I didn't have time to scream at anyone, which usually meant things were already bad.
"Cinders, gather flame threads from every open hearth. Seal the perimeter ones last."
She nodded once and vanished across the courtyard, shouting in clipped bursts. I heard Relay cursing before I saw him—already halfway into the village's half-broken relay shrine, elbow-deep in cracked mosscrete.
Thirteen minutes wasn't a lot.
And the fire didn't wait.
The first flicker came at the eleven-minute mark. Nothing dramatic. Just a twitch in the air. A hesitation in how the wind moved through heat. Like the sky had second thoughts about what warmth was supposed to feel like.
The villagers felt it too.
Some clutched candles like anchors. Others backed away from the main basin, whispering words that didn't belong to any liturgy I'd taught. One of them—an older woman with soot-dark nails—held her hands above a pile of ash and whispered for forgiveness.
