Chapter 1
The Body at the Palace
The king wasn’t a handsome man, and Hamal liked him more because of it. The king knew he wasn’t handsome, but he didn’t care. You didn’t have to be his friend. You didn’t have to tell him lies to get him to like you. He simply was what he was, and Hamal could appreciate a man who was content with what the gods had assigned to him.
Despite the late hour, the king appeared wide awake. Steam rose from the black mug in his hand, and as Hamal and Cale entered the study, he lifted the mug in greeting.
“Your majesty.” Cale bowed his head, and Hamal hurried to do the same.
The king took a sip from the mug before asking, “First thoughts?”
This was how it always began. The king would ask Cale, a seer, what he saw before telling them why they had been summoned. It was almost like a game, Hamal thought. King Cedrick and Cale were friends, and Hamal was surprised every time the king revealed he liked playing games with his friends. Cedrick was a stern man who did not smile very often. Player of games was not what Hamal thought just by looking at him.
The room dropped into quiet as Cale used his gift. His eyes, the same color as a sword blade, stayed on the king. He blinked once, then again, as if this helped him sort the different images rolling through his mind.
Finally he said, “There’s a body. It was found at some distance from here and escorted to the palace under guard.”
Cedrick smiled slightly, with just one corner of his mouth.
A moment passed in silence. Wait, Hamal thought. Soldiers were guarding a dead body? Why would a dead body need to be guarded?
“And how did he die?” Cedrick asked next.
Another long pause. Cale frowned. “He seems to have burned to death.”
The king’s smile disappeared. He blew out his breath in a huff. “That is what has been suggested, yes.” He turned and set his mug on the desk behind him, then looked at Hamal, his gaze forceful. “But you, Hamal, I trust will not confirm this cause of death.”
Hamal looked back and forth between the king and Cale. He was not supposed to confirm the cause of death? Just to be certain, he asked, “You want me to tell you something different, your majesty?”
“I do.”
“Forgive me, your majesty, but I don’t understand.”
The king’s brows rose. “Neither do I. Not yet. That’s why both of you are here.”
Hamal and Cale followed the king and Captain Colbis, the captain of his bodyguard, through the palace to a private room beneath the first floor. Hamal had not been in this area of the palace before, and he looked around with a frown, wondering about the man who had died. What were they just about to see? If someone died in the palace, or anywhere on the palace grounds, the body was kept in a quiet, very clean room connected to the palace infirmary. But not this body. This body had guards, and it was kept in a secret room underground. Hamal tried to think of a reason that would be necessary, but he just felt confused. Why did the king wish to guard a dead body, and then why would he wish to hide this body from others?
At the end of a long, narrow hallway, they came to a door guarded by two men. Both were flamemakers. Hamal could feel the heat radiating off their bodies.
The guards bowed to the king, and the man on the right reached back and opened the door.
Immediately, Cale grimaced and turned his head away as a dark stench rolled out into the hallway. Hamal recognized it right away. He was a healer—he knew what death smelled like. Bodies that had been dead for a long time, bodies that had died recently—he was familiar with these things. Cale and the king hesitated outside the door, but Hamal ducked through it into the mysterious room beyond.
The room was filled with shadows, especially in the corners where the darkness seemed to pile up. Three tall lamps stood like somber family members around a table in the center of the room and the body that lay upon it. Even from several steps away, Hamal could tell the man had been badly burned.
But the king wanted a cause of death that did not include fire.
A strange thing, that request.
Hamal approached the table carefully, with respect, and set his hand on the dead man’s chest.
The bones began to speak to him.
It wasn’t like a conversation, filled with sentences. Bones never spoke in sentences—they spoke in thoughts and short words and quiet ideas that seemed to walk through the healer’s mind. Understanding how to read a person’s bones took time, because the language was so different than regular speech. It was like trying to understand a dream. Hamal listened as the dead man’s bones told him many things.
Then the blood started in, adding a few words about the man’s family. That was always what the blood wanted to talk about—family and generations and how many children somebody had. This man had no children, and his blood was sad about this.
Then the bones spoke again.
“Oh,” Hamal said, straightening up in surprise.
Instantly other voices broke into the quiet.
“What is it?” Cale asked.
“What did you read?” the king said.
Hamal looked over at them. “This man was surprised when he died. And it was surprise that lasted a long time because it was able to mark his bones. His bones remember it.”
“What surprised him?” the king asked.
“That’s a question Cale should answer, your majesty. I don’t know what surprised him. Perhaps it was the fire.”
The king sighed. He sounded irritable. “So you are confirming the cause of death? He died in a fire?”
Hamal glanced at the dead man’s face. This poor fellow had clearly died in a fire. Even if there were some other reason the skin would burn like this, that was what his bones said—he burned to death. Why did the king want a different answer?
“Yes, your majesty,” Hamal said finally. “This man burned to death.”
That answer was not the one the king wished to hear. Heavy lines appeared between his brows. Colbis stepped closer to speak with him, and as they began a quiet conversation that Hamal didn’t think he was supposed to listen to, he looked away and, slowly—with regret—pulled his hand off the dead man. He had seen many people suffering from injury or disease, and he had seen many people like this, when the suffering was over but not because he had healed them. What a horrible thing, for people to die needlessly. Surely this was not what the gods intended—this kind of pain and sorrow and sadness.
This man had been dead for seven days. Far beyond the reach of a healer’s gift.
Hamal became aware of a quiet, prodding sensation on the side of his face. He looked up and found Cale watching him.
“What else, Hamal?” Cale asked. “I know that look. You only rub your head when something confuses you. What confuses you now?”
The king’s conversation stopped. Silence filled the room.
Aware that everyone was looking at him, Hamal pointed at the man’s right arm. “It is strange how this man died. The fire started there. Near his elbow.”
King Cedrick and Colbis glanced at each other.
Cale cleared his throat. “So he must have been unconscious when he died. Is that correct? He did not move as the fire approached him.”
Hamal shook his head. “No, he was conscious. He was awake and tried to put the fire out.” He motioned to Cale. “Your gift might show you what happened. Here. Come touch him.”
Cale blinked. His silver gaze shot to the dead body. “I’m not going to touch him.”
“What?” Hamal peered at him. “Oh. Well, what if I put my hand here first, and then you can touch my hand? Is that better?”
The king and Captain Colbis again traded a glance.
Cale slowly stepped forward and, with a grimace, set two fingers on the back of Hamal’s hand. He paused but only for a moment before saying, “Hamal, I am not certain this will…”
He stopped. His head turned, just a little, and his silver gaze lowered to focus on the body.
The king and Captain Colbis edged closer.
His hand beneath Cale’s, Hamal waited a few moments, giving him time. Eventually he asked, “Do you see it? This is where the fire started. It spread from the elbow through the rest of his body. He was awake as the fire happened, but he couldn’t put it out.”
Cale withdrew his hand. He stared at his fingers as if they belonged to someone else. “Yes,” he said finally and jerked his fingers off of Hamal’s hand. “The fire started on his arm, and he somehow failed to put it out. I cannot see any flames when I look at him. It was fire that was not fire.”
“Yes!” Hamal agreed. “That’s what I’m trying to say. It was a fire that was not a fire. It didn’t work like a regular fire. Maybe we should talk to a flamemaker and find out more. Is there something that is like fire—but is not fire?”
Cale was quiet as he thought. He looked over at the captain. “What have you not told us?” Cale always knew things that hadn’t been said out loud.
“Go ahead,” the king murmured.
Colbis sighed deeply. He ran his hand over his face and then motioned halfheartedly toward the table. “This is one of my men. Jaldan, his name was. He was part of the team that escorted Darren Ephram to the North Territory to make certain the king’s orders were followed to the letter.”
Darren Ephram. Hamal knew that name. Darren’s father had illegally “arrested” some of the poor people in South Barrow and made them work in his mine up on the northern coast. One of those people was the husband of Hamal’s dear friend Cally, and another person was a feeler named Steadfast, who worked with Justice Ashby, the new governor of South Barrow. The king was furious with the House of Ephram. He did not take kindly to those who abused his people, especially the poor in his care.
“I have lost contact with Jaldan’s team,” Captain Colbis stated. “If Jaldan was murdered—if this was murder—I want to know what happened.”
Cale looked at the captain for a long moment. Hamal wondered what his seer eyes were telling him.
“Why the guards?” Cale asked at last and nodded toward the door.
Another sigh. “As impossible as it seems…Jaldan was a flamemaker.”
Hamal gasped. It sounded loud in the stunned silence.
“He couldn’t have been a flamemaker,” Cale said. “He burned to death.”
Colbis nodded. One time. “Exactly. It is impossible, yet that is how he died. You heard Hamal confirm it.”
In the stillness that followed, Hamal whispered, “No wonder his bones were surprised.”
“If the House of Ephram has somehow discovered a way to kill flamemakers with fire—” The captain paused. “I want to know about it. I need to know what happened to my men. I sent six of them with Ephram, and four were flamemakers, including Jaldan.”
The king took a deep breath. “Cale, I want you to put together a team. Make any request of me—take anyone you see you will need. Find out what Ephram is doing. Empty that mine once and for all, and bring the people home. This wicked situation has gone on long enough.”
Cedrick paused. His stern gaze moved to Hamal. “Take Hamal with you. It is likely you will need him.”
– H –
Author’s note: A flamemaker who died from fire?! What?! 😱 Next chapter coming next week!
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Comment below or find us on Facebook. Copyright notice: © 2026 by Lauren Stinton. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.