(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

hands."
"You lie, supplicant," I hiss, "You have come to me with a story, and now you
are in danger of angering me."
"No, master..." The boy's face glistens with a sweaty sheen of fear. "No,
upon my life, I do not!"
"You burned yourself with a candle, supplicant. Or thrust your hand within
one of the pyres in the Vault of Currents. Now you come to me and tell me a
dream burned you. I tire of your lies."
The boy falls silent, and to my surprise, his face clenches in anger. "No. I do
not lie. It was the dream that burned me, master, as you said it might if we
felt the power stirring. They were your words, and I came to repeat them to
you and tell you they are true." He holds up his hands. "Look, master..."
With a rustle of my sleeves, my own hands lash out to clench his. The boy's
palms are tiny in my grip, and my meaty palms squeeze down to crush his
burned hands. He screams, and the din echoes in the vault. With a snarl, I
hurl him to the ground in front of the fireplace, and there is a sharp crack as
his knees strike the flagstones.
"Look into those flames, supplicant!" I snap, growling in his ear, "Raise your
head, look!"
The boy is shuddering from the pain... tears blur his eyes as he raises his
head to look into the fireplace. The flames cast his face in a red, gaunt
glow...
"Is that what you wish to hold, supplicant? Is the shaping of flames what
stirs your heart? Know that flames can burn, and if you would learn their
power, you must suffer their touch."
The boy is silent, staring into the flames. He seems mesmerized. His tears
have dried in the heat, and the shaking is gone. The flames are his focus. He
is not LISTENING to me, he has never LISTENED. The fury washes over me.
"If that is what consumes you, enough for you to intrude upon my
meditations, then I shall teach you of the shaping of flames, supplicant."
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