In the Veil of Night, the Living Flames Sing

The sun was at zenith.

The wind sweeping the eastern continent was dry against the cheek.

Ahead of the column, sparse short grass spread across a horizon that wasn't quite field, wasn't quite waste. Mountains, forests, and lakes drifted past on the left and right at intervals — but as if a hand of the world were nudging them aside, none stood across the column's path.

Demon Lords swept up by the torrent of an age.

Clinging to a small back-current of fair wind in a gale of head-current, they were tracing the road to Lemuse.

Their encounter with a certain being came on the first morning after leaving the Duchy of Neuce Gauss.

Before morning, the dawn. Before the dawn, the night.

Before the encounter, they crossed a night.

---

The first night they passed near water.

Where a gentle river opened into a small pooled lake. Vegetation thick on the shoreline; the kind of place that, in a desert, would have been an oasis.

A short distance off the merchant highway — the road peddlers had wet with their blood and sweat for centuries. Some traces of human passage, certainly; but not entirely wild. For Demon Lords trying to hide unobtrusively — neither too close to nor too far from the road — it was, frankly, a good fit.

Some of them took watches in turn; the rest washed the fast travel out of their bodies with sleep.

"Merea. You actually awake?"

"Awake. The watchman falling asleep is the whole problem, Salman."

A little distance from the sleeping group, with a small light beside him, a man sat against a great tree, eyes open. Another, walking up to him.

Merea and Salman.

"Joking. — When you go up to someone in this kind of moment, don't you waver on how to start?"

The light — fire — was burning a little.

Not a normal fire.

Living Flame.

The strange fire created by the 〈Flame Emperor〉 Lilium.

The light on Merea's face was a knot of fire rather smaller than a fist, sitting calmly at his feet without a wick or fuel-source.

The 〈Flame Emperor〉's living flame was, in equal parts, mysterious and convenient. Its fuel was Lilium's own inherent nucleus, so it kept burning without anyone feeding it wood.

What's more, when it sensed a presence near, it would throw itself into water of its own accord to hide.

The flickering flame would sprout slim arms and legs, run patter-patter to the waterside, hesitate once at the edge — and dive in. Tssss. Down it went.

Reacting to Salman's approach, the small living flame at Merea's feet had just then ended its short life.

"Hey — that's a bit gut-wrenching, isn't it. And I feel weirdly guilty."

"Don't, don't. — I'll cry."

Because the flames threw themselves like that, the spare flames waited in a small dug-out hole tucked under a nearby bush, packed in close. When one expired, another stepped out to take the post.

Lined up in the hole, those small flames waiting for their turn looked oddly endearing — and quietly sad.

"Why don't they just hop back into the hole instead of the water…"

"They pick the closer one, apparently. — And when their internal element-fuel is running low, they tend to pick the flashy exit. Final flower in bloom sort of thing."

"Are they samurai?"

Salman pressed his fingers to his brow as if a headache were coming on.

For her part, Lilium — watching a small flame fling itself into the water —

"She was howling with laughter, you know."

"Lilium looked like a demon, frankly."

— had been laughing till her sides hurt.

She had made them. The orders were hers. They both knew that.

They both knew the orders were rational.

But seeing Lilium cackle as a small life threw itself into the lake — both Merea and Salman, internally, had absorbed a small beat of fear of her.

"I've decided not to defy Lilium."

"Probably, since she grew up with these flames from infancy, it's just… normal to her. — Or maybe a kind of recreation. Using your own formula skill for entertainment."

By the time Merea had finished, Salman had reached him and lowered himself onto the ground beside him.

A pleasant scent crossed Merea's nose.

He looked over. Salman was holding two gold-coloured cups; the scent was rising out of them.

"Look at these gold cups. Maximum bad taste."

"The smell of new money hits you first, mixed in with the actual good smell."

Salman handed one over. Merea took it with a wry smile.

The night veil softened the firelight; the firelight reflected on the gold of the cups. The setting felt like a fairy-tale traveller's pause — slightly undermined by the small living flame at their feet, who had begun a series of warm-up calisthenics.

Merea peered into the cup.

"Sweet smell — and sour."

"Camir Lemonade. Drink from a town I lived in for a long time. The town's specialty Camir liquor — sweet — cocktailed with regular lemonade — sour-heavy — and a touch of seasoning to finish."

"Mhm."

"Camir liquor's a fruit liquor of the camir, exactly like the name says. The fruit's too sweet, basically. Open a bottle as a souvenir, fine. Local who has it daily? It cloys. So locals cut the sugar with sour and blend it different ways."

"Hh. You know your subject."

"I lived there long enough. — Spotted it in Neuce Gauss while I was on errands and bought a couple bottles with the leftover money. — Don't tell the money-grubber, all right?"

Sand-coloured hair tossed in the night wind. Salman tipped a sip from his own cup.

Merea, watching sideways, set his nerve and tried his.

"Sweet—! — Ah! — sour!"

"Ha-ha-ha! I weighted yours with extra sour."

"You're not that different from Lilium!"

"The careless are the deserving. — Ah, that was an impression of the money-grubber. He hasn't said it, but it sounds like something he would."

Salman, full of mischief and theatre, slapped Merea's shoulder.

Merea pursed his lips at the sourness — and then noticed there was, under the sting, a strange un-stoppable tastiness to the drink, and brought the cup to his mouth again.

Sweet, then sour.

The sweet loosened the body's fatigue. The sour carried the warmth from the sweet into every corner of him.

A warm, easy breath escaped him.

"How is it. Once you're used to it, it's good, no?"

"I won't deny it."

"Not very honest of you."

Salman laughed.

"And the others?"

"Out cold. All of them tired."

A nod toward the depth of the trees with his chin.

The vegetation hid the actual sleeping camp; on the far side, the Demon Lords were sleeping deeply. Strain the ear and you might catch one or two breaths past the choir of insects.

Merea took Salman's word and didn't go to look. He turned the same back at Salman.

"And you?"

"Slept enough. Thanks to your watch. So — switch. Get some sleep."

"— I'm fine without sleeping. I'm built that way."

"Apparently. The more I look at you, the more I think so."

Salman conceded with a wry smile and didn't argue.

"Doesn't mean zero sleep is fine, though, does it?"

"Well — no. Multiple days, yes, the fatigue stacks."

"Right. Reset that day-counter while you can. No sign of pursuit yet. We're fine."

Merea was studying Salman's face for residual fatigue. If there was even a trace, he would have stayed on watch.

Salman was, evidently, not going to budge. Following the original schedule meant simply rotating.

In the end, Merea couldn't find any tired in Salman's face, and accepted it.

"All right. I'll take a small one, then."

"Yeah. Do that."

"Then — here."

Merea, gold cup drained, handed Salman a small twig from his other hand. The twig had leaves bound at the tip in a small dumpling.

"Use it to play with the living flames. Time goes by like nothing. If the leaf-dumpling gets burnt, you lose."

"You have a real talent for inventing strange games."

"Don't get so absorbed you neglect the watch, please."

Merea, picking up Salman's earlier impression of Shaw, returned a theatrical merchant's bow.

"That serious about it. — Ah, this is fun. — Tch — quick little—"

Salman, gold cup in one hand and Merea's twig in the other, was already in single combat with the living flame at his feet.

Lift the leaf-dumpling toward it; the flame sprouts limbs and jumps for the leaf.

Like playing with a cat on a string.

"…But this one, too, will, in time, fling itself into the water—"

"Don't make me sad right before sleep."

"Ah. Apologies."

Salman's ha, triumphant. The leaf was burned in that moment.

Merea, watching, finally let out a happy little smile.

"Then — good night."

"Yeah. Sleep well."

He walked off into the brush where the others were sleeping.

Salman, tying a fresh leaf to the twig, watched his back.

Then — just before Merea passed out of sight — Salman's hand stopped, and a thoughtful look came over him.

"…"

He'd seen, in Merea's back, a strange fragility.

A man who, on the battlefield, had been overwhelming presence — and yet that back, just then, looked as if it might dissolve into the air.

He didn't know why.

But it troubled him.

Merea's back disappeared from view. The footfalls faded.

The cool chorus of insects in the brush, and the tiny crackle-pop of the living flame at his feet, were the only sounds left in the small clearing.

---

The veil of night lifted; early morning.

The dawn-scent still drifted in the air.

A girl woke up before any of the others and quietly rose, careful not to disturb anyone.

The girl whose unique formula had carried them all the way to Neuce Gauss —

The crimson-haired 〈Flame Emperor〉 Lilium.

She let the early light through the trees fall across her, and stepped, alone, toward the water.

---

"Salman."

"Ah. First out."

Beside the great tree at the water's edge, the sand-coloured-haired man.

A young man with — by any measure — a fine set of features.

"Even if your eyes are a touch grim."

"That's a horrible thing to say first thing in the morning."

"It's fine. I gave you the compliment internally."

"Say that part out loud, please…"

Trading light barbs — measuring the distance.

The distance among them had visibly narrowed since leaving Neuce Gauss.

Lilium noticed, in Salman's hand, a strangely-shaped twig.

"What's that?"

"Hm? — Ah. Merea made it. For playing with your living flames."

He demonstrated on the spot, drawing the leaf-dumpling toward the flame at his feet. The flame went for it.

The two had, by now, struck a back-and-forth balance.

"Hmm. — I can't tell what's going on, but that one's almost out of fuel. He'll vanish soon."

"What?! — Oi! This is my lifelong rival! The others all dive into the water, or pile dirt on themselves and burn out, or various other dramatic exits — but this one's been with me. Trading punches. Taking breaks. He's — a friend! And he's about to —"

"Ah. He's gone."

"Ah—!"

A shh.

Quieter than the splash of water-suicide. The flame at Salman's feet simply went out, breath of breeze through the trees finishing the work.

Tears in the corner of Salman's eyes.

Lilium, with theatrical recoil — "Hold on. That's actually scary."

"Y-you — that one was alive…!"

"Aaah… — well, I get it. But — you do get used to it."

Salman, briefly, lost his words.

In the moment Lilium said you get used to it, her face had gone deliberately, pointedly blank. No emotion at all.

Salman read it.

"…So you were sad too. There was a young Lilium who watched the flames dive in and felt sad about it — it's just that now—"

"Now I find it kind of funny."

"You really are a demon!"

"Right, fine. Get back to the camp. People won't be up for a while; you can grab another nap."

She held out a hand. Once Salman had her by the wrist she pulled him to his feet and shooed him with a wave — off, off.

"I'm taking the watch. Go on."

"My grief over the parted flame is real."

— Salman's parting line. He went off toward the camp.

Lilium, alone, looked into the small dug hole at the remaining living flames there.

"Good work. See you next time."

She murmured it. She watched the rest of them gutter out, fuel by fuel, until the last vanished.

---

After Salman had gone back, Lilium walked to the water and washed her face. She combed the loose dirt out of her hair, lightly.

A bath wasn't on the cards. This was the bare-minimum version.

The water was, in fact, clean and inviting; a small part of her wanted to just dive in.

"If anyone happens by — that'd be, you know."

Even if it was an ally — if it was a man, that would be the worst.

"Hmm. Maybe Merea would actually be all right, oddly."

Not in the wouldn't mind being seen by him sense. More in the he reads as having less male-air than the average man, so seeing me wouldn't fluster him sense.

Effectively, probably wouldn't actually shock him equalled probably fine.

"That's… not a compliment, is it."

She decided not to say it to his face.

Lilium spent a while washing the dirt off. Her hair was long enough that working face-forward would have soaked her clothes, so she'd had her face and gaze on the water, working with her head down.

Finally she lifted her head.

"Phew."

A satisfied breath out — eyes back to the front—

"Gyau."

A massive black mass filled her field of view.

"—"

She came within an inch of screaming.

She had no idea when it had got that close. Across the small water — there, on the other side —

A black dragon.