The innkeeper's shout echoed down the narrow hallway.
"You two! Out! Now!"
Orion blinked awake to the sound of footsteps stomping toward the room. Damien sat up, groggy and annoyed. "What now?"
The door flew open. The innkeeper, a balding man with a wine-red vest and a permanent scowl, tossed a bloodstained sheet onto the floor.
"You think I was joking when I said 'No bleeding on the furniture!' It's the one damn rule!"
Damien raised his hands. "Come on, man, we thought you were kidding. Who actually makes a rule like that?"
"I do!" the man snapped. "And now you're out. No refunds. You ruined a perfectly good mattress!"
Orion sat up, wincing as his shoulder throbbed beneath bandages. "We didn't mean to break your rules…"
"Nope! I don't care if you were stabbed by a griffin or kissed by a banshee. Blood's blood. Get out before I call the constable"
Damien muttered curses under his breath as they packed their things. "Man owns an inn and acts like he runs a church, and who the hell calls them constables in this day and age."
"Let it go," Orion said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "We've been through worse."
Setting: Marketplace
They found Sirven at his usual corner of the trade district — hunched under a tarp, counting coins and humming off-key.
"You boys look like hell," he said without looking up.
"We got kicked out of the inn," Damien muttered.
Sirven chuckled. "What'd you do? Bleed on the drapes?"
"On the bed," Orion replied.
Sirven slapped his knee. "That man's nuts about his furniture. Probably sleeps on plastic sheets himself."
Orion leaned forward. "We need information. have you heard of any place a man by the name of cyrus the eteranl flame may have laid low — somewhere quiet, somewhere he could stay for a while without being found."
Sirven tapped his pipe against the table. "Now that's a good question. I've heard from a few traveling merchants I trust — there's a place people go when they don't want to be found. Not just a stopover. A town off the grid. Name's Starhaven."
Damien scratched his chin. "Never heard of it."
"You wouldn't," Sirven said. "No checkpoints. No officers. Country folk. Real salt-of-the-earth types. A few miles west, tucked near the forest line. That's where your man more than likely would go if the heat was on, no pun intended."
Orion nodded slowly. "Then that's where we're headed, thanks"
Setting: Starhaven
The ride was long but quiet, the terrain flattening into wide golden fields and soft rolling hills. By sundown, they reached the hand-carved sign at the entrance: Welcome to Starhaven — chipped, weathered, and sincere.
A breeze rolled through the wheat fields. Somewhere, a wind chime sang gently in the dusk air.
Orion slowed his pace, eyes scanning the humble rooftops and open porches.
"This town…" he said quietly. "It feels like Augustine."
Damien looked over. "That where you're from?"
"Yeah." Orion's voice dipped. "Before everything."
Exterior : The Hideout
Just outside the edge of Starhaven, into the woods. There, half-swallowed by moss and years, sat a timber cabin, still sturdy despite the passing time.
Inside, dust and silence blanketed everything. The place felt more like a memory than a home.
Damien opened a cabinet filled with booze. "Looks like Cyrus had good taste, this stuff is vintage."
In the back room, they found a locked trunk. Damien picked it open with ease.
Inside: tattered journals, a worn satchel, and a faded red cloth wrapped around a rusted emblem — the mark of the Eternal Flame.
The journals were filled with faded handwriting, Cyrus's voice cutting through the years with blunt, burning honesty.
"Met a rookie today. Malden. Thought he was a kid playin' dress-up in a badge. But his eye were serious .....too serious."
"He's climbing the ranks fast. heard he made Lieutenant now, as if the world needed another trigger-happy punk with something to prove."
"Every time I see him, there's less of a man, more of a machine, cold, calculated he's been tracking our gang since the border town incident, had to put down a rival group that tried to come for my head i keep telling jace one day that temper of his will get us caught up in something id have to burn our way out of i hope he takes those words to heart."
Orion ran a hand over the brittle paper. Damien read over his shoulder.
"This Malden Guy sounds like a real piece of work," he muttered.
"No," Orion said quietly. "He's just a soon-to-be dead man who gets off on causing pain."
Further in, the journals shifted focus — from Malden to the shard.
"It speaks sometimes. The shard. Like a voice just behind the flame. Other outlaws, they never talk about this. I think mine's different."
"It doesn't just burn — it thinks. Remembers. It's not just power. It's alive."
"Found a place — waterfall tucked between stone hills. I've been Training there every week. Learned how to control it, the fire inside. To make the flame serve me, not consume me."
"Eventually… the water never touched me."
Orion closed the journal, jaw tight. "We're going there."
Training Grounds
The waterfall wasn't far — a massive cascade spilling into a natural basin, framed by black stone cliffs. It thundered like the heartbeat of the forest.
Orion stepped into the icy water, igniting his flames.
Damien sat nearby, arms crossed. "You're gonna try to stand in that?"
Orion nodded. "If Cyrus could learn control here, so can I."
Steam erupted as flame met water. At first, the fire struggled, flickering, shrinking. But Orion held firm — his mind focused on every breath, every drop.
Two minutes. Then three.
By the fifth, steam rose around him like smoke from a forge.
Damien stood. "While you're doing that, I might as well work on my own tricks."
"You thinking of sparring?" Orion asked without looking back.
"Not till you stop setting everything on fire," Damien said with a grin.
Orion continued training until nightfall, practicing control over his flames.
That night, back at the cabin, Orion sat by the hearth, one of Cyrus's journals resting in his lap.
He read in silence until Damien spoke.
"You think he left all this for you?"
Orion looked up. "Maybe not for me specifically, it sounds like he was just leaving his story so anyone who found it would know the truth, his truth."
Damien was leaning against the doorframe. "Didn't think he was the sentimental type."
"old man cy was always trying to guide me in his own way i guess he saw it as a way to repent for his past. Regardless i wouldn't trade that time for anything."
Outside, the wind rustled the trees. Inside the shard, the Phoenix stirred — patient, watching, waiting to rise again.