2. The Seven Marks

"Who are you?" Kael said. His voice came out smaller than he wanted.

"You can call me Ember." The armored man pulled off one glove and flexed his fingers, as if he were checking that they still worked. "It is the name you are going to give me anyway. I would rather skip the part where you argue about it."

"I am not going to give you a name. I am going to go home and sleep, and when I wake up this will be a dream."

"The mark on your chest says otherwise."

Kael pulled his shirt open. The circles had faded to a dull glow, like a coal that was almost out. The skin around them was warm. It did not hurt anymore, which was somehow worse.

Ember crouched in front of him. "Listen carefully, because I will only explain this once, and badly. Every twelve years, seven people are marked. We call them Bearers. Each Bearer can call one Manifestation."

"Like a ghost?"

"Like a possibility." Ember tapped the armor over his own heart. "I am not a dead hero from a history book. I am the person you could become, if your life went a certain way."

Kael looked at the scar, the dented armor, the tired eyes. "I don't want to become you."

"Nobody does," said Ember. "That is exactly why it works."

A bell rang somewhere across the city, deep and slow, though it was not midnight and no church in this town had a bell like that.

Ember stood up fast. His hand went to the sword at his hip. "Six more of them just woke up. Seven Bearers, seven Manifestations, and only one pair gets to stay at the end. The winner earns the right to rewrite one event."

"One event," Kael whispered. His father. The fire.

"Yes," said Ember, watching his face. "I saw you think of it."

"And what happens to the others?"

Ember did not answer. He looked up at the sky over the rail yard, and for a moment he seemed to be looking at something that was not there.

"This city has already burned once," he said quietly.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. Walk. We need to find somewhere with walls before they find us."

Kael picked up his groceries, because he could not think what else to do, and followed the stranger with his own face into the dark.