The market unfolded at the far edge of the village, past the binding stones and behind a low wall of iron rotwood, where dust had buried half the stalls and nothing sold was safe to touch without a price.
It was not a market in the way Evelyn had grown up knowing. No cheerful vendors. No bargaining with coin or salt. The Fire and Dust Markets were barter-born and blood-bound. Here, every trade was a risk. Every eye a warning.
Smoke hung heavy in the air—spiced with old bone, melted dyes, and crushed herbs used to mask the scent of Echoed spoor. Children with ash-matted hair darted between stalls, carrying messages or goods or curses wrapped in silk thread.
Vareth handed Evelyn a copper ring carved with a spiral. "Token of trade. Don't give it unless the deal's true. The spiral means claim and witness."
"What if someone takes it?" she asked.
He smiled without humor. "Then you kill them or buy it back. That's the law."
Evelyn walked cautiously, every instinct prickling.
Stalls sold more than wares. Weapons shaped from beast-bone and obsidian. Jewelry etched with old runes. Bottled flame sealed in glass phials. But other things, too—things not meant to be traded. A child in a cage humming to herself, hands glowing faintly with blue fire. A creature's skull still dripping sap-like blood. Echoed claws wrapped in prayer-leaves.
At one stall, a woman with eyes like scorched moonlight held out a scrap of bark. "Blood-written map," she whispered. "Shows what the dust hides. Pay in fire."
Evelyn moved on.
Torren leaned on a stall wall, watching her.
"You don't have to push yourself," she said softly.
"I'm fine." But his grip on the crutch had turned white-knuckled.
They paused at a stall lit by a single hovering flame. A hunched figure stood behind it, wrapped in ragged cloth and breathing with a wet rattle. Beast-stained, Evelyn realized—face partially corrupted by Echoed essence. One eye flickered with gold.
The figure looked up and froze.
"You," it rasped.
She tensed. "Do I know you?"
It shook its head. "Not yet. But I know your name."
Vareth stepped in beside her. "Careful."
The figure leaned forward. "Evelyn Flamebound. Heartfire bearer. Dreamt and marked."
She stared. "How?"
"I saw it. In the echoes. In the weave of forgotten songs."
It unwrapped a cloth from the table, revealing a sliver of bone—too smooth, almost polished, etched with symbols Evelyn didn't recognize.
"This was pulled from the spine of a beast that knew your name before it died."
Evelyn stared at it.
"It called you a flamewalker."
"What is that?" she asked.
"A myth. A warning." The creature smiled with cracked lips. "Or perhaps… a torch to guide ruin."
She reached toward the bone.
The flame at the stall flared. Her shard pulsed once, then settled.
"Take it," the figure said. "No trade. It's owed."
Evelyn took it, her fingers brushing the carved surface.
It felt warm. Familiar.
Something whispered—so faint it could've been memory. Or prophecy.
"…return through the hollow flame, and find the spine of the world…"
Suddenly the market's noise pressed too loud.
They left the stall and rejoined Torren, who had gone pale.
"What is it?" she asked.
He didn't answer immediately. Then, "We need to leave this place."
"Now?"
He nodded. "That creature… its eyes. I've seen them before. During the raid on the southern ridge. It wore the same face. But that was ten years ago. And I watched it die."
That night, Evelyn turned the bone fragment over in her hands. Its edges were sharp, its symbols too precise to be old. And still… it knew her.
When she closed her eyes, the shard inside her chest flared—and for the first time, she heard voices not from dreams, but from waking memory. Words buried deep in her bones.
"You walk the path of ash not to survive… but to burn a hole in the world."