El sat on the edge of the building, her feet kicking back and forth gently over the side as she stared intently at her hands. At what she held in her hands. Part of her couldn’t believe it was real—that she had it right there—but there was no denying the texture of it between her fingers. At the sheer weight of it. It was… everything. Life itself. It was…

  “That the new fiery pork bomb mark two I’ve been hearing so much about?” Nexin asked, the sound of his feet landing on the roof behind her.

  “Don’t expect me to share,” El said to her brother without taking her eyes off the sandwich. The original fiery pork bomb—mark one, as they were calling it now—was quite possibly her favorite thing in the world. This new one, though, if what they said was true, could potentially blow her socks off. Which is why my feet are dangling off the edge of a secluded roof. Not at all because I didn’t want to be interrupted…

  “You? Share food? Anella, we’ve been siblings for how long now? Our whole lives. I know better than to ask you to share.” Nexin walked over and gave her shoulder a gentle nudge as he spoke, and she could hear the playfulness in his voice.

  She still wasn’t going to look away from the sandwich. The way the shredded pork practically oozed the fiery sauce, the greens and oranges of the peppers standing out, and the crisp yet soft texture of the bread. And a fried egg on top of all that? Genius! Pure, maniacal genius. No, no she couldn’t wait anymore.

  Without responding to her brother, El took her first bite of the sandwich, and true to the name, fiery flavor exploded her in her mouth. And… and… it was everything. She practically purred as she savored every slow chew before finally swallowing down.

  “So. Good. How have I lived without this?” she asked nobody in particular when her mouth was finally empty.

  Nexin sat down beside her on the edge of the building, something wrapped in wax paper in his hand extended towards her. “Since you’re actually going to have to live without them for a while, I brought you a second.”

  “That’s why you’re my best brother.” She gestured with her eyes for him to put the sandwich between them. She’d get to that soon enough.

  “Pretty sure I’m your only brother,” Nexin pointed out.

  “Eeeeeh, the other kids from the orphanage were constantly bringing me things.”

  “Cause they were afraid of you.”

  “They were not.”

  “Totally were. You know that’s why they had the party when we left.”

  “I thought they were happy for us?”

  “Happy to see us go,” Nexin joked.

  “Are you blaming me for us never getting adopted?” El asked, eyeing Nexin sideways with a raised eyebrow.

  “Naaaah. We got into the Academy young this way. It was good for us.”

  El nodded while she took another bite of the sandwich—It’s burning good!—and remembered what she could from the orphanage. A lot of it was a blur, they’d taken her in when she was a baby after all, but the memories weren’t bad ones. Nexin had always been with her, and she’d made some good friends… except… she hadn’t seen any of them since them. Burn it, she couldn’t even remember their faces. And, the more she tried to, the hazier everything got.

  Stop trying to force it, El. Just go to the orphanage later and ask about the other kids who were there at the same time. Then you can see their faces instead of trying to remember them. I wonder what they’re up to. Firestorm like us? Uh, I hope none of them ended up becoming Cardinals…

  The memory of the Church believers spontaneously combusting wasn’t a memory that was fuzzy at all. Also, not a terrible memory, considering what those folks had been trying to do. Feeding academy Cadets and their Sparks—the source of their magic—to a giant golem to win a decades-long war in the name of a God who wanted to burn the world to ashes didn’t really put them high on her list of “good people.”

  And, the fact she’d gone along with it her whole life until recently didn’t make it any better.

  So, she shrugged to herself and took another bite, but a new thought occurred to her.

  “Hey, Nex?”

  “Yes, El?”

  “Why didn’t any of Mom or Dad’s friends take us in? Or… do we have any aunts or uncles?”

  Nexin looked at her for a moment before answering. “Huh, I guess we’ve never talked about it, have we?”

  El shook her head. They hadn’t. Not even once. “Why haven’t we?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Nexin blew out a breath. “My guess? By the time you were old enough to think about it, the Academy scooped us up.” He tapped the side of his head. “At that point, Pyre’s brainwashing to keep us focused on the war probably took over.”

  El scowled and almost put her sandwich down at the thought of the insidious influence the Church had held over the nation. At how they’d manipulated the people’s thoughts and emotions through their Sparks to keep them warring and conquering. To keep them gathering the Embers.

  Her eyes went to the central building in the city, the great flames—blue now—still roaring across an entire, large city block. Amidst the other buildings stylized in reds and oranges, shaped like flames themselves, the seat of the previous Church’s power was a stark contrast. Since the two gods had fought over the city, and the Pyre had gone back to sleep—saving the world in the process—the last three months had been about rebuilding.

  Rebuilding the city damaged in the battle. Rebuilding the governance, and the people’s trust in it. And, closest to El, rebuilding the Firestorm and their role in the new world.

  “Stupid Cardinal Scin. I’m glad I stabbed him,” El grumbled, taking another bite. “So? Aunts? Uncles? A favorite grandfather I don’t know about?”

  Nexin chuckled. “None that I know of. I asked the orphanage folks about it around when I was…?” He trailed off as if trying to pick the memory out of his head, but then his face scrunched up. “I… hrm… I must’ve been seven or eight, I guess.” A shake of his head. “Doesn’t matter. They said there wasn’t anybody. Our grandparents were Firestorm as well. They… died in battle like our parents did. No other children.”

  “I hope that’s not hereditary…” El said, side-eying Nexin, and they both kind of chuckled. “And, what, our parents were hermits with no friends who liked us enough to take us in?”

  “Also Firestorm,” Nexin said. “Same danger. Good chance we would’ve ended up at the orphanage anyway.”

  “I guess. Have you been back since we went to the Academy?”

  Nexin looked at her, face scrunched up again. “No. I haven’t.”

  “Do you remember where it is? I think I might go visit after we get back,” El said.

  “Kind of? We can go find it together.”

  “More likely get lost together,” El said.

  “Probably that one.” Nexin laughed. “On the topic of after we get back from our next trip,” he said, voice turning more serious. “Are you ready for this? It’ll be our longest one yet, and the first we’ve used the In-Between to get where we’re going.”

  El’s eyes went to the roaring blue flames again. “I am. We’ve been testing the limits of who and what I can take with me into the In-Between. Five other people, two Embers, at the maximum. I’m still not so great at figuring out where the exits are from the In-Between, but that’s why Sol is one of the ones coming with us.”

  “And why I’m going to babysit him,” Nexin grumbled.

  “Here I thought it was just because you wanted to spend time with your adorable little sister.”

  Nexin rolled his eyes. “Brass still don’t trust him. Burying half our troops in ice and leading an army of blue newts made them nervous. They aren’t sure he won’t do it again.”

  “I won’t,” a new voice said before Sol sat down on the edge of the roof on El’s other side. “Ah, I see you already have one of the new sandwiches. Sorry, make that two. I guess you don’t want…?” He trailed off, holding out a third, wax-paper-wrapped bundle.

  “Leave it with me. I’ll take good care of it,” El promised, and Sol put the sandwich down between them. “And, for the record, we know you won’t try anything. You’ve been doing nothing for the last three months but making sure we get the Embers back safe where they belong.”

  “Loss of power is scary,” Sol said. “Some of your generals worry returning the Embers—and in turn, weakening your Sparks—is just a ploy so I can gain the upper hand.”

  “Take it from somebody who actually fought you, you don’t need to gain an upper hand. You already have it,” Nexin said.

  “My strength isn’t what it was. With the Pyre slumbering again, my Goddess has retracted her touch on this world. A rematch between us would be a very different thing,” Sol said, but somehow he was smiling. Gone were the man’s flat eyes and expressionless face he’d come with. Over the last three months, it’d been like a summer thaw inside Sol’s emotions. Is this who he was before…?

  “How much weaker are you?” El asked. “Could I…?”

  “Not a chance,” Sol interrupted quickly.

  “But what if I…?”

  “Nope.”

  “My new flames…”

  “Wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Bah,” El grumbled, taking another bite of her sandwich. “But Nexin…?”

  “Might make a fight of it,” Sol said.

  “But he’s not…”

  “He is.”

  El glared at the man beside her. He wasn’t wearing his heavy plate armor or carrying that stupidly big sword anymore—in fact, he was dressed in the latest style, and looked pretty burning good in it, actually—but he didn’t need to be like that. Nexin wasn’t…

  Ah, who am I kidding. Yes, he is.

  “Bah,” she repeated. “Nexin, are you going to let him bully your little sister like this?”

  “Pretty sure you started it,” Nexin said.

  “Dunno how I feel about letting you two go off together now. You’re going to come back all chummy and gang up on me,” El said.

  “You can only take five people with you,” Sol said. “With how your generals feel, it makes sense to send Nexin with me. Anybody else and there’d be no slots left for people to support you.”

  “Speaking of, did you decide on who you’re bringing with you?” Nexin asked.

  “Not a hard decision, really. Nidina, Dayne, and Laze,” El said.

  “Faled and Teth are okay with that? Faled is still technically your wing leader—even with your new rank—and I didn’t think Teth would want to be apart from his twin sister,” Nexin said.

  “Nidina and Teth have been practically inseparable since everybody got de-iced. It’ll be good for them to have some apart time. She’s starting to rhyme like he does.”

  “Yup. Definitely time to separate them,” Nexin groaned.

  “Faled has moved a bit away from wing command also. They’ve got him working with a new support division of the Firestorm. He’s always had a good head for details, and if we’re not all just going to war all the time, there’s more we can offer to the country,” El explained.

  “Like mailmen and milk delivery?” Sol asked.

  “Probably… not exactly either of those things,” El said, but spotted the cheeky grin on the man’s face. “Still not used to you telling jokes.”

  Sol nodded. “Fair. Things are going to change, though. This continent has practically sat empty for decades since the Embers were brought here. It’s a good chance to spread out again. Trade with other nations. Peacefully.”

  “Which is why Faled is the right man for the job,” El said. “While we return the furthest Embers. Besides Guld, all the other ones on the continent have gone back. We’re going to the other side of the world through the In-Between. It’s kind of exciting in a way.”

  “Other than the lack of fiery pork bombs,” Nexin pointed out.

  El gathered her sandwiches protectively. “I’ve still got time. We don’t leave until tomorrow.”