Beneath the mask

CHAPTER TEN – “Beneath the Mask”

The wind howled around Firespire Cliff, carrying the sharp tang of ash. Rowan pulled her cloak tighter, squinting against the spray of sparks that drifted from the molten cracks far below. Heat licked at her skin, searing and alive, as though the mountain itself breathed fire.

Kai stood at the jagged edge, arms crossed, his silhouette outlined by the dying sun. He didn’t move, didn’t even flinch when the ground rumbled. His eyes were fixed on the horizon where the sky burned orange and violet.

“You brought me here for a reason,” Rowan said carefully. Her voice was almost lost to the roar of fire below.

His jaw tightened. “I shouldn’t have.”

She tilted her head. “Then why did you?”

For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer. Silence stretched, heavy and raw, broken only by the rumble of magma deep in the earth. Finally, he exhaled, shoulders rising then falling as though the weight pressing down had grown too heavy.

“Because you keep asking what I’m hiding,” he said. His voice was low, scraped thin. “And maybe… you deserve part of the truth.”

Rowan’s heart stumbled in her chest. She stepped closer, careful not to push too hard. “Part of it,” she said, softer now, “is better than nothing.”

Kai’s eyes flickered, stormy with something she couldn’t name. He didn’t reply. Instead, he turned and led her down a narrow path carved into the cliffside. The trail twisted sharply, forcing them between jagged stone and glowing vents where molten light pulsed like veins beneath the surface.

Rowan followed, the heat growing thicker, pressing against her lungs. At last, the path opened into a hollow of black stone. In the center, a shallow pool glimmered—not with water, but with molten fire, shifting like liquid gold and blood.

Rowan froze. “What… is this?”

“My memory pool,” Kai said, kneeling by the edge. His voice had lost all its sharpness—it was quiet, nearly reverent. “It shows what fire remembers. I’ve tried to bury these memories, but the flames never forget.”

He stretched a hand toward the surface. His fingers didn’t burn. Ripples spread, and suddenly images rose within the glow.

Rowan’s breath caught.

A boy—small, dark-haired, eyes too sharp for his age—sat alone in a cold chamber of stone. He pressed his knees to his chest, staring into the shadows as though the dark might bite him.

Kai’s voice was low, almost bitter. “I was born during an eclipse. The priests called it a blessing. The Council called it a curse.”

The molten pool shifted. Now Rowan saw the boy again, older this time, surrounded by other trainees. The air shimmered as fire built around his hands. The boy’s face tightened in concentration—then broke. The flames burst outward, roaring across the hall. Students screamed. Walls cracked and splintered. Heat devoured everything.

Rowan gasped, stumbling back. The entire wing collapsed in fire and smoke.

Kai’s face hardened as he watched. “I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t stop it. One second I was trying to control the spark, and the next… everything was burning.”

The pool shifted again. Guards dragging the boy away. Heavy doors slamming shut. Darkness. Silence.

Rowan’s chest tightened. She whispered, “They locked you up.”

“For a year.” His tone was flat, detached, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed him. “A year in stone walls with nothing but my fire to keep me company. I was eleven. They didn’t see a boy—they saw a weapon they couldn’t trust.”

Rowan’s hands curled into fists. “That’s cruel.”

Kai let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Cruel? No. Realistic. They were afraid I’d burn the Academy to ash. And they weren’t wrong.”

“You were a child,” Rowan said fiercely.

He didn’t look at her. “And children grow into monsters if no one stops them.”

His voice cracked on the last word, and for a heartbeat Rowan heard not the prince everyone feared—but the boy who had been thrown into the dark.

She stepped closer, crouching beside him. The molten light painted his face in shifting shades of gold and scarlet, softening the steel edge in his jaw.

“Is that what you believe?” she asked gently. “That you’re a monster?”

Kai didn’t answer. His lips pressed into a thin line, his gaze locked on the fire.

Rowan’s heart ached. She reached out slowly, hesitating before her fingers brushed the mark etched along his collarbone—the jagged dragon sigil that pulsed faintly with heat. His breath caught at the contact, but he didn’t move away.

“You’re not a curse,” she whispered.

His eyes flicked to hers, searching, almost desperate. “Then what am I?”

Rowan swallowed, steadying her voice. “You’re a warning the world never listened to. Not a curse. Not a monster. Just someone they were too blind to understand.”

The firepool rippled as if echoing her words.

For a moment, silence pressed in again, but this time it wasn’t empty. It thrummed, alive, the space between them charged like the air before a storm.

Kai’s mask—the hard edge he always wore—slipped, just for a second. She saw it then. Not the prince. Not the weapon. Just the boy who had been locked away, afraid of his own flames.

Her fingers lingered against his dragon mark.

And for the first time, Kai didn’t pull away.