Eyes of Fire: Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The Charter 

            Hainn returned with Will, who was covered with the signs of his gifting. Dirt clung to his trousers and tunic and the toes of his boots. He had attempted to clean his face with a damp rag that was still clutched in his hand, but he had mostly just spread the dirt around and left streaks across his cheeks and forehead.

            His gaze met that of Hamal, who was sitting next to Rosy on the floor and, when necessary, helping her corral the kitten that remembered well its former throne of glory and kept trying to crawl over to Shel, also seated on the floor.

            Will’s dark gaze went to Hamal’s grandfather, who was staring at Will like the charter was an interesting book he couldn’t wait to read. Will’s brows drew together, and his steps slowed as he entered the room.

            As far as Hamal could tell, his friend Cale had not stopped using his gift since this entire episode began. He wondered what Cale was seeing. No doubt, there were many interesting things that could be seen about his grandfather, always and continually, and yet Hamal thought he himself was more curious about what could be seen concerning the child beside him. Just now, her eyes were brown. But somehow, for good or for bad, he doubted they would stay that color.

            Will had not been present when they met Hamal’s grandfather out in the courtyard, so Hamal thought it might be a good idea if he made introductions now. From his position on the floor, he gestured and said, “Will, this is my grandfather, Shel Galen. He thought you might be good for Rosy because of how much you pray.”

            Shel climbed to his feet. “So, you are Will Chiodo,” he said, folding his thick arms as he studied the charter.

            Will leaned back slightly, as if pushed by his gaze. “Yes, sir.”

            “And you are twenty-three years old?” Shel asked.

            Even Hamal thought that was a strange question, and he was very used to his grandfather’s ways. He frowned up at Shel, trying to understand, and he never did.

            But Cale did, or so it seemed. The seer took a slow, deep breath, and Hamal looked over at him in time to see the silver eyes grow wide in shock. Cale blinked, and then he blinked again, and his eyes did not get any smaller.

            What in the world did Cale just see with a single question about Will’s age? Hamal couldn’t wait to ask him, but he knew he probably should wait, at least a little bit. There was the “more important thing” his grandfather kept mentioning.

            “And you’re a charter,” Shel said, shaking his head slowly as he murmured, “What a marvel. I say now, what a strange thing.”

            Everyone was staring at Shel, brows raised, the fingerprints of confusion all over their faces. Everyone, that is, except Cale. His look was not one of confusion. His eyes were too wide, his brows too close to his hairline. It was like he had found a dragon where he’d expected a nice, mild-mannered pony.

            Shel grinned. “Oh well,” he said cheerfully. “That little mystery is not why we are here today. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Chiodo. As you know, members of your party recently discovered the presence of an oracle in King’s Barrow. Highly irregular. Unfortunately, the only god this little child has seen is one that delights in disease, particularly madness. It has become imperative for her to see a different god. She needs the opportunity to see something good, not something bad. And you, as a charter…”

            Shel’s face twitched. And then he began laughing like a little boy watching a stumbling puppy learn how to walk. It was such a wonderful, joy-filled sound that Hamal laughed too, even though he had no idea what his grandfather thought was funny.

            “A charter,” Shel repeated. “Who would have thought? Who could have predicted this? And how is it going to work? I have no idea. Absolutely none. What a delightful turn of events.” And then he said again, “Oh well. Look, Mr. Chiodo. I am not asking you to climb a mountain for this child. I am asking, simply, that you would use your gift around her. Strongly. Repeatedly. Until the Creator takes an opportunity to reveal himself. That is what this child needs—just the opportunity to see something different. You speak with the Creator on a regular basis. You are the logical choice.”

            Then, like a cloud passing before the sun, signs of laughter fled Shel’s face. In a completely different tone, he said, “Your king cannot have an oracle who supports the will of madness in his nation. That would be quite unwise. But the will of a good god? The one who created the earth and knows how it is supposed to run? That, now, is a different matter. Are you willing to help in this endeavor?”

            Will didn’t spend very long thinking about it. “Of course, sir.”

            Shel clapped his hands together. “Excellent. Now, gentlemen, the hour grows late. I propose we find some supper, fill our bellies, and then send these three out to sleep beneath the stars while the rest of us exchange truly wild stories that sound quite unbelieve but are, in fact, true.”

            “You propose for them to sleep out-of-doors?” Cale asked.

            Shel looked surprised. “Of course I do. Isn’t that where Mr. Chiodo intends to sleep? Isn’t that…where the earth is? That is where they need to be.”

            Cale’s eyes narrowed. “You are aware of the difficulty that presents itself at night with this child. As a precaution, we have been positioning her and Hamal at some distance from everyone else at night. However, you are asking Will to ignore this precaution.”

            “Ah yes. The potential for dream entrapment,” Shel said, nodding. “Avoiding it has been wise until now. But I am not asking to put your entire team at risk, Commander. I am asking to put only two people at minimal risk—one who has already endured the entrapment and the other who very likely will not have to endure it at all. I say, Hamal.”

            Hamal straightened up. “Grandfather?”

            “Are you eighteen yet?”

            Hamal set his hand on his chest and checked his bones. He quickly scanned their history and how they were aging, and he noted with a good deal of pleasure how happy his bones were with Cale as his friend. “Not yet, but I believe I am closer now than I was the last time you asked.”

            And for some reason, this made Shel roar with laughter. The room rippled with the sound of it. Everyone stared at him in surprise. Cale, however, was looking at Will like he didn’t recognize him.

            “I imagine so, my boy,” Shel said, wiping his eyes. “I imagine so.”

            Hamal had no idea why this was funny either, but he was glad it somehow was.

– H –

Author’s note: True confession time! Last week I was trying to finish up a client’s book, and I didn’t remember to post here until Monday. Mom brain is a real thing, guys. 😱

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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 or sapient plants is purely coincidental.

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 10

Chapter 10
Simple, Like Healing

            The North Territory of King’s Barrow was a curious place. It was strangely cold all year round, and by every account Hamal had ever heard, it attracted men and women who were also strangely cold. After spending a night in Redsprin—and then getting attacked by thieves, Hamal understood that description better than before. He expected Gallank Tree to be much the same, unfortunately: muddy streets, dirty buildings, frustrated townsfolk, and a strong sense of heaviness in the air that made the town an impossibility for feelers.

            But riding through the gate of Gallank Tree was a completely different experience than riding through the gate of Redsprin. The guards at this gate greeted them as they entered and politely asked their business. They clearly did not feel threatened. The streets were paved with clean cobblestones. Hearty, cold-loving flowers grew in window boxes and in large planters positioned along the walkways. Cale’s party passed townsfolk who were actually smiling.

            Hamal looked around in surprise. Oh, he thought. Feelers live here.

            The town inn—a small, two-story building made of gray stone—stood in the center of town near one of the wells. As they rode into the quaint, little courtyard filled with pots of flowers and a sitting area made of benches surrounding a firepit, they spied a man sitting on the ground with a small girl next to him. An army of kittens crawled all over them. One kitten, a little gray fellow, was currently perched on top of the man’s head.

            Hamal grinned. “Grandfather!” he called.

            Exclamations rolled through the group.

            “—don’t believe it.”

            “He’s here?”

            “He arrived before us, but how—?”

            Why were they surprised? Hamal had written a note! His grandfather had known exactly where to meet them, and here he was.

            Shel returned his smile and began scooping the kittens off his lap and handing them to the little girl, who cooed at them and scratched their bellies with chubby fingers. The last kitten to leave was the one sitting like a king on Shel’s head, and it squeaked tremendously at being removed from its throne.

            Cale helped Rosy down, and then Hamal wiggled out of the saddle and ran over to greet his grandfather. Shel wrapped thick arms around him and lifted his feet off the ground, and Hamal started laughing and couldn’t stop. He was gasping for breath by the time Shel allowed his boots to return to the earth.

            Hamal thought his grandfather’s face was wonderful. It made him think about the interesting places they had visited and all the adventures they had gone on together. Shel Galen knew how the earth was—what it liked, what it disliked, what worked well, and what did not—and everything he did succeeded, because he knew how everything was supposed to go. Whenever he saw his grandfather, Hamal felt happy because he knew good things were coming.

            “Everyone,” Hamal said, when he could speak again, “this is my grandfather.”

            “I will never get used to this,” Lord Rhyan muttered.

            “Nor will I,” Gregory said. “And this is the second time it’s happened to me.”

            Hamal stepped over to the small, bear-eared child hiding behind Cale. “And this,” he said in the gentlest voice he possessed, “is Rosy, the child I told you about.”

            “Let us go inside first,” Cale said.  

            A short time later, several members of their party had gathered in a bedroom on the second floor. Hamal and Rosy were there, of course, along with Cale, Masly, Lord Rhyan, Hamal, Rosy, Shel, and finally Gregory, who had immediately taken the padded chair in the corner and was already scribbling pages of notes in his book. When his pencil snapped, he grabbed another and continued.

            Shel had secured one of the kittens—the gray one who liked his head—and offered the kitten to Rosy. She stared at him without moving, and so Hamal took the kitten first and then offered it again, and she immediately accepted it this time. She sat down on the floor with the fuzzy creature in her lap.

            “We found the oracle in a town called Redsprin,” Cale said and briefly described the circumstances: the illness threatening her life, the neglectful innkeeper, the way Hamal had made certain to give the innkeeper more money than he asked for to pay for Rosy’s expenses.

            Shel instantly began nodding. “Good, good. What else?”

            “That night, Hamal had a dream.”

            Shel’s head twisted around as he looked at Hamal carefully. “A dream, eh? I won’t say those are common with oracles, but they are known to happen. Tell me what you saw.”

            Hamal told Shel about his dream—the desert, the smells, the evil god counting coins that were somehow not coins. As he relayed these things, he kept a careful eye on Rosy, trying to see if the dream bothered her. He did not doubt she knew well the landscape he described, including the awful creature sitting at the desk.

            Shel grunted at Hamal’s description of the bad god.

            As if pulled by the sound, Masly leaned forward. “Do you know which god it is?”

            “Aye,” Shel replied. One word, firmly spoken. “But I will not speak his name here. Certain words, certain names, should not be spoken in good company. Not out of fear, like some believe, but because this god is not important. Other things are more important. I will say, however, that this particular god delights in madness, and he keeps tokens of those he has affected.”

            “Tokens?” Hamal asked and grimaced. “That’s what those coins were?”

            “Aye.” Shel looked up at Cale. “Tell me, Seer. Can you think of a jeweler in King’s Barrow who suffers from madness and is somehow associated with the royal family?”

            Silence fell like rocks.

            Hamal gasped as he realized what his grandfather meant. A jewel with a crown. A jeweler who had a crown—or would have a crown, if he were in his right mind. The coin’s riddle seemed so very obvious now.

            “Prince Alant.” Hamal spoke into the stunned quiet the name everyone was thinking. “The king’s older brother.”  

            Shel nodded slowly. “Aye. The one who lost his right to the throne because of madness that no one could cure. The one who attempted to take the throne anyway but failed.” He met Hamal’s gaze. “Because of you.”

            “Not because of me,” Hamal whispered and looked over at Masly, whose entire body had become like a block of ice. “Because of him.” Masly had committed treason by kidnapping the prince to stop him from killing people—specifically, the one brother he had left: the king.

            Hamal groaned as he realized what all of this meant. From the confines of his suite of rooms in the palace, Alant had arranged the death of Teiren, his brother. With that brother he had been successful. That was Cale’s prince—his friend who had died. Teiren was the reason Cale’s bones ached with guilt. He was the reason Cale sometimes acted unwisely because he knew Hamal would be there to heal him. Never would Hamal have thought that finding a little girl in a dirty town in the North Territory would have an impact on Cale’s bones. He looked over at his friend. Cale stood there much as Masly did. Everything about him was perfectly still, his face blank.

            Until, quite suddenly, it wasn’t. Cale’s brows twitched and he grimaced. In a tight voice, he asked, “What can be done about this? Hamal has been unable to heal Alant. He has tried.”

            Hamal did not like finding the boundary of his healing gift, and Prince Alant had been an especially painful finding.

            “Uncertain,” Shel replied. “And right now, that is unimportant.”

            Masly’s head tipped back as if Shel had struck him.

            Shel lifted his hand in a soothing gesture. “Please understand me, my lord. Prince Alant is not the reason we are here today. We are here because of a little girl who likes kittens and has found herself trapped in the custody of an evil god. Hamal, you wrote me because you want to know how to change gods. Correct?”

            Hamal nodded quickly. “Aye.”

            “Then let us discuss this more important topic—” Shel held up one finger. “Without neglecting the important associated topics. Now, how to change gods. King’s Barrow is not an overly religious nation. Not yet. You believe in the gods but are not devout. Is there anyone on your team who is devout? A person who is dedicated to a kindly god who would be helpful to King’s Barrow instead of harmful?”

            Hamal started laughing, and everyone looked at him in surprise. His grandfather was wise. He made everything sound as easy as breathing and simple, like healing. First, he’d done this with the coin that represented the prince, and now he did it with his instructions for how to help Rosy. The answer was so obvious that Hamal wondered why he hadn’t thought of this himself. “Aye! We have such a man!”

            Cale blinked. Surprise pushed at his stiff shoulders until they slowly lowered. “We do?”

            “It’s Will! Will is the man. He’s a charter.” The charter gift wouldn’t work without prayer. That was how charters used their gift—they spoke to the Creator, and he let them hear what the earth was saying. For this reason, the charter gifting was more religious than most other gifts.

            Hamal looked back to his grandfather and paused, seeing the sudden gleam in Shel’s eyes.

            “Will the charter, eh?” the older man said. He reached up and rubbed his jaw. “Would this happen to be Will Chiodo?”

            Hamal nodded eagerly. “Oh, you have heard of him? He works for Cale, and he came with us. He’s not here, though—staying at the inn, I mean. He likes sleeping outside. If I were a charter, I would like sleeping outside too. Also, he has a very large dog.”

            Somewhere behind Hamal, Lord Rhyan murmured just loud enough to be heard, “A large, scary dog.”

            Shel turned to Cale. “Could you send for Will Chiodo, Commander? He will be helpful in this matter.”

            Cale’s silver eyes narrowed. He stared in the general area of Shel’s face, his gaze unfocused as he used his gift. The moments passed, and Hamal began to feel like he was missing something. He reached up and scratched his head, wondering as he looked from Cale to Shel and back again. Was something happening? Why did it seem like talking about Will…was not exactly like talking about Will?

            “Yes,” Cale said finally, blinking as his gaze returned to normal. However, his eyes remained slightly narrowed. “I will send for him.”

            Hainn was sent to fetch the charter.

            They waited for Will to arrive.

– H –

Author’s note: The original draft of this book did not have Shel Galen. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I CANNOT. He obviously needs to be a part of this story, and I like this version so much better. ❤️

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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 or sapient plants is purely coincidental.

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Cale and the Archer

            As he finished healing the young man who’d said this was his first time being a thief, Hamal realized he was being watched.

            Rosy had turned around to stare as Hamal worked on the wounded man. Her fire-filled eyes followed Hamal’s movements. This was the first time he had seen her with fire in her eyes all day, and he wondered why. He smiled reassuringly at her, hoping she wasn’t alarmed by the sight of blood. She didn’t seem to be.

            When the wounded man was resting comfortably, Hamal crawled over to join Rosy at the fire. “Are you all right?”

            She nodded. It was a real nod, and it required no guessing on Hamal’s part.

            A water bucket sat beside the fire, and Hamal used the dipper to splash water across his dirty hands. If it were a warm night and this were a warm place, he would dry his hands on his trousers. But not here. Damp trousers would be awful on a night like this one. He rubbed his hands briskly and held them near the fire.

            “You don’t need to worry about that man, Rosy. He’ll be fine. Not even a bruise remains. Just because a man has an arrow in him—”

            “Two arrows,” Gild interrupted.

            Hamal nodded. “Just because a man has two arrows in him, it doesn’t mean bad things will happen to him. An arrow just slows a man down. You get him to a healer, and he’s fine.”

            “You’re a unique individual, Hamal,” Gild said and chuckled.

            A flash of light burst in the trees. Thunder rumbled from a clear, star-filled sky.

            “That’s Hainn,” Will Chiodo said. He was sitting on the ground near the fire, his bare hands pressed against the soil as he read the earth and, from a safe distance, observed what was happening upon the earth’s surface out in the woods. “Hainn has an odd kind of humor. He likes to scare the wits out of someone and then leave him to tell the story any way he pleases.”

            Gild muttered something unfit for children’s ears and ended with, “Annoying.”

            Will grinned and shifted position, quickly returning his hands to the ground. “Hainn’s victims tend to be men invested in protecting their reputation—you know the kind, Hamal. Bad men. Men who want to own what other men have worked for. That is likely what we’ll see happen here too. By tomorrow morning, all of Redsprin will have heard a hero’s tale, not that of a thief. ‘The evil seers attacked us!’ The man is…yes. He’s racing back to town on a horse that is nearly as frightened as he is.”

            Gild laughed.

            Hamal did not. “He will lie about Cale and Masly? Cale is the king’s own seer! And Masly used to be. They are the king’s men, not liars.”

            Masly grunted.

            Will looked over at Hamal, and his dark-eyed gaze softened. “Everyone lies about seers, Hamal, when they think they can get away with it. The justice gift is hard to find out here in the North Territory. Without that gift, there’s no way to tell when the truth is being spoken—other than relying on one’s own discernment, which does not seem to be a priority in a place like Redsprin.”

            “But I thought seers were respected,” Hamal said.

            “Oh, they are. Sometimes that is why they are lied about. However, this time…” Will’s voice faded. His brows snapped together as he stared down at the earth, like the ground was telling him something he didn’t like. When he spoke again, his voice had changed. “Hamal, prepare to receive Cale.”

            Hamal stiffened. “What happened? Is he—?”

            “He went against the archer.”

            “The archer?”

            “He succeeded in stopping him, but he took a substantial blow to his shoulder. Hainn is assisting him back to camp.” Will looked at Masly. “Sir, their progress would be swifter with your aid.”

            Masly held Will’s gaze. To Hamal, it looked like the seer heard words that had not been spoken. Then he nodded quickly and was off—jogging back into the woods.

            “Is Masly headed the right direction?” Hamal asked Will.

            The charter nodded. “Yes. He will reach them shortly.”

            A few minutes passed in tense quiet. Hamal fidgeted and remembered how Cale had been concerned about thieves. Rosy was looking at him, the fire flickering off and on in her eyes, and he patted her shoulder, even though he was the one who needed reassuring this time.

            At last Will said, “Here they are.”

            Three men staggered out of the trees. Hainn supported Cale on one side, Masly on the other. In the firelight, Cale’ face looked as white as chalk, and the right sleeve of his coat was drenched with blood.

            “This was not one of your grander ideas,” Hamal told Cale, who groaned as the other two men helped him to the ground.

            Hamal set his hand on Cale’s bloody arm and used his gift. Cale’s skin leapt to follow Hamal’s urging, sealing together where it had been slashed apart. It was a deep cut; Cale had lost an unhealthy amount of blood.  

            As the color slowly returned to Cale’s face, he focused on Hamal’s expression and said, “I was curious.”

            “Curious? What does that mean?”

            “After you healed my hand, I began working with it. Running drills. Trying to strengthen it. I thought…” Cale paused. “I thought it was as good a time as any to test it. But the archer was good with a sword. Better than I expected him to be.”

            “Why did you go up against the archer? Archers never miss. Kolling could have taken care of this.”

            Cale had the nerve to smile like a boy who loved mischief. “You are my friend, Hamal. What reason have I to fear what other men fear? I feel better now. Thank you.”

            “What sort of logic is that?” Hamal frowned. “Cale, I don’t understand your thinking.”

            Cale started laughing, which just made it worse.

            Clenching his blood-covered hands, Hamal squatted down in front of his friend and waited until the seer looked at him. In a quiet voice, Hamal said, “This isn’t the first time I have seen you act this way. The night I met you, you let those bad men kill you—because you knew you were going to find me. You are very brave, the bravest man I know, but you are not acting with wisdom. This is not wisdom.”

            Cale stopped laughing. His head tilted, like he genuinely did not understand. “You are my friend, and I know I can rely on you. How is that not wisdom?”

            “Yes, yes,” Hamal replied. “All of that is true. I am your friend, and I will be a faithful friend. But I think there is a difference between being wise in battle times and taking risks you don’t actually need to take. I…”

            Hamal glanced at the others and lowered his voice even more. He spoke words he had never said, but he had thought them several times in the last few months. “I know what your bones say, Cale. I know your secrets—that you feel guilty. You blame yourself for the prince’s death, and I know you think you should have died too. It does not seem fair to you that you lived and he did not.”

            His face now blank, Cale stared at him.

            “I think you take risks that others would not take. Sometimes I even think you wouldn’t mind if you died again, and I wasn’t there to save you.”

            They looked at each other.

            Hamal shook his head slowly. “I cannot heal what your bones say. But…” Here he smiled slightly. “I can give you a reason to be interested in their healing.”

            The silver gaze narrowed. Eventually Cale whispered, “What reason?”

            “Your blood has conceived.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            Hamal grinned. “I mean you are a father now, so it would be good if nothing happened to you. And if something happened to you, Satha would be angry, and you know she scares me when she is angry.”

            Cale didn’t move. “A…father?”

            “Your wife is pregnant. The blood doesn’t measure time as man does. You aren’t going to be a father. You are a father. The moment the blood conceives, it knows, and it counts the child among the living—from that moment, as if he were already born. You are a father, so you need to act with wisdom. No more challenging archers with swords. Use Kolling. She could have stopped that bad man from a distance.”

            A long moment passed, during which Cale blinked several times. “Satha?”

            “Of course Satha. She’s your wife.”

            “How far along is she?”

            “Just a few days.” Hamal paused, thinking about it. “I don’t believe she knows yet. But I know—because your blood knows. Blood you just risked and spilled everywhere for no good reason.”

            Hamal became aware that Masly was standing beside them, his arms folded. Masly knew about Cale and Satha, his secret wife, and not because Cale had told him. Masly was a talented seer who didn’t often need to be told things.

            The other seer chuckled. “The king will be thrilled, I’m sure, to hear of the extension of his family. He’ll host a ball in your honor. Make you a prince.”

            Cale looked up at Masly, opened his mouth, and then froze. His calm demeanor rattled to pieces, and his eyes widened. “I’m going to have to tell the king.”

            Masly’s chuckle became a full-chested laugh. “Serves you right for marrying above you.”

            “It wasn’t my decision,” Cale replied.

            Masly laughed again. It pleased Hamal to hear him, and it pleased him further that Cale was the one who made the laughter start. Masly needed to laugh more. He had been very serious since his arrest.

            “Wait a moment,” Lord Rhyan said, coming up behind them. “Married above you? What does that mean?” Then his jaw dropped. “Satha? The king’s cousin? You married Satha?”

            Cale winced.

            Never tell a secret to a flamemaker.

            Within a few minutes, every person in their party knew what Cale and Satha had managed to keep hidden for three years, and by the next morning, Rhyan had started calling Cale Your Highness just to annoy him. Hamal thought it was funny. Cale did not.

            However, he responded calmly. “You, more than anyone, know the regulations of noble blood,” he told Rhyan, who was the firstborn son of the House of Kanyan. “It is likely I have cost my wife her heritage and the benefits of a noble house. I do not make light of this.”

            Rhyan didn’t argue with him, but he didn’t fully agree either. “The king would cut off his hand to keep you happy, Cale. You’re the seer, not I—you should already know his reliance upon you. In this matter, he may choose to look the other way. He could even choose to elevate you, and I predict he will do one or the other.”

            “And the predictions of a flamemaker can always be trusted,” Masly said.

            Rhyan rolled his eyes.

            Around ten o’clock that morning, Hamal began to smell wood smoke. The trees parted, and they saw in the distance a small, walled-up town built into the base of a large bluff. Cale and Masly drew their horses together and whispered back and forth, and then Cale turned back to speak to Hamal.

            “This would not be an appropriate place to leave the oracle,” he said, glancing at the child sitting in Hamal’s arms. “We will keep looking.”

            They passed three farms and one more small village, and Cale said similar words each time.

            That afternoon, a peddler wandered down the road with his brightly colored cart piled high with interesting things. Cale bought a fur-lined hat that had bear’s ears. He dropped it on top of Rosy’s head and said, “You sound like a bear when you sleep. Now you will look the part.”

            He was the first one to claim a shy smile from her. It was mostly in her eyes, which were brown today.

            Hours later as they approached Gallank Tree, Hamal overheard Masly telling Cale, “We are rapidly losing our opportunity to leave Rosy in a safe environment.”

            Cale replied, “Then perhaps it is wisdom to take her with us.”

            “That is not what Hamal said. He said we should leave her in a safe location and return for her later.”

            Cale nodded calmly. “Perhaps it is not our decision.”

            Both seers turned and looked at Rosy, who was tugging at the ears of her bear hat and staring off into the trees.

            Masly said quietly, “You suggest it is not coincidence that we have found no suitable place for her. You think the god she shadows—or a god, somewhere—might be doing this on purpose. This god might intend her to stay with us, all the way to our destination.”

            “Have you ever worked with gods before?”

            Masy did not hesitate. “No.”

            Cale shrugged. “Neither have I. But I suspect Shel Galen has. Let us wait and hear his wisdom on the matter.”

            They arrived at the gate of Gallank Tree.

– H –

Author’s note: I wrote the first draft of this book about six years ago. At least six, maybe seven. I decided I didn't like it and tried to redo certain parts, and at one point in the editing process, I decided to take out this chapter and the previous chapter. I DECIDED TO TAKE THEM OUT. Sigh. Maybe it was good that this book had to wait six years—so I would have greater writing wisdom. 😉

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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 or sapient plants is purely coincidental.

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Thieves on the Road

            They did not get an early start the next morning.

            Gild the healer had seven children, so he knew all about taking care of them, and he said Rosy’s coat wouldn’t keep her warm. It had holes in the elbows, and something with pointy teeth had tried to eat the collar.

            So they waited in town for the shops to open, and Cale bought Rosy a new coat. It was brown like Hamal’s, but hers had little red buttons. Following Gild’s suggestions, Cale bought Rosy many other things as well: two pairs of mittens, one pair blue and the other red; a new pair of boots; some thick stockings; and a big hat that covered nearly half her face.

            In the shop where they purchased the knitted items, Hamal knelt down in front of little Rosy and adjusted the hat on her head. It was a hat for a man, and she was just a girl.

            “No one will be able to see your eyes,” Hamal joked, and only later did he realize that was the point. Cale had done it on purpose, to hide her eyes that reflected the gods.

            When it was time to leave for Gallank Tree, Rosy didn’t want anyone to touch her, which made getting her up onto a horse rather difficult.

            Hamal held out his hand to her, and her eyes grew wide and she shied away. So, on the muddy street in front of the inn, he squatted down and tried to explain things. “Rosy, I am not going to hurt you. All I will ever do is heal you. That’s my job, and healing is all I know. I have very gentle hands, and you can trust me.”

            She shook her head, staring at him.

            He tried again. “Do you see this very fine horse right here? His name is Sill, like a windowsill. I don’t know why that’s his name—I didn’t name him. But he’s a nice horse, and he’ll take us where we need to go. The problem is, you will need to ride with me. We don’t have another horse for you, so you’ll need to go on my horse. Do you think you could do that? I won’t hurt you, Rosy,” he said again.

            Every time he looked at this child, he thought of the bad place from his dream and wanted to wrap his arms around her and make large promises. But certain things he couldn’t promise until his grandfather arrived and they talked about it.

            It took some coaxing, but eventually Hamal and Cale managed to get Rosy up onto Hamal’s horse with him, where she sat like a fabric-wrapped stone. Hamal tried to engage her in conversation, hoping to win at least a nod from her, but she didn’t do anything except sit there in an untouchable kind of silence.

            At the outskirts of town, he pointed to a muddy field full of cows—he liked cows—and told her everything he knew about them and how their horns worked. He thought maybe she would like to hear about their horns, because she was a child and children often liked poky things, but she didn’t respond at all.

            “I don’t know very much about children,” Hamal whispered to Cale when they stopped for a quick meal that afternoon in a quiet place off the road.

            Cale was watching the road, his hand on his sword hilt. Glancing down at the weapon, Hamal remembered what his friend had said about thieves in the North Territory.

            “Why do I doubt that?” Cale replied.

            “Well, sometimes they cry even when nothing is wrong. There’s nothing for me to heal. They aren’t in any pain, and still they’re crying.” He hesitated and then nodded toward Rosy, who was sitting on the ground a short distance away with her legs pulled up underneath her. Quietly he added, “And sometimes children should cry, but they don’t.”

            For the rest of the day, Rosy rode on Hamal’s horse with him, his arms around her, and he knew exactly how afraid she was.

            But gradually something started to shift. He began to feel the fear leaking out of her bones, growing less and less as the day continued. Every time he caught sight of her eyes, which wasn’t very often, they were ordinary and brown, the way most eyes were. Today she looked like just a child, so Hamal didn’t understand why Cale and Masly both shied away from her when they stopped that night and made camp.

            When Hamal asked, Cale replied, “You said she shadows a god, Hamal.”

            “Well, yes, but she’s just a child. I don’t think we need to be afraid of her.”

            Cale smiled a bit, but something about it was sad. “I saw many things today, Hamal. Many things about your friend Rosy, and many things involving her. As did Masly. There is a reason you are the one taking care of her. I think it is good for you to care for her, and I also think it is good for the rest of us to maintain our distance. At least until we know more.”

            Gregory had been listening nearby, and he came over to say, “That’s how it is in all the stories, Hamal. Oracles are separate from the other gifts. No one really knows what to expect from the gods anymore, and so they avoid the gift that represents them. Hellan, the oracle who traveled with your grandfather, was described as aloof and distant. She wasn’t cruel, but neither was she friendly. She did her job, and as soon as the Barrow Wars ended, she disappeared from the city. No one ever saw her again.”

            “Some people saw her again,” Hamal said.

            Gregory’s face twitched. “Well, yes, I suppose that someone, somewhere, did see her again. But my point is that she didn’t like people and left the city. We should assume Rosy is the same manner of person and allow her to be left alone, which she obviously wishes to be.”

            Hamal didn’t say anything. He frowned at Gregory for a long moment. Did Gregory not know the story? But he knew everything. “They got married.”

            Cale and Gregory looked at him.

            “Pardon?” said Cale.

            “Who?” said Gregory.

            They both answered at the same time, which was funny, and so Hamal laughed. “My grandfather and Hellan, of course. They liked each other, so they decided to get married, and they did, and then they left the city. Neither of them liked the city very much, so they went up to Fairs Gate, in the woods, and they lived up there for years and years. Did you know the North Woods are so big that you can travel for miles and miles and never find the other side? It’s amazing!”

            “He married her?” Gregory demanded.

            “Well, yes. Shel told me she knew about important things—that is, she knew what things were important and what things weren’t.” Hamal shrugged.

            “He…married her?” Gregory said again, fishing out his notepad and pencil. His hands were shaking for some reason.

            “Did they have children, Hamal?” Cale asked calmly.

            “Yes, two—a boy and a girl. Their names were Eshmal and Sallia. Readers, both of them, and Sallia liked to write books. She wrote many books.”

            Gregory swallowed hard. “Sallia Galen Sora,” he whispered. “She studied trees, and she wrote volumes about the bark and roots and tonics that could be made from the leaves. All her books are preserved in the King’s Library. I’ve read them. She was brilliant.” His voice cracked. “She was related to you, Hamal? Shel’s daughter?”

            Hamal nodded. “Sallia was my aunt.”

            Cale’s silver eyes blinked. “She was your aunt?”

            “Aye. She’s buried in the woods she loved.”

            “But was she not a sage?”

            “No, she was a reader. Didn’t I say that? Didn’t I say she and her brother were both readers?” Hamal groaned and rubbed his mittened hands over his ears. “All this coldness is making it hard for me to remember the things I said!”

            Gregory said slowly, “So the sage gift doesn’t always produce sages.”

            “It doesn’t always, no. My grandfather, you know—well, he’s been married many times. Many, many times. My father says he’s a rogue, and I think that means Shel likes being married.”

            The corner of Cale’s mouth tilted. “How many times has your grandfather been married?”

            Hamal lowered his voice as he said, “Three times, that I know of. Three times. The rest of us can’t believe it. He has quite a reputation, my grandfather.”

            Cale and Gregory traded a look.

            “Thousands of years,” Gregory said. “Shel Galen must be thousands of years old, and he gets married all of three times, and his family thinks he’s wild.”

            “Quite the rogue indeed,” Cale remarked dryly. “Hamal, how many children did Shel have altogether?”

            “I’m not sure. Eight, I think?”

            “And how many of those children are sages?”

            “Just one. My father.”

            Cale’s eyes narrowed. “How many children does your father have? How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

            “Four.”

            “And you are the only sage among them.”

            Hamal smiled. “You can see all my secrets, Cale. Because you’re a seer.”

            Cale returned his smile, laughing quietly. “I am just trying to understand you.”

            “What’s to understand? I can heal things. I like sweet meats and warm places to live, and I greatly enjoy the name Rosy.”

            Rosy looked over from the fire. Hamal waved to her.

            Cale laughed softly. “Go sit with your charge, Hamal.” His eyes narrowed. His expression darkened. “Keep her calm, if you can.”

            Hamal looked at him quickly. “What does that mean?”

            “We were followed from Redsprin. Tonight we expect thieves.” 

            Half an hour later, Hamal heard approaching hoof beats, and Will Chiodo came riding into camp, his sand wolf slinking into the circle of firelight behind him. 

            “We’re about to have company,” the charter told Cale. “Five men approach on the road. Three are flamemakers, and you’ve got an archer and a jeweler as well. The jeweler is leading them.”

            The thieves. Hamal’s heart took a wild leap up his throat.

            “Men from Redsprin?” Masly asked.

            Will nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

            “Did they see you?” Ermond the flamemaker asked.

            Hamal looked at Masly in surprise as the seer started laughing.

            “You have never worked with a charter, have you?” Masly said to Ermond.

            “They will be here in less than four minutes,” Will said.

            Masly looked over at Cale. “The archer could cause some difficulty.”

            Hamal winced. Archers never missed. He had healed several of them, and the inside of their ears was shaped differently. They could hear the heartbeat of a deer from a hundred paces and put an arrow through the creature while blindfolded. Cale said that when archers hunted other men, it was never very pleasant.

            Cale pointed at the team members he wanted. “Chestirad, Hainn, Kolling, Masly. Let’s head them off.”

            Kolling plucked the brace of rabbits from her saddle and tossed them to Gild, who was in charge of supper tonight. Then the two seers, the weathermaker, the flamemaker, and the archer disappeared into the early evening shadows. Hamal shivered as he watched them go.

            Their campsite was a bowshot from the road, and thick scrub brush trees stood guard around them. Each person was good at what they did; the moment Cale’s party stepped into the trees, Hamal lost track of them. The whisper of wind through the scrub brush masked most sounds.

             With a sigh, he turned back to Rosy and found her watching him. “Cold?” he asked. “I am. Let’s go sit with Gild.”

            She had ridden close to him all day, and she must be getting used to him because when they sat next to the fire, she sat down beside him. She set her blue-mittened hands in her lap and watched as Gild went about making supper.

            “Something you should know,” Hamal told her.

            Her brown gaze swung up to meet his.

            “I’m not a good cook,” he said as she stared at him. “I’m not. I’ve never been able to figure it out! I burn things. And I tend to think things would taste good together when they really wouldn’t. Burned bread and garlic aren’t good together, for instance. And adding tomatoes does not help. It just makes everything taste like tomatoes, and that’s not always a good idea. Do you know how to cook, Rosy?”

            He meant it in jest, and as he teased her, another thought occurred to him. “Do you like dolls? Most little girls like dolls, don’t they?”

            Something passed through her eyes. Good or bad, he couldn’t tell, but he waited, and slowly her head bent forward in a shallow, faint movement that could have been a nod. He decided it was, and he smiled. “Dolls are important, aren’t they? We will find you a doll. A good doll.”

            She stared at him.

            Shouts erupted in the trees behind them. Rosy jerked and looked over her shoulder, but Hamal leaned toward her until their shoulders touched and said, “Never mind that, Rosy. We don’t need to worry about that. Everything will be all right.”

            And so, they waited.

            The first man to return to camp was Chestirad. He had one unconscious body slung over his shoulder and was dragging a second through the dirt, his large hand wrapped around the man’s collar. 

            “They’re alive,” he said as Hamal stood up. “Just a little overcome, is all.” Laughing at his own joke, he dropped both bodies on top of each other and, with a lazy toss of his hand, made a second fire next to them to keep the men warm.

            Chestirad was one of the biggest, meanest-looking men Hamal knew. His normal expression was a scowl, and his nose had been smashed more than once. Probably ten times, Hamal decided. He carried more knives than a kitchen, and he was dangerous, but then he thought about things like keeping unconscious men warm. He had a good heart, buried somewhere in that hulking form.

            “Going back for their horses,” Chestirad announced to no one in particular and then lumbered off into the woods.

            The second man to return was Masly, followed closely by Kolling, who was grinning from ear to ear as if she had just won a contest. A man Hamal had never seen before stumbled along obediently behind Kolling, an arrow protruding from each shoulder. Blood soaked through his cloak, and he looked miserable.

            “I had everything under control,” Masly said.

            “Of course, you did,” Kolling answered, laughing. “My lord.”

            Hamal looked through the trees and asked, “Where is Cale?”

            “He’s coming,” Masly replied. He glanced through the trees himself, a faraway look in his eyes. Then he nodded. “Yes, he’s coming. Could you see to our friend here?” He pointed at the bleeding man.

            “Of course.”

            The injured man frowned as Hamal approached. It might have been a grimace of pain. He was young—younger than Cale.

            “You have no business being a thief,” Hamal told him.

            “First time,” the man replied through gritted teeth.

            “Well, let it be the last time. I’m going to put you to sleep to remove these. Can you sit down?”

            The man dropped like a log.

            Hamal put a hand to the man’s chest and removed the pain from his body. Relief rolled out of the bandit in a long sigh, and he sighed a second time as Hamal helped him lie flat.

            “Good night,” Hamal said and brushed two fingers across the man’s forehead. The man’s eyes rolled back, and he didn’t stir again, not even later when they dropped him belly first on his horse and sent him back to Redsprin.

–H– 

Author’s note: I love the part where they’re talking about Shel Galen getting married three times and the rest of the family thinks he’s a wild man. 😂😂

🔥 Want to read the chapters early? Join us on Patreon.

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 or sapient plants is purely coincidental.

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Hamal Sends for Help

            Hamal sat down in the middle of Chestirad’s cramped room. He ignored all the stares—which was hard to do, given that two of the people in here were seers—as he considered his words and what he wanted to say. There were many things he could say: about the dream itself, the way the air smelled, the strange tar pits, the monster-god, the desk, all the coins. He shuddered as he thought about the coins.

            Adjusting his grip on the pencil, he began to write:

Grandfather, we have found an oracle in King’s Barrow. This oracle is not like Hellan, and I need your help. How can I save this little girl from a bad god? I don’t know what to do. In two days, we will be in— 

            Hamal looked up. “Where are we going to be two days from now?”

            Cale was standing next to the fireplace, his arms folded, his back against the wall. He was watching Hamal with a curious expression.

            “Gallank Tree,” the seer answered.

            “Good.” Hamal finished his letter. He didn’t bother to sign his name; his grandfather knew his handwriting. Closing the book, he climbed to his feet and offered both the book and the pencil back to Gregory, who took them. Slowly.

            “What would you like me to do with your note, Hamal?” Gregory asked. “I can deliver it to the post for you. Even in a town such as Redsprin, they surely have a way to communicate with the rest of the country.”

            But Hamal waved him away. “No, this is fine. Thank you for letting me borrow your things.”

            Gregory hovered there, arms still extended. “Did you write a note for me?”

            “A note for you? No. I wrote a note for my grandfather.”

            Cale and Gregory looked at one another. Cale appeared thoughtful but didn’t say a word.

            It was Masly who finally said, “Hamal, would you not like us to make certain Shel Galen receives the note you wrote him?”

            “No, that’s quite all right. He received it.”

            Gregory held up the closed book, with Hamal’s scrawled note inside it. Speaking more slowly than usual, he said, “I have your note here in my hand, Hamal. It has not been sent to Shel Galen. Wouldn’t you like it to be sent to him?”

            Hamal looked at Gregory. Then at Cale. Then at Masly. Eventually, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, he said, “I don’t understand.”

            “Neither do we,” Masly replied in his boyish voice, a smile twitching his lips. “You wrote a letter to your grandfather, but now you do not seem interested in sending it. Why would you write a letter and not send it?”

            They didn’t know, did they? How was it they didn’t know? Hamal turned to Cale and exclaimed, “Is this something you don’t know? I thought you knew.”

            Cale unexpectedly grinned, something he didn’t do very often. He smiled on a regular basis, but this movement of his mouth was far too grand to be just a regular smile. There was definite laughter somewhere inside it. “You thought we knew what, exactly?”

            “My grandfather is a reader. All of you know my grandfather is a reader. He reads things.”

            Gregory blew out his breath. “Yes, but how can Shel Galen read a letter that has not been sent to him? That is the question.”

            Hamal glanced around at all the faces turned toward him expectantly, even Rosy’s. “Well, he can do it because he’s a reader. This is how I always write him. I just write the words, and then he comes to wherever I’m going to be. Once I didn’t have paper or a pencil, and so I wrote with ashes on the side of a house. He showed up then too. And another time I scratched out the words in a riverbank, and he still came. It doesn’t matter how the words are written, and I don’t have to send any letters to him—he always reads them wherever he is.”

            For a long moment, no one in the room moved.

            Gregory began to sound like he was being strangled.

            Cale stared at Hamal. “What are you saying? If something is written—even in ashes on the side of a house or scrawled in the mud of a riverbank—Shel Galen can read it?”

            “Aye. He’s a reader. He reads things.”

            “But what are you saying?” Cale repeated. “That if something is written down…? That is to say, your grandfather has read the plans of kings because a scribe recorded them? The private matters of kingdoms and territories, secrets traded between seats of power—Shel Galen the sage has read all these things, simply because they were written down?”

            Hamal frowned at the seers and Gregory. “Why don’t you know this? He’s a reader. His gifting tells you exactly what he does. I don’t know why you are surprised. He reads things.”

            Cale blinked. And then blinked again. “No wonder the Theranians call him the most powerful gift on the continent.”

            “I need…I need to sit down,” Gregory said and collapsed onto the edge of the bed, where he cradled his head in his hands. Pushed against his skull, the book and the pencil stuck up out of his hands at odd angles that somehow made Hamal think of chicken feathers. “A reader. Shel Galen is a reader.”

            He did not speak again for a very long time, except to mutter things about plans he’d written, and outlines and books, and Hamal didn’t know what all the fuss was about. Yes, Shel was a reader—but so was Gregory, and Gregory knew Shel was a reader. Was Gregory confused because Shel was also a sage, and so his gift was a little different? Was that it?

            Sometimes readers could be quite mysterious—because of all the words. They remembered every word they saw with their eyes; their gift stored it up for them until they had entire books and even libraries in their heads. They carried around more words than Hamal knew or had even heard of.

            He looked down at Gregory, who was cradling his head full of libraries, and thought maybe this was a word problem, because Gregory knew so many of them.

–H– 

            Miles away in the throne room of another country, an argument was taking place.

            One contender spoke calmly, keeping his voice level and without accusation. He was confident in his position, and he had no doubts the king would do as he suggested.

            The other contender was not a man who fell to argument very often, but whenever he did, it was almost impossible for him to continue speaking rationally. This was why he had never been given a seat on the council. His ideas typically were sound, but he seemed incapable of solid, reasonable communication when anyone attempted to contradict him.

            Shel Galen, the first contender, sighed deeply. “Mecall, you are invisible again.”

            The torrent of words cut off.

            “Oh,” the other man said and reappeared. His face was flushed, the skin of his throat mottled. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “Forgive me.” He grimaced and looked through the large, heavily gilded room. “I suppose I’ve already lost, haven’t I?”

            “Several minutes ago,” the king confirmed.

            Mecall’s face reddened further. “Why, then, did you not spare me misery and put an end to the argument, sire?”

            “Because I am so easily entertained by it,” the king replied lightly. “Every time you realize your water has begun to boil, you become deeply red-faced and apologetic. And I am simply amused.”

            The red had spread to Mecall’s ears now. “Sire,” he said, drawing out the word.

            Some things did not change, no matter the time involved. Shel smiled. He had been listening to the two brothers bicker for years, and he, like the king, had become rather fond of it. Both were good men, but only one knew how to keep his peace, and the other comically did not.

            Taking pity on Mecall, Shel said, “There is a fact you do not know in this matter. Allow me to…”

            He never finished the sentence.

            He sat back in his chair and looked east, toward King’s Barrow. Beyond the palace walls hindering his sight, the sun had set several hours earlier, and a city wreathed in shadows and lantern light lay comfortably around the palace grounds.

            The king was familiar with this look. At once, the teasing stopped and he came alert. “What says the prophet?”

            Shel took a deep breath and seemed to come to himself. He blinked several times and focused on the king. “No, sire. It is not the prophet—fortunately. My grandson has sent for me. It seems they’ve found an oracle in King’s Barrow.”

            The king’s brows rose. “Oracles appear only in times of war, when the foundation of a nation is threatened.”

            “This is concerning,” said his brother, now calm and rational and slightly less red.

            “Sire, if I may…”

            The king waved at the door. “You are free to go. The rest of this conversation can wait.” He shot his brother a look. “As I’ve already made up my mind, you see.”

            Mecall, looking pained, gave a polite nod.

            Shel strode from the room, and a guard closed the door behind him. He departed the palace and, a few minutes later, stepped into the courtyard, where he made his way to the eastern corner and the large, ornate fountain that bubbled there. It was a glorious work, constructed by a glass artist of significant skill. The water mechanism looked like a young girl dancing with water spraying out of her fingers. She was constructed entirely of gold, with gemstones that glistened on her dress even now, beneath the warm blanket of a comfortable night. This fountain was one of the wonders of Theraine.

            Pulling a certain type of coin from his pocket, Shel tossed it into the reservoir. Then he waited.

            He did not have to wait long.

            A being shot from the water. Liquid cascaded off the head and shoulders, which rapidly revealed themselves as belonging to a man. He materialized into solid form in front of Shel and, in the warm glow of the courtyard, cast a faint shadow that hadn’t been there a moment before. He appeared young, about twenty years of age as a lander would measure them, and he wore the blue uniform of the transport system.

            “How may I serve you, sir?” he asked with a slight bow.

            “I need to travel to Gallank Tree in King’s Barrow as quickly as possible.”

            The man grew still as his gaze unfocused. It was like he was looking at a map that existed in his head. A moment later, his gaze grew sharp again. “I can get you there in two days.”

            A journey that would require two weeks for a lander, reduced to a mere two days. Shel grinned and shook his head. He liked this part.

            “That is what I expected,” Shel replied. “I am ready now.”

            The man set his dripping hand on Shel’s shoulder and shifted their forms.

            Their shadows disappeared. The area next to the fountain was suddenly empty.

–H– 

Author’s note: This Hamal book is on its way to being the longest volume in the series so far. 🎉

🔥 Want to read the chapters early? Join us on Patreon.

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 or sapient plants is purely coincidental.

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Bad Place

            Hamal knew he was asleep. Based on his breathing, heart rate, the way the blood moved through his body, and several other signs, he knew he was unconscious. That meant this had to be a dream. It existed but not the way the inn existed or the way the dirty town of Redsprin existed.

            And yet, as he turned around in a slow circle and gaped, his mouth open, the land around him seemed oddly…real. This was possibly the most realistic dream he’d ever had.

            He could smell the smoky air and feel the sand shifting under his boots as he turned. The sky was a strange shade of brown, almost like cinnamon, and the sun was a dull, orangey globe above his head. He didn’t need to squint or shade his eyes as he peered up at it, because the brightness that should have been there wasn’t.

            He was standing on top of a sand dune. As far as he could see in any direction lay other sand dunes and, in the small valleys in between them, large puddles of black wetness. They sort of reminded him of a swamp he’d seen once, but they didn’t appear to be filled with water or mud. He thought it might be tar. There was so much smoke in the air that his head was starting to feel tight. He lifted the collar of his tunic and held it over his nose. This dream was turning out to be stranger and stranger. Now it was trying to give him a headache, and it was very hard for most things to give him headaches.

            He stood there for a long time and waited for something to happen. That was usually how dreams began—someone came along, or something changed, or you realized you had to be somewhere.

            But nothing changed. The land around him stayed exactly the way it was, and Hamal’s head remained tight and achy, and he barely cast a shadow because the sky acted like it was trying to cover the sun with blankets.

            Shel Galen, his grandfather, had much to say about dreams and how the gods sometimes spoke through them. Hamal lifted his brows. Well, if this dream was a message from a god, it couldn’t be a good one.

            He froze.

            Rosy. The oracle.

            The little girl was asleep in the room with him, and she had a powerful gift that could peer into the realm where the gods lived and see what they were doing. Was this a Rosy dream? Did this place look and seem real to him not because of him—but because of her?

            Oh, you poor child. Was this horrible place what she saw whenever she used her gift? Hamal’s heart began to hurt. He almost reached up and rubbed his chest. This place was not a good place. No child should live here—or even visit here. It wasn’t safe and it wasn’t healthy. He had to find her.

            He took a deep breath, hoping the fabric of his tunic would help filter it, and then lowered his tunic and called out, “Where are you, Rosy? Where are you?”

            She did not appear. The land lay empty and still.

            He had no idea where he would find a small child in this smoke-filled place filled with rolling dunes, but he couldn’t just stand here and do nothing. Eventually he picked a direction and started walking. Really, there weren’t many directions he could go. He had to pick his way around the tar puddles.

            He climbed down the sandy slope and then clambered up the slope on the other side, the sand sucking on his boots with each step. Once on the ridge of the second slope, he looked around again and saw only the same things—rolling dunes, puddles of black stuff, brown sky, quiet sun. A hot wind came by and told him more about this place and how it wasn’t good for children. Something had died nearby. The smoke mixed with the eerie stench of decay and death.

            He kept walking. Up and down. Hill after hill. One time he paused and cocked his head, listening as an animal howled somewhere in the distance. He didn’t recognize the cry and—considering the rest of the dream so far—thought he probably wouldn’t like the animal, whatever it happened to be.

            Step after sandy step. He repeatedly called Rosy’s name and wondered what his grandfather would say about the dark, sticky-looking puddles that lay like dozens and dozens of traps in his path.

            “Oh, Rosy,” he murmured as the dry, fiery wind swept over him, blowing sand. “I am so sorry about all of this. This is not a good place, and this is not the work of a good god. I promise you. I promise, Rosy—I am going to show you what a good god looks like. You will get to see what a good god is doing, and you will get to be a child again.”

            He sighed deeply and then continued trudging, trapped in a little girl’s nightmare.

            Tracking through the brown sky, the sun shifted in color, darkening to red-brown as it approached the horizon. Evening was approaching—night. Hamal could not imagine being in a place like this after dark. Who knew what prowled these slopes when the sun was gone?

            How many times had Rosy been to this place?

            What horrors had she seen here?

            The wind began to change. The stench of something dead returned, stronger this time, until Hamal doubled up his tunic so he could keep breathing. He was used to dead things and dead smells. All healers were. But this wind carried despair he could feel pushing against his skin. He tripped as he climbed up the next dune, landing on his knees, one hand, and one elbow. Struggling up to his feet again, he completed the climb and stopped at the top of the rise, every muscle in his body going still.

            On the other side of the dune was a long, wide area that was sandy and completely flat, with more dunes rising on the far side. A large black desk stood in the exact center of the clearing. It was the size of the king’s dining table. Stacks of coins covered the desk’s surface—it was a towering forest of coins—and someone was counting them. The man seated behind the desk matched the desk length for length. His bare shoulders were like the shoulders of a mountain, and his arms were twice as long as Hamal’s entire body. A black crown encircled his bald head, and his skin changed colors, washing gray and then black-purple, then a sickly kind of yellow, like an old bruise no one had bothered to heal.

            Hamal dropped into a crouch, his heart thundering.

            He watched as the man counted the wealth on his desk. He would pick up a coin, hold it in his palm, and then move it to the next pile. Every ten coins, he picked up a quill pen and scribbled something in a huge ledger in front of him. Then he would lay the quill aside and resume counting.

            Hamal released his breath slowly. Something was wrong with those coins. Those looked like real coins, but even from this distance, he could feel them, the same way he could feel another healer.

            Why, he thought desperately, is this terrible thing in Rosy’s dream?

            He knew he hadn’t spoken aloud. But the large head with the black crown lifted, and a dark, vile gaze met Hamal’s. The man—no, Hamal didn’t think this was a man. This was a disease that had taken human form.

            The monster-god did not rise from his chair. He didn’t see an intruder and move to attack. Instead, his lips pulled back, revealing multiple rows of teeth, and the creature reached over to a random stack and picked up a single coin from the desk’s vast treasure. Between powerful-looking fingers, he lifted the coin and turned it so Hamal could see its face.

            Hamal was a long distance away, still crouched on top of the sand dune. But somehow in Rosy’s dream, distance didn’t matter. He could easily see the image embedded in the coin’s surface.

            A crown on top of a jewel.

            Confusion rushed through Hamal’s system as he looked at the coin and tried to understand. A crown and a jewel? This was Rosy’s dream—did that mean this was her coin? Did it represent her in some way? He couldn’t understand how either of those two images might go with an oracle. She was not a jeweler. Nor was she a queen, a princess, or any other type of ruler. She was just a little girl without any family.

            The wicked smile widened. Hamal had the stomach-turning sense that he had given the monster-god exactly what he wanted, though what that was Hamal couldn’t imagine.

            The monster-god set the coin back on its towering stack and resumed counting, marking the ledger every ten coins. He did not look up again.

            The acidic wind grew more severe, sweeping over the dunes and across the flat land. The monster-god’s stench became choking. All breathable air disappeared from Rosy’s dream, and Hamal jerked backward and—

            —and sat straight up on the bed.

            The old frame creaked beneath the sudden change in his position. His heart was shouting in his chest and in his ears. A fire gleamed on the hearth, and a lamp burned on the small table next to the bed, but the light barely reached beyond the corners of the bed. It wasn’t enough light. The room remained horribly dark.

            A hand landed on Hamal’s arm. A strong grip held him. “Hamal.” Cale’s voice. “Are you all right?”

            Gasping for breath, Hamal told his heart to calm, and it obeyed. His breathing quieted, and he scanned the room again, searching for a small pair of fire-filled eyes gleaming in the darkness. He did not find them. “Where’s Rosy?”

            “Peace, Hamal,” Cale said. “She’s fine. She’s in the next room with Chestirad, who seems to think he’s good with children.” Cale shook his head like he did not fully trust this assessment.

            Hamal felt the seer’s eyes.

            Cale’s voice grew tight. “What happened? We could not wake you, no matter what we tried. Rosy awakened easily, but you we could not bring back to consciousness. It is now the evening of the second day. What happened?” he repeated.

            Hamal groaned and rubbed his face with both hands. “I think I saw the god Rosy is shadowing.”

            Cale grew still. “Yes?”

            Hamal nodded sadly. “Oh, Cale. This is not a god we want in King’s Barrow. This is a bad god. I don’t know who it is, but I think it might be the one in charge of diseases. Plagues and horrible things like that. It had a desk full of coins—hundreds of coins—and I think they’re all people who are sick. He was proud of his coins, and he was counting them. He showed me one, and I thought it might be Rosy’s coin, but…that doesn’t make any sense. She isn’t a jeweler.”

            Cale slowly leaned back in his chair. He stared at Hamal and did not speak. A log cracked on the hearth. A small cloud of sparks rose up around the base of the chimney.

            “You were wise, I think,” Hamal said at last, “to sleep in a different room last night! Was this what you foresaw, that she would dream?”

            Cale grimaced slightly. “I saw there would be complications and that we wouldn’t be able to leave in the morning, the way we intended. I didn’t know what the complications would be.”

            “I want to see Rosy. I want to make sure she’s all right.” Hamal felt like the dream still stood in the room with him, holding on. He wanted the image of that strange, terrible god to leave him, but more than this, he wanted to go and comfort Rosy, if she would let him. He wanted to hold this little girl who had known only pain and found herself shadowing a god of disease. After that dream, he knew more about Rosy than even what her bones had told him, and he wanted to comfort all the fear from her.

            The chair scraped across the floor as Cale stood. “Let us go now.”

            They stepped out into the hallway and crossed to the next room, which held a few more people than was naturally comfortable for such a small space. Chestirad was pacing back and forth by the fireplace; Masly Hawl was pacing by the window. Lord Rhyan, seated on one of the two beds, was trying to read a book, but it didn’t seem to be going very well. He was scowling.

            Gregory Almes was seated on the edge of the other bed, writing a slew of words in his notebook. Hamal could hear the pencil as it scraped the page, and this gave him an idea, a good idea, but it needed to wait for a few minutes. Right now, there was a little girl who needed kindness.

            Voices erupted as the men saw Cale with Hamal right behind him, but at a gesture from the seer, they all fell silent.

            Hamal saw the one he sought. Rosy was sitting on the floor in the corner. Again she had returned to the corner, Hamal noticed with sorrow. She watched him with dark eyes as he walked up to her slowly and crouched down.

            He wanted to touch her, but he remembered what her bones had felt like and every detail of the place he’d seen in her dream. So he just squatted there and didn’t try to lay his hands on her. “Rosy.”

            If possible, the room grew even quieter.

            “I know what you see when you use your gift,” Hamal said, speaking slowly so he wouldn’t scare her more than she was. “You see a large, terrible land filled with sand and smoke and a monster-god who sits at a desk and counts coins.”

            When he heard her heart jump, he wanted to put his arms around her even more. She was used to hiding, to revealing nothing to those who might cause her pain, but her heartbeat gave her away.

             “There, there, Rosy,” he said, lifting his hand in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. “It is going to be all right. I don’t know how to do this yet, but I am going to find a way to save you. One day, I promise, you will never have to see that horrible god again.”

            She didn’t move.

            He waited, giving her time to respond. When she did nothing, he nodded and stood up. He turned around and looked at Gregory, who was also staring at him.

            Hamal pointed to Gregory’s notebook. “May I borrow that?”

– H –

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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.

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Rabbit in the Fox Den

            “Hamal,” Cale said, “in a place like Redsprin, a little gold can walk a long road. A fortnight’s salary in the city would be three month’s salary here. You have more than enough. In all likelihood, the innkeeper would feel he had struck an excellent bargain with a single sovereign.”

            Masly made a face.

            Cale wasn’t even looking at him, yet Cale still shrugged and amended, “Two sovereigns.”

            “Better,” Masly said.

            “Thank you.”

            They watched Hamal.

            Hamal reached up and rubbed the top of his head. He had taken off his knit cap, and his hair felt rumpled beneath his fingers. After thinking about things for a while, he asked, “Can I have four sovereigns?”

            Cale’s head cocked to the side. “That is twice the amount Masly and I recommend. Why have you picked that number?”

            “Well, she’s watching, isn’t she?”

            They all turned and looked at the little girl in the corner. She was, indeed, watching.

            “She’s just a child,” Hamal said. “I don’t know all that can be known about children, but I think it’s easy for them to start thinking things that aren’t true. I want her to think good thoughts instead. If I give the innkeeper only two sovereigns, she will think she’s worth only two sovereigns. Well, that’s not right, is it? Two sovereigns would do it, but she needs to think better than what the innkeeper would demand. She doesn’t have parents. She’s alone… She needs to think better than just two sovereigns.”

            At a table near the door, men started shouting at one another. The innkeeper roared a threat at them and started stomping their direction. The shouting instantly quieted, and every man at the table seemed to shrink down as the massive innkeeper drew closer.  

            “The number isn’t important,” Hamal insisted. “It just needs to be more than the innkeeper says.”

            Gregory scribbled madly in his notebook.

            Rhyan stared at Hamal. “How did you manage to survive for hundreds of years on your own? How are you older than I am?”

            Hamal frowned. “I wasn’t on my own. And I’m seventeen.”

            Cale smiled. “Of course you are. Your bones tell you so.”

            “They do.”

            “Of that I have no doubt. Very well, Sage. You will have the amount you desire. And I won’t tell you to spend it wisely, because I know you will.”

            Hamal always let Cale handle the money. He felt this was very wise of him. Discreetly, the seer retrieved four coins from the purse he kept on his person and, beneath the table’s edge, slipped the coins into Hamal’s waiting hand.

            “Here you are. I suggest you wait for an hour or two for the crowd to dissipate.”

            “Dissipate?”

            “Grow smaller.”

            “But I don’t want to lose her.”

            “Hamal, she’s been living at the inn for several months. You heard the innkeeper. I don’t think she will suddenly wander off in an hour.”

            “But, Cale…”

            The seer held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “It is up to you, of course. Do as you like. I won’t argue with wisdom.”

            Lord Rhyan scowled. “Is this a good decision? Are we certain of this course? Sending Hamal, I mean. Forgive me, but you must admit, this is a little like sending a rabbit into a fox den.”

            “But a very wise rabbit,” Masly said. “He’s wily.”

            Hamal gripped the coins and grinned. “Tell me what to say, Cale. I don’t know what to say.”

            Cale gave him some ideas, and Hamal squirmed off the bench and weaved around the tables to where the innkeeper stood. Rosy’s gaze followed Hamal’s movements. She sat with the bucket in her lap as she shoved food she had picked up off the floor into her mouth.

            The innkeeper saw Hamal coming and muttered something that made everyone around him laugh. “How can I help you, boy?”

            The top of Hamal’s head barely came to the center of the innkeeper’s chest. Taking a deep breath, Hamal said, “You don’t have to look after Rosy anymore. I’m going to take her with me.”

            The innkeeper frowned. “Who?”

            “The child you call Rose.” Hamal pointed at the girl in the corner. Her hand had stopped halfway to her mouth. She looked as stiff as a stone wall. “Her. I know you have been looking after her, and I am going to cover the cost of her care. You won’t need to look after her anymore.”

            “Rose, eh?” The innkeeper glanced at the men at the table and then, concealing a grin, reached up and rubbed his jaw. “She’s been work. Hard work. She’s sickly, you know. Can’t earn her own keep.”

            “I understand,” Hamal said politely.

            “I put two kip in her easy.”

            “Kip? What’s that? Is that like sovereigns?”

            The innkeeper looked at Hamal as if he—Hamal—had left his mind back at the table. “Yes. Like sovereigns.”

            A few of the men began to snicker.

            “Thank you for explaining,” Hamal said. “How much is two kip in sovereigns?”

            More snickers.

            “Two,” the innkeeper said, drawing out the word. He stared down at Hamal and, speaking slowly and with strong pronunciation, explained, “Kips are sovereigns. The king’s money, used for buying and selling things.”

            “Well, here are four kip for you.” Hamal held out the coins. “Four, not two.”

            The large man’s hand appeared, and the coins clinked in his palm.

            At the sight of all that gold, the laughter cut off. Hamal felt the change in the room and glanced around.

            No one said anything, so he said, nodding toward the innkeeper’s hand, “That should cover all your hard work.”

            The innkeeper’s mouth worked for half a minute before words came out. “Done. Thank you.” A strange look passed over his face. “Sir.”

            Cale had spoken to Hamal about what he should ask for—certain things they would need for a little girl who had been living on the floor and eating food scraps. “I need a clean washtub delivered up to our room. You know, one for bathing in. And clean towels too. And another bed for her. And whatever she has—shoes and a coat and other things. Oh! And I need another bowl of whatever stew that was. That was good. Rosy is going to eat like a real person instead of off the floor.”

            “Whatever you require,” the innkeeper said agreeably.

            Hamal grinned. “Yes, I know.”

            Rosy didn’t want to go upstairs. She didn’t even want to leave her corner. Not at first.

            Hamal had to coax her, speaking with great kindness and slowness, and eventually she allowed him to take her hand and lead her out of the corner and then out of the dining room. She balked again at the base of the stairs. He thought she might be afraid of getting in trouble with the innkeeper, so Hamal crouched down and explained the situation to her again.

            “Rosy,” he said, his hand on her shoulder. “I know the dining room is where you used to live. I know that was your life for a while, but Cale and I—we’re going to take care of you now. You don’t have to stay downstairs anymore because now you’re with us. Do you understand?”

            Large, dark eyes fixed tightly on his face. He looked into them and thought about fire. Until they figured out which god she was shadowing—well, perhaps it was good there was no fire just now.

            “Do you understand?” he repeated.

            She did nothing. But when he stood up and gently tugged on her hand, she followed him up the steps and into the room Hamal and Cale planned on sharing that night.

            Cale, however, had changed his mind. “I will stay next door. With Masly and Chestirad.”

            “But why?” Hamal asked. “She’s just a little girl. She’s not scary.”

            “She is an oracle,” Cale replied, as if that would answer all arguments and questions. He hesitated. “I have used my gift with her, Hamal. Forgive me, but you have not seen what I have seen. I will be one room away if you require my assistance.”

            So Cale gathered his things and left. Hamal could hear him and a few of the others speaking quietly out in the hall.

            A short while later, there was a knock on the door, and two men who looked exactly alike carried the items Hamal wanted into the room—a washtub, blankets and somewhat clean towels, and even a small trundle bed. One of the legs was missing, so they’d brought a wooden block to keep everything level. The bed was so small that it resembled a bassinet, but Rosy was small and Hamal thought she would fit comfortably.

            The men left and one returned, carrying a tray with a bowl of stew, a carefully folded napkin, a spoon with a wooden handle, and half a loaf of fresh bread. He hesitated at the door, and at first Hamal thought he might want to help with Rosy. Right as he realized the man was hoping for money, Chestirad happened to step out of the next room and “encouraged” the man to return downstairs.

            Rosy didn’t seem to know how to use a spoon. Instead, she shoved food into her mouth with her fingers, watching Hamal over the bowl’s rim as if she thought he might take the food from her. Her expression and actions didn’t change even after Hamal spoke to her again and again and told her everything would be all right now.

            She doesn’t understand, he thought sadly. She’s safe with us, but she doesn’t know.

            As she cleaned out her bowl, he told her stories about some of his adventures with his grandfather and about a dog named Zayzay, who knew how to count sheep.

            “He truly did!” he said. “He could count up to seven. It was amazing.”

            Rosy stared at him as he talked. And he talked a long time, trying to set her at ease. Twice during his storytelling, the door had opened, and Cale had stuck his head into the room. Twice the seer had departed without a word.

            Rosy didn’t lie down in her bed until nearly four in the morning.

            From his bed against the wall, Hamal could hear her heartbeat—steady but fast, like a nervous little deer’s, and he grieved over the fear he’d felt in her bones. Oh, little child. This place has taught you bad things.

            Lying on his back, hands folded under his head, he waited to close his eyes until he heard her heart slow and knew she had gone to sleep. Finally. How long had it been since she had gotten good sleep in this place? And in a real bed? Although this one was old and falling apart. At least she could sleep tonight in peace and be gone from here tomorrow forever.

            Hamal fell asleep right away, without concern.

            In the quiet room, Rosy slept.

            But her gift did not.

            Hamal opened his eyes to smoky air and sand under his boots. He looked around in surprise. What?

– H –

Author’s note: I really like Lord Rhyan. I may need to write his love story one day. ❤️

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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.

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

This Is Rose

            Little Rose couldn’t have been more than six. The scrap bucket was almost bigger than she was, and she moved it as if it were an extension of her body. Every piece of food and broken bowl went into the bucket as fast as Hamal could blink, and he realized he was just about to lose her to the corner again.

            “Rosy!” he called, sliding off the bench. He sat down on the floor—close, but not too close, to her.

            She froze, head down, one small hand gripping the bucket’s edge.

            “Rosy, my name is Hamal. I’m a healer,” he said in his kindest voice. “Are you sick? Do you not feel well? I would like to put my hand on your shoulder, if that is all right?”

            It was not all right. The thin shoulder jerked away before he could even get his arm lifted.

            “Wait, Rosy! Don’t go away. I’m not going to hurt you—”

            Her head came up. She stared at him with red eyes.

            Hamal froze, his arm outstretched, his fingers inches from her shoulder.

            The color in her eyes seemed to sway like fire. For a moment, he thought he could see actual flames in her irises, and his mind paused on that point: She has fire in her eyes.

            She blinked.

            Her eyes were brown.

            Hamal nearly reached up to rub his face, but at the last moment, he didn’t, suspecting that if he looked away even for an instant, she would vanish back to her corner. He leaned forward slowly, repeating, “I am a healer. I am going to make you feel better. You don’t need to do anything. I’m not going to hurt you. Just sit there, just like that. Good girl. You’re a very good girl. I can tell.”

            His fingertips touched her shoulder lightly. One little touch.

            Emotion swamped him, to the point that he nearly gasped. The rush was so swift and so strong that he almost pulled his hand away. Her bones were weeping. That’s what it felt like as they told him how all the people she once had known had died or left her without a reason. She was alone now, and she was scared. Her bones couldn’t tell him what she feared, but over and over again, they said she was afraid, she had lost everything, and she was alone. Bones were the history keepers of the body, and that was her history—that she had lost everyone and she was all by herself.

            And her blood was sick.

            He tilted his head as his gift examined her blood and the strange thing growing in her chest, near her heart. A tumor, but an unusual one. Hamal felt like he had stepped into a conversation that had been going on for a long time. Her blood knew about the tumor and knew it shouldn’t be there. It had a lot to say about it. This should not be. Something is wrong. Her blood kept repeating itself.

            What an odd thing, Hamal thought. No wonder the innkeeper said she was sickly.

            As quickly as he could, he removed the growth. It dissolved at the touch of his gift, and he rebuilt the inside of the child’s chest, so her bones and her heart and all the other pieces of her could operate the way they were supposed to. He washed her blood so it could think and act properly, and he also found an old break in her wrist that needed healing. The body had tried to heal by itself, but it had done a poor job. So he fixed the bone too.

            All in all, healing her small body took about one minute. She sat quietly for him the entire time, staring at him.

            “There you are,” he said and pulled his hand away. “Now you will feel better.”

            Not a sound. Just dark eyes that studied him. He decided he must have imagined the fire eyes from before.

            Rosy picked up her bucket and scrambled back to her corner, where she situated herself in the shadows and watched him through the table legs. Hamal stared at her from across the room until his eyes began to sting. They were on a mission for the king. They had a job to do, but how could they possibly leave this child here, in this terrible place with an innkeeper who didn’t care about her? He wanted to tell Rosy’s blood everything was all right now. He wanted to tell her she didn’t have to be alone anymore.

            He ended up sitting on the floor for twice as long as it had taken to heal her. Then he sighed deeply and returned to the table he shared with his friends.

            As he slid onto the bench, he told the others, “She had a growth in her chest. It was trying to kill her and poison her blood, but she is all better now. She was in a lot of pain. I don’t know for how long.”

            No one said anything.

            Hamal realized how quiet the table was, and he looked up to find his companions watching him. Cale, Masly, Gregory, and Rhyan all stared at him.

            “What is it?” he asked.

            Masly spoke first. “Did you not see what we saw?”

            “With Rosy?” Then he straightened up excitedly. “You mean the fire eyes? Aye, I saw the fire eyes!”

            Gregory reached into one of his many pockets and removed a book, thumbing through the pages.

            Lord Rhyan cleared his throat. “Why would a little child have fire in her eyes? That can happen with a flamemaker, but this child is not a flamemaker. I would have been able to feel her gift, and I did not. A child without fire, yet she somehow has fire in her eyes?” He grimaced. “I have never heard of such a thing, and I would like to think, considering my gift, that I’ve heard of most things involving fire—”

            “Here we are,” Gregory announced and slapped his book on the table, spreading out the pages with his fingers. “The child is a gift called an oracle.”

            Everyone leaned forward.

            Gregory’s book didn’t have any words. It had pictures instead. Staring back at them was a sketch of a beautiful lady with long hair and red eyes. The entire picture was black and white, except for the eyes. The artist had carefully filled them with crimson paint. They looked as if they were made of fire.

            Hamal took a quick breath in surprise. Many years had passed since he’d seen this face, and he wasn’t expecting to see it on this journey, and the sight of it made him smile. “I say, Cale—”

            Gregory didn’t seem to hear him. “This is Hellan,” the reader stated. “She was the last oracle. Two hundred years ago, she helped bring an end to the Barrow Wars.”

            “An oracle,” Masly repeated. His silver eyes narrowed. “I keep discovering gifts I didn’t know existed. It’s quite vexing.” He glanced at Hamal, but there was no malice in his gaze.

            “Yes, sir. It is an incredibly rare gift that does not follow the bloodline. It appears at random, a quality it shares with the seer gift, but unlike the seer gift, the oracle does not simply bypass multiple generations in a row. It is genuinely random. A decision made by the gods.”

            Masly frowned. “You’re certain she isn’t just a thiever? A thiever could deceive this way.”

            A flicker of annoyance went across Gregory’s face, but quickly his expression returned to one of calm. “Yes, sir. With the exception of the flamemaker gift, the oracle is the only gift that produces color saturation in the eyes to the extent that the irises appear to be made of fire. It is not actual fire, as it would be with flamemakers, but it has the appearance of fire. The oracle is related to the seer gift. It is a type of seer, but its realm is vastly different. With only one exception, all Court Gifts are marked by their eyes. The seer has silver. The prophet has gold.” He paused. “And the oracle, also a Court Gift, has fire—but only when the gift is in operation.”

            “What’s the possibility we would walk into an inn in a miserable town in the North Territory and find one of the Court Gifts?” Rhyan murmured.

            Gregory, who knew many things, replied, “None. The gift is ridiculously rare—even more so than that of sage. Every historian who has studied the gifts in depth has an opinion on oracles, but their rarity is not questioned. In fact, they all agree that the oracle gift is impossible to find.”

            “Well,” Masly said, “you’re saying we found one, so impossible seems like a strong word.”

            Again, faint annoyance twitched through Gregory’s expression. He bowed his head politely. “They say it is impossible to find—unless one is meant to find it. If an oracle stumbles across your path, it is purposefully done. It is the will of the gods.”

            “Lovely,” Lord Rhyan muttered and sat back on the bench. “Just what we need on this venture. An interfering god.”

            Gregory smiled slightly as delight filled his eyes. “An interfering god is not always a detriment.” He flipped to the next page in his book of pictures.

            When he saw yet another familiar face staring back at him, Hamal started laughing. “You brought my grandfather on the trip with us! I didn’t realize you were going to bring him—who else do you have hidden in the folds of your cloak?”

            Though his eyes still twinkled, Gregory did not laugh. “Your grandfather acted as a guide for Hellan, the last oracle. He escorted her to our city, where she played a significant role in stopping the Barrow Wars. Oracles require wisdom because their gift enables them to see what the gods or a specific god is doing. They are then able to mirror that god’s actions. It is vital for the oracle to mirror a god who is interested in the welfare of men.” Gregory’s look grew pointed. “Hamal, what do you know about the oracle gift?”

            Again, everyone around the table gave Hamal their attention.  

             “Well,” Hamal said, thinking about it, “I know they’re always girls. And I know she can pick the god she wants to follow. And you’re right—it is very important for an oracle to choose the right god. If you do what the wrong one is doing, it’s bad. Wars and plagues and death—it’s possible for bad gods to do very bad things that hurt people, and the oracle might help them. But if the oracle follows the right god, she can do what the right god is doing, and she can bring life instead of death. If you’re an oracle, you have to know who the right god is.”

            “Which is why your grandfather supported Hellan and participated with her gift,” Gregory said, nodding in affirmation. “He gave her wisdom. He was her wisdom, in a sense.”

            The only born nobleman among them, Rhyan leaned back on the bench and gave the girl in the corner another brief look. He didn’t sound pleased as he said, “We can’t overlook the presence of an oracle, especially not when we’re here on the king’s behalf. We’ll have to turn around and take her back to the city.”

            No one answered. Hamal looked at the others’ faces and decided they all thought Rhyan was right, but they didn’t like it.

            Masly glanced through the room. In a low voice, he said, “A lot of learning a little girl would get in a place like this. And none of it good. If this place teaches this child about a god, it surely would not be a god we desire in King’s Barrow.”

            “She’s afraid,” Hamal said. “I’ve never seen the movements of gods, but I imagine it could be scary. Especially if you were all alone and needed wisdom and didn’t have any. She’s terrified. Her bones are all marked up with her fears.”

            “We have to take her to the king,” Rhyan repeated.

            “We are on a specific timeline,” Cale answered. “Oracle or not, I don’t believe Cedrick would have us turn around and go home.”

            “We could take her with us,” Hamal suggested.

            All four heads swung toward him.

            “Hamal,” Cale began. “You know where we’re going. You know what we are likely to confront when we get there. It is no place for a little girl, even if she has a powerful gift.”

            Rhyan agreed. “We can’t leave her here, but neither can we take her to the coast. I have no desire to give the king bad news about an oracle. Yes, Sire, we found one, but we accidentally dropped her down a hole in the ground.”

            “Well, we don’t have to take her all the way into the mine,” Hamal said.

            “Lower your voice,” Masly ordered, voice sharp.  

            Hamal did as he was told, this time whispering, “We don’t have to take her all the way into that one place. We could just take her to a better place, and she could wait for us there. This is a bad place. We can’t leave a god’s oracle in a place like this, so maybe we can just leave her at a different place instead.”

            Cale studied Hamal for a long time.

            Hamal began to twitch on the bench.

            Eventually Cale sighed and said, “Very well,” which drew quick looks from the other three men. Looks he ignored. “If that is wisdom. But I foresee that our gracious host will smell the scent of gold and refuse to part with the girl immediately. He will demand a price.”

            A moment passed as Hamal tried to figure out what Cale meant.

            Rhyan muttered a word Hamal had never said in his life. The lord glared at the innkeeper, who stood laughing with a table of patrons on the other side of the room.

            The innkeeper wanted money? Why did he want money for Rosy? “But she’s healed now. He doesn’t need money for her anymore.”

            “He will call it compensation due to a lack of coin and being forced to care for her himself.” Cale looked at Hamal steadily. “The king gave you a purse for this journey. How much will wisdom offer a cruel man to compensate for the care—the obviously poor care—he has given this child?”

            Hamal considered the situation with care, thinking about gods and his grandfather and Hellan, who had once knitted him a sweater and told him how handsome he looked. He wore the sweater every winter for seventy years (he wasn’t certain, but he thought it was that long) and only gave it up when the elbows were gone and a mouse used it for a nest.

            But more than those things, Hamal thought about something Gregory had not said.

            Oracles appeared only in times of war. How was this a time of war? King’s Barrow was at peace.

            I don’t understand, he thought, looking over at Rosy.

            She stared at him.

            In the shadows, he saw two pools of flame, flickering.

– H –

Author’s note: Happy Independence Day! 250 years! 🎉

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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.

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

A Bit Like Looking at Hamal

            The king had told Cale to bring anyone he wanted. So Cale did.

            Lord Rhyan was a flamemaker—a bored flamemaker, Cale told Hamal in private, though why that was important for this venture Hamal didn’t know. They were going to arrest a bad man who could kill flamemakers with fire, but even after the situation was thoroughly explained to him, Lord Rhyan eagerly accepted the chance to be a member of Cale’s team.

            Chestirad and Ermond were flamemakers too, but they also happened to be something Rhyan was not: seasoned soldiers. Every night around the campfire, Chestirad polished his sword and what seemed to be a dozen knives he carried somewhere on his person. The only time Hamal saw the knives was at night around the campfire.

            Ermond, meanwhile, was a brooding sort of fellow who liked poetry and smoked a long, thin pipe called a ballister. Apparently, it was something rich people liked to do in Dasken. Just a few days into their journey, Hamal knew more than he wished about Ermond and a woman named Nallia who, by all accounts, seemed to like men who read poetry and smoked skinny pipes.

            Will Chiodo was a charter. This meant he could read the earth the way Hamal could read a person’s bones. Will had brought his dog with him—a surprisingly large, sandy-colored wolf pup whose fangs were visible even when her mouth was closed. Hamal, who liked dogs, thought it was funny how most of the men in their party pretended the wolf wasn’t there and became very quiet whenever she got up and moved around.

            “It’s a sand wolf,” Cale explained to Lord Rhyan one night beneath the stars.

            “By the gods, how did a charter acquire a sand wolf?” Rhyan exclaimed.

            “Cale gave her to him,” Hamal replied. “When we were in the East Territory a few weeks ago, he found the puppy in the ravine and gave her to Will as a present.”

            Rhyan’s brows lifted, and he made a strange noise in the back of his throat. Staring at Cale, he said, “You found a wolf on a piece of land commonly believed to be haunted, and you took the wolf and gave it to someone? As a gift?”

            “The wolf is a girl,” Hamal said. “Her name is Mercy.” Will had given her a feeler name.

            “Yes,” Cale answered. “I did give the wolf as a gift.”

            He looked at Rhyan, who cleared his throat and eventually said, “Ah,” then directed the conversation along a different route.

            Gregory Almes was a reader and official recorder for the king. The throne required a reader to document their journey; this was standard practice when the king’s business took place outside the city. Gregory spent most of his days with a pencil and a notebook in his hands. Even in the saddle, he was constantly writing. The king would receive Gregory’s report when they returned to the city.

            Hainn and Vincent were weathermakers. Hainn was quiet, barely saying a word unless he was asked a direct question, while Vincent loved water. Something about him was a little different, and Hamal couldn’t tell what it was. The way he moved? The way he watched the land around him? Hamal didn’t know, but after a while, he noticed that Vincent constantly had a waterskin in his hands. All the time. He drank more water than anyone else in their party. As the days passed, Hamal began to wonder if Vincent needed someone to heal him—it was a lot of water. The man seemed to have trouble sleeping. He was awake every time Hamal opened his eyes at night, except for the night they made camp next to a stream. That night, Vincent slept like a toddler who had done nothing that day but run.

            Gild, a healer, had four sons and three daughters with his weathermaker wife.

            Kolling was an archer. She journeyed by herself during the day and, every night, appeared at sunset with dinner hanging off her saddle.

            And the last member of their party was Masly Hawl. The seer who had kidnapped the king’s brother.

            “Anyone I want,” Cale said.

            The king had recently allowed Masly to move back to his house under careful guard. Masly lived there with a handful of the king’s soldiers and a court-assigned servant named Reckoning, a feeler who didn’t smile very much.

            When Cale told the king he wanted Masly to accompany them, the king had stared down his long nose at Cale and eventually said, “Very well. I don’t make a habit of arguing with seers.”

            Which Hamal didn’t understand at all, because Cedrick argued with Cale all the time. Sometimes they even bickered back and forth like brothers who had very good manners.

            So, Masly went with them.

            It was an interesting mix of people, to be sure.

            Toward the end of their eighth day on the road, they came to a small town called Redsprin.

            Even before they passed through the gate, Hamal began to suspect this town didn’t have any feelers. He was a healer, but even he could sense that something wasn’t right about this place. There weren’t any streets—just muddy tracks that tried to swallow wagon wheels and people’s boots. Residents waded through the muck as if they didn’t see it anymore, and no one was wearing clean clothes. Everyone Hamal saw, even the handful of children he spotted playing in a questionable alley, had an obvious weapon strapped somewhere on their body.

            As Cale’s party traveled deeper into the dirty little town, it was like somebody had blown a trumpet. Everything stopped. People turned and stared. And then they started frowning, especially at Cale and Masly.

            Hamal leaned sideways in the saddle and, in as quiet a voice as possible, whispered to Cale, “Why are we staying here again?”

            “Thieves,” Cale replied, also quiet. “This area of the country is notorious for theft. Highwaymen, mostly. Or armed men hiding in the trees. I would not typically wish to travel through this land, but it is the most direct route to our destination. The town, at least, offers a small amount of protection against external forces.” His eyes narrowed as he scanned the area. “A small amount of protection.”

            Hamal suspected he knew what Cale was sensing—a town without feelers. When a town did not have feelers, it felt different than other places. If feelers couldn’t live there, something inside the town needed to be healed—and as quickly as possible, because it was sick.

            The town had two inns situated around the muddy center square, and after a quick conversation between Cale and Masly, they chose the inn on the right. It was called Mourning Dove, a name that seemed sadly fitting. The inside of the inn was cleaner than the outside, but the windows were small and there weren’t many lamps to keep out the night. At least the main room was warm. A fire spit and crackled on a hearth that was built like a large triangle in the corner.

            Cale’s party took every available room on the inn’s second floor, and once that was done, they returned to the dining room for supper. Five of them—Hamal, Cale, Gregory the reader, Masly, and Lord Rhyan—sat together in a large booth in the back of the room. Hamal had learned that his friend Cale liked to watch things from the back, and he assumed Masly was the same way.

            The venison stew was good, better than Hamal expected, given the state of the town. Some of the others seemed a bit hesitant, however. Lord Rhyan made a face and then ate only the bread, and Gregory pretended to eat but, in the end, only poked around the bowl with his spoon.

            Hamal was halfway done with his meal when one of the customers dropped a dish. The plate hit the floor and shattered, pieces splintering. The other customers roared with laughter, and people lifted their drinks to cheer the chaos.

            Before the broken pieces had stopped moving, a small dark form raced out of a corner and began throwing them in a bucket.

            Hamal squinted, trying to see through the shadows. Was that a child?

            The broken shards and chunks of food went into the bucket, and then the small form fled back to the corner, where it sat in the darkness opposite the fireplace and picked through the bucket, choosing bits of things that it shoved into its mouth.

            It was a child. A girl, Hamal thought, but he couldn’t quite tell from where he was sitting. Was this her job—to clean the floor when someone dropped a dish? Frowning, he turned back to the table and discovered he was not the only one whose interest the child had captured. Cale and Masly both stared toward the corner where the little girl sat, nearly invisible in the shadows.

            “I have no idea what that is,” Masly said, his soft, boyish voice barely audible above the noise of the dining room.

            “Prophetic in nature,” Cale said.

            It was like he and Masly had been having a private conversation and only now did they feel it necessary to speak out loud.

            “In nature, yes,” Masly replied, “but not the prophetic gift itself. Obviously. Her eyes would give her away, and not even the master of this inn would dare treat a prophet-child in this fashion.” He frowned toward the innkeeper as the large man laughed uproariously at a nearby table.

            Oh, Hamal realized. They’re talking about her gift. He watched them frown, and then he glanced over at Gregory, who was writing things down again, and Lord Rhyan, who was twisting around on the bench and trying to see what everyone was talking about.

            Masly slowly said, “Whatever her gift is, it’s a bit like looking at Hamal for the first time.”

            Cale chuckled as if Masly had told a joke.

            “Looking at me? What does that mean?” Hamal asked. He was a healer, not a prophet.

            Neither seer seemed to hear him.

            The innkeeper walked by, and Lord Rhyan reached out and snagged a corner of his sleeve. The man was as tall and wide as a dining table set on end.

            “Your pardon,” Rhyan said politely. He nodded toward the child. “Who is that little boy in the corner?”

            The innkeeper followed his look. “Oh, that? That’s Rose. That’s what we call her. The little thing doesn’t speak. A thiever dropped her off here last year and left some coin for her, but then he never come back, and coin run out, and she’s been sickly ever since.”

            “Don’t you have healers in Redsprin, sir?” Hamal asked.

            The innkeeper’s dark gaze turned to him. “The coin run out,” he repeated. “Healers don’t work for no coin.”

            “Some of them do,” Hamal said.

            “What is her gift?” Masly asked.

            The innkeeper shrugged and looked toward another table whose occupants were laughing. “Don’t rightly know. The child is odd.” He tapped his forehead. “Up here. She hasn’t shown no signs of a gift since she came. Naturally, that was one of the first questions I asked that thiever, but he didn’t know either. Said he found her out on the road.” The innkeeper harrumphed. “Of course he did. Thievers is always honest, you know.” He laughed loudly.

            “Didn’t you ask her what her gift was?” Hamal asked.

            The large man growled, “She don’t talk. Not a word.”

            After the innkeeper had stomped away, Rhyan lowered his voice and said to the rest of them, “I daresay we might get a better night’s sleep out in the woods, despite the threat of thieves.”

            “Might be true,” Masly muttered.

            But he and Cale looked back to the child in the corner.

            “What do you see?” Hamal asked, bumping Cale’s arm with his shoulder.

            “She’s peculiar,” Cale replied.

            “What does that mean?”

            “I’m not sure I could describe it to you. It is more of a sense than a sight. I can see nothing about this child clearly.”

            Masly agreed with a nod. “Yes, and that’s strange too. I should be able to see something, but her gift hides her. Whatever it is.”

            Gregory’s pencil scratched the page. He made notes as quickly as he could.

            Blowing out his breath in a hot sigh, Rhyan rolled his eyes and straightened up on the bench. “Gentlemen, if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is indecision.”

            Hamal believed it. Rhyan was a flamemaker.

            As they all knew he was a flamemaker, perhaps they should have been expecting it, but they still jumped as Rhyan took hold of Hamal’s bowl and threw it on the floor. The porcelain shattered, the pieces bouncing everywhere. Just as they had the first time, other customers laughed, glasses raised.

            “If we are all so curious,” Rhyan said, “let’s meet her, shall we?”

– H –

Author’s note: We just got back from housesitting for my parents. While at their house, my nearly 2-year-old discovered that playing in toilets is a load of fun and so is stripping off his diaper and peeing on the kitchen floor as close to Mommy’s leg as possible. We had…an adventure. 😅

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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.

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Rumors of Ghosts

            Two days later, at nine o’clock in the morning, Hamal and Cale took a carriage across the city and entered the district of West Barrow, home to most of the city’s scholars and historians. The people who liked to study things lived in this district. Gregory Almes, one of Hamal’s reader friends, had a house here on Lettering Street.

            The carriage rolled to a stop in front of a house so far west that it nestled within the shadow of the city wall. Like many houses in West Barrow, this house looked fairly plain. Most people didn’t have fancy houses here because they spent their money on other things, like books and education and travel.

            But Hamal did notice one interesting thing about this house.

            “Are they building something?” he asked, peering through the carriage window at the carnage that used to be the front lawn. Five large holes gaped up at the sky: one hole beside the cobbled drive, one next to the rose garden, one against the wall, two others under some trees. The excess dirt had been carefully piled up next to each hole.

            Cale leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at the deep scrapes in the earth. A moment passed as he used his gift. “Experiments,” he said finally.

            “What?”

            “They’re testing the soil.” Cale smiled slightly. “Likely for the third or fourth time, I’d imagine.”

            Hamal did not understand why Cale thought this was funny. “Testing the soil? You mean, with an alchemist? Why are they testing the soil with an alchemist?”

            “The Elortons explore caves, Hamal. That is their occupation. They are interested in the earth—all manner of soil and rocks and what can be found under the surface. I imagine their natural interest has not abated, despite their recent setbacks.”

            Recent setbacks. An interesting way to describe what had happened with Lord Masgrave and his dragons. Cale seemed to think the trauma the siblings had endured had already lifted. Hamal smiled, pleased with his friend’s opinion. Good.

            A servant met them on the drive. He was tall and thin, and his lips barely moved as he said, “This way, sirs.”  

            He took Hamal and Cale up the stone steps and into the house, where there was even more dirt—dirt inside the house, in piles that appeared to be just as carefully arranged as the piles outside, only smaller.

            “Oh,” Hamal said in surprise.

            The servant sighed. “Yes,” he stated in a completely different tone. “Yes, I know. There’s no stopping them, and since their return three weeks ago, it’s been particularly bad. I have never—” His voice cracked to a halt as his eyes widened. He straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. In the first voice, the one that sounded very formal, he continued, “This way, sirs. His lordship is in the library.”

            The servant led them down a long hallway lined with bookcases. There were no books on these shelves. Instead, they were loaded with rocks. Some were rough and dark, full of holes. Some were spiky and sharp looking, and some were pretty. Hamal touched a shiny one that was the same color as spring grass. Imagine that—a green rock. They must have found it in a cave.

            The servant stopped in front of a door, and Hamal ran into his back. The man sniffed and pretended the collision hadn’t happened.

            “Sirs,” he said and opened the door.

            The smells of cinnamon tea and old paper followed the door’s movement. So did voices. A woman, talking about the military and an upcoming event—it sounded like a wedding—that involved someone in the military, and a man, who thought there would be plenty of time for everyone to arrive. Hamal saw more bookcases and more rocks, but there were actual books here, and he realized the large room was a library. Though he couldn’t see the speakers yet, he began to sense the presence of another healer.

            “She’s here!” he whispered excitedly to Cale.

            “Yes,” the seer replied.

            They walked down three aisles of bookcases filled with books that looked as old as the kingdom. As they approached the end of the third row, the servant loudly cleared his throat, and the familiar voices cut off.

            “Jon,” the woman called. “Are they here?”

            “Yes, mistress,” the servant replied.

            Hamal walked around the corner and stopped, grinning at the scene before him.

            Saviana Elorton, sitting on Lieutenant Com Reardon’s lap.

            “Why, Hamal,” she said and didn’t bother to pull her arms from around Com’s neck. She wouldn’t be embarrassed, he knew. Not this one. She didn’t know what embarrassment was, and she never cared what other people thought. “When I heard you were coming, I rearranged my schedule.”

            Com laughed at her. “You have a schedule?”

            “Quiet, darling. It is good to see you again, Hamal. Where is your silver-eyed friend? Did you remember to bring him too?”

            Cale stepped up next to Hamal, and Savi’s smile widened. “Oh, there you are, my lord. Forgive me. I didn’t know you were coming.”

            Hamal highly doubted that was true. He chuckled, sensing the presence of a joke even if he didn’t fully understand it.

            Savi untangled her arms and stood from the couch, brushing off her dress in a manner that made Hamal think of digs and dust and the exploration of old places, even though her dress appeared perfectly clean and presentable. She had a practiced hand.

            “I fear I must apologize on behalf of my brother, sir,” she said to Cale. “After receiving your letter yesterday, he vanished somewhere within the worded catacombs—” She gestured toward the library they stood in. “—and we haven’t been able to find him. I fear he is gone forever.”

            From somewhere deeper within the library, a man’s voice came floating through the dust. “Not true.”

            “We fear we may never see him again,” Savi continued in the same friendly tone.

            “No, we don’t.” Garrick Elorton, Savi’s brother and leader of their underground expeditions, stepped around an overloaded bookcase. Dust as thick as white powder clung to the shoulder of his dark tunic, and cobwebs had pasted themselves to his hair. In one hand he held an old scroll, the paper darkening with age, and in the other hand he clutched a black book. Also old, also dusty. “As always, thank you, Saviana, for your surge of creative details.”  

            He turned to Cale and lifted the scroll. “I found the map, Commander. If you will follow me over to the table, I can show you everything you need to know about the Dursen Head Mine.”

            Garrick led them to the long table next to the couch where Saviana and Com had been sitting. The table had been recently cleaned off, Hamal thought, judging by the papers and books stacked underneath it. Garrick set the black book off to the side and then rolled out the map, smoothing it down with both hands.

            “This is Dursen Head,” he said. “Two different renderings, as you can see. The one on the left is a copy of the original map drafted by a charter about nine hundred years ago. The one on the right is a more current map.”

            “How old?” Cale asked.

            “Ninety-nine years,” Garrick replied and tapped the scroll’s right side. “This is a charter’s work as well, so you can be certain of what you see.”

            Hamal studied the map and all the dark lines, shaded areas, town names, and other features carefully drawn out or labeled with old ink. The map was highly detailed concerning the mine itself. The charter had marked each shaft and how it turned through the soil and stones. In the eight hundred years between drawings, the mine appeared to have grown considerably. It was a single shaft on the left side of the paper but more like a town of passages on the right. Charters knew the earth; it spoke to them, and their maps were always dependable.

            Cale was already nodding. “They dug beneath the sea.”

            “They did. Most of the mine lays hidden beneath the soil, close to the shore but not quite touching it. This arm here, however, extends out beneath the water.” Garrick traced the route with a calloused finger. “A few hundred years ago, some believed the e’nethaine knew more about Dursen Head than we landers did.” He grinned like this was a ridiculous idea.

            Hamal didn’t think anything about the e’nethaine was ridiculous, and he knew Cale thought so as well. But neither of them tried to correct Garrick’s opinion.

            Instead, Cale said, “Some say the mine is haunted. What do you say?”

            Garrick’s smile hesitated. He seemed to notice the dust on his sleeve for the first time because he reached up and absently rubbed at his shoulder. “We are familiar with rumors of ghosts, my lord. That’s fairly standard in our business—digging up the earth, discovering artifacts and unknown territory buried under cities and towns and the like. Plenty of ghost stories. But here?” He swiped his fingertip across the northern coastline. “This is a different kind of ghost story. You’d almost think the e’nethaine were involved somehow.”

            I knew it, Hamal thought.

            Garrick kept speaking. “I have never been to Dursen Head myself, but Savi and I have heard a few of the stories and they’re…unique.”

            Cale frowned at Garrick. “How so?”

            Garrick looked over at his sister, sitting on the arm of the couch with the lieutenant on the cushion next to her.

            Savi wrinkled her nose like the entire notion of ghosts was distasteful to her. “Here is an example. A hundred years ago, Tome Dranda the charter—”

            Garrick pointed toward the right side of the map.

            “—scanned the mine to verify his map, and he insisted that the mine’s register was not correct. The register reported twenty-three miners in a certain shaft that day, but the charter counted twenty-seven. Four extra men, walking about.”

            E’nethaine, Hamal thought.

            “These ‘ghosts’ have weight,” Saviana continued. “Enough weight that a charter can sense their steps on the earth and assume they are men. But the more interesting stories involving the mine also involve healers.”

            She gave Cale an odd look. “You have heard about the Healer’s Treasure, I assume?”

            “I have.”

            For some reason, Saviana looked relieved. “Then you know that according to the legend, the gods hid some kind of massive treasure in the earth at Dursen Head, and only a healer can find it. Healers have been trying to discover it for centuries. Interestingly, it is like the mine itself—or perhaps whatever dwells in the mine—tries to keep them from finding it. This is where the ghost stories become more interesting. If anything goes missing, is tampered with, or is broken in the mine, that thing will certainly belong to a healer and not any other gift. Accidents happen, of course—but the strange things, the truly bizarre stories, always involve healers.” Saviana shrugged. “If the mine is truly haunted the way people say, it would seem that whatever lives there doesn’t like healers.”

            “Interesting,” Cale murmured. He lowered his gaze back to the map but, after a moment, looked at Hamal across the table. “What is your opinion, Hamal? Why would the e’nethaine prefer a healer’s belongings to those of anyone else?”

            Garrick’s eyes lit up like he was intrigued.

            Saviana looked serious.

            Com’s brows lowered in a frown.

            Hamal rubbed the top of his head as he considered the question. His mind touched upon the e’nethaine and landers and gods and how the world was made, and eventually he said, “They wouldn’t. The e’nethaine have their own healers. Why would they care about ours?”

            “Do you think the legend is true?” Cale asked. “That the treasure exists and is meant for a healer?”

            “Well, yes. My grandfather told me about it.”

            “Ah.” Cale’s silver gaze grew sharp. “And what did Shel Galen have to say?”

            “Just that there’s a treasure there, and eventually the right healer will find it.”

            Everyone looked at him.

            “Did he say you would find it?” Cale asked.

            Hamal laughed. But no one else did.

            “No, he didn’t say I would find it,” Hamal answered. “But he did mention something about time and how the treasure could grow, like it was alive.” He reached up and rubbed the top of his head. “I used to think that all secret treasures weren’t alive—like gold. Gold isn’t alive. It can’t grow like a person or an animal or a plant. But this treasure can grow. Shel said that if it had been found early, it would have been smaller, but because it still hasn’t been found, it is going to be bigger.”

            Everyone was still looking at him.

            “I have no idea what that means,” Saviana said.

            “Neither do I!” Hamal exclaimed. “A treasure that grows? My grandfather is full of secrets.”

            Several hours later, Cale leaned back on the carriage seat and looked at Hamal across the way. “You know, Hamal, if a treasure does exist somewhere within the Dursen Head Mine, you are the healer who will find it. You understand this, do you not?”

            Hamal laughed. “Do you think I’m like Savi and her brother? Hunting for treasures hidden in secret places? I’m not a treasure hunter, Cale.”

            Cale didn’t even smile. “Perhaps you should be, in this case.”

            Hamal felt the weight of his friend’s gaze. Every healer knew the story of the Dursen Head Mine, and Savi was right—many, many healers had gone there trying to find the secret treasure. Some entered the mine legally and some did not. The mine had had several owners through the centuries, and only a few of them allowed healers to search for the treasure.

            Cale abruptly leaned forward and called the driver’s name. “Percy, turn north on Harbor Street.”

            “Yes, sir,” came the muffled reply.

            Harbor Street would not take them back to Cale’s house, to the palace, or to anywhere else they might need to go before leaving the city.

            “Where are we going?” Hamal asked.

            The intensity eased in the seer’s gaze, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “The king said I could have anyone I wanted for this venture. Well—I have thought of someone I want.”

– H –

Author’s note: Do you remember Savi and Com from The Healer Who Didn’t Remember? I really enjoy their little love story. ❤️

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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.           

Eyes of Fire: Chapter 1

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?! 😱 Chapter 2 coming next Friday!

🔥 Want to read the chapters early? Join us on Patreon.

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.