Smoke Without Fire

Date: Unknown
Location: A collapsed windmill outside Delvar
 
They call it a "camp."
It’s more of a grave that refused to close.
 
There are maybe fifteen of them—horned and hollow-eyed, hiding beneath rotted canvas and illusion spells that flicker when it rains. Children, mostly. Some old. A couple like me, shaped by suffering and still trying to make the shape mean something.
 
They didn’t recognize me at first. That was a gift. I watched from the edge of the trees, hidden behind a glamour and guilt. One girl had tiny stub-horns and a too-large coat. She was trying to light a cooking fire with no tinder and no help, her fingers shaking in the cold. She reminded me of myself. Before the chains. Before the fire.
 
I stepped in.
Lit the fire with a snap of my fingers.
She flinched like I'd hit her.
 
That’s the thing people don’t talk about—how even your own kind can look at you like you’re the next storm. And maybe I am. But I didn’t hurt her. I just handed her a spark.
 
Later, a man named Drevon—one horn cracked clean off—asked me who I was. I lied. Said I was a traveler. Said I used to be with the Church.
The look in his eyes was pure hate.
Good.
I want to remember that.
 
They’ve survived raids, exorcists, mobs, starvation. They tell their stories like lullabies. One boy spoke of watching his mother hung from a sun-blessed chain while the crowd sang hymns. He smiled when he said it—smiled, like it wasn’t real anymore.
 
I could have burned the whole sky for him in that moment.
 
But I didn’t. I stayed.
I taught them things. How to hide better. How to use shadows. How to speak infernal not as a curse, but as a shield. I showed one of the older girls how to summon a chain like mine. She cried when it first wrapped around her hand—not because it hurt, but because it didn’t.
 
They started whispering my name by the third day.
Valmaia.
Chain-Witch.
Demonmother.
I hate that one.
 
I left before sunrise this morning. Didn't say goodbye. If I stayed longer, I’d start to believe I belonged. And I don’t. I’m not their savior. I’m the fire they survived.
 
Still…
I left them supplies. A few old scrolls. A warding charm soaked in my blood.
I carved a rune into the tree line: If the Church comes, run north. Follow the flame.
 
I hope they don’t have to use it.
I hope they remember the fire is not always the enemy.
Sometimes, it’s the only thing that remembers you were meant to burn back.
 
— V