lighting exercise. Snapper set a candle on the table and pointed two fingers at the wick, following the diagrams drawn in the book. He summoned the tiniest sliver of energy. Heat rushed down his arm to fill the air, and the room vanished in a flare of white.

The candle indeed lit up, and so did the rest of the room. The book would have burned to cinders if Kite had reacted a moment slower. Luckily, the youth’s dark cloak was fireproof and sturdy enough to smother the flames. Once the book had been saved, Kite rushed around the room, stamping out embers and suffocating other fires that had erupted from Snapper’s sudden flare.

Energy pulsed within Snapper, eager to fly outward once more. He pinched out the candle wick and tried again.

A hungry gaze watched him practice.

After the third major accident, Snapper relocated to the forests outside town when experimenting with new Caster techniques. There was a small natural clearing not far from the road; when practicing, he could see the road and town walls in the distance, but travelers ought not to be disturbed by the random flashes of heat from his experiments. He went to the middle of this clearing to practice, bringing the slightly charred training manual and a thick blanket to smother any stray fires.

According to Kite, the Empire had high standards for permitting foreigners to enter its walled cities; safe passage to the capital would require a combination of impressive Caster skill and extravagant bribery. Every day, Snapper spent hours honing his abilities while Kite ran odd errands and came back with money. The youth was either working honest jobs or robbing people. Snapper rather suspected the latter option, but he could hardly complain when the steady income allowed him free time to practice. Using his power was a euphoric experience, similar to stretching out a leg that had been folded long enough to go numb—it took some effort to gain control, but as he developed a better sense for using it, Snapper felt like he could sprint for miles and miles.

Kite often came to the woods while Snapper practiced. The youth would spend hours watching from just far enough away to avoid the intense heat from Snapper’s unstable energy. Occasionally, he copied Snapper’s motions without using any Caster power. Snapper found this sight rather amusing, since exercises practiced without any active Casting resembled little more than random flailing. In any case, the physical exercises were an inexact training method, meant only to help novice Casters sense the flow of energy; a true master would need nothing but a thought to call forth his power.

Today, Kite had a small parcel in hand. He waited while Snapper practiced tying a rope-shaped column of pure heat into a knot. Once Snapper dispelled the knotted rope, the youth approached.

“Time for a lunch break.” Kite offered the parcel, which turned out to be a loaf of fresh-baked bread.

While Snapper ate, Kite attempted to copy the fire-rope. However, this time, he was not simply repeating the motion of Snapper’s arms. Fire trailed from Kite’s fingertips, dim and wispy where Snapper’s was a continuous stream. If Snapper’s work could be called a rope, Kite’s attempt was a frayed thread.

“Your sword. Did it eat a fire Caster today?” Snapper tried to keep his tone light, though the notion was a bit sickening. His discomfort must have shown, though, since Kite turned with a scoff.

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t anyone important. I ran into a bandit while escorting some merchants.”

“Oh.” Snapper thought about this for a while as he finished off the last few bites of his meal.

Meanwhile, Kite continued trying to create the rope. He waved flaming hands around, created an unsatisfactory shape, consulted the training manual, and repeated this process several times. The sheer determination was admirable, but Kite made little progress.

After fifteen minutes, the frayed thread of energy had become a frayed string. In that time, Kite’s temper had grown just as frayed. When the fire-string dissipated yet again, he kicked a stone across the clearing and punched a tree. A moment later, he slouched against the roots of that same tree. Head bowed in defeat, he took out his sword and started healing the bloody knuckles.

Snapper took pity on the frustrated youth. He demonstrated the move slowly, starting with a melon-sized globe of heat between two palms and stretching it into a long rope. This method differed from the diagrams shown in the training manual, but Snapper had found it far more effective than the original.

The demonstration caught Kite’s full attention. His earlier attempts had aimed to create the rope directly, since Snapper had already been manipulating a rope-like shape when Kite arrived with food. Kite had not seen how the rope was first created. Thus, Kite had missed an essential starting point, one that the manual also failed to explain.

After watching Snapper demonstrate the full process, Kite uttered a small, “ah.” Fueled by the borrowed power, he summoned a ball of flame that was smaller than Snapper’s but just as steady. The globe hung between his hands for a moment, lashing at his fingers. Kite grimaced at the heat, but his focus did not waver. Copying Snapper’s motions, Kite managed to create a smooth, uniformly distributed ribbon of fire.

“So this is how it’s done. Nice.” The ribbon glowed for a few moments longer, twisting into various loops and other shapes over Kite’s hands.

Snapper summoned a small flame over his own palm and extinguished it. If Snapper could use these techniques after studying the training manual for only a week, someone with the youth’s persistence and supposed age should have reached mastery long ago. However, Kite’s grasp of the fundamentals seemed even worse than Snapper’s had been before any practice.

“If you can steal power with that sword, why didn’t you study Caster techniques on your own? Why only start now?”

“Time passes quickly when you’re… otherwise occupied.” Kite’s heel twisted into the ground, scraping a hole in the leaf litter. He avoided Snapper’s gaze. “If you ever meet the Sage Doctor, don’t try to talk. People of his sort don’t listen to reason. Just run.”

It was difficult to imagine Kite running from anything, but Snapper nodded. The youth had not led him astray yet.

Brushing the crumbs off his trousers, Snapper went to check the training manual. The next exercise beckoned. Energy coalesced between his fingers, and he twisted it into a more advanced move: a woven net and the corresponding fiery fish.

Training in the woods, driven by no goal except the refinement of his own skill, Snapper felt more alive than ever before.