Page 3 of Ashfall

The fire licks the edge of the ridge, a boiling, snarling line of orange swallowing trees like matchsticks. It doesn’t look random. It appears someone intentionally drew it on the terrain. The kind of fire that doesn’t just destroy—it carves. Like a message. Like a warning. I narrow my eyes and squint against the smoke. The wind changes direction just enough to let me glimpse a slope already devoured to black, the flames still crawling forward with surgical purpose. Someone lit this, and they knew exactly where it would go—and where they wanted it to touch.

I turn and start walking, boots grinding over brittle earth, toward the sound swelling in the distance. It’s not just noise—it’s a living thing. A deep, relentless roar that fills the hills like thunder caught in a loop, shaking the ground, pressing against my chest with every step. The fire isn’t just burning. It’s screaming.

The fire isn’t just noise—it’s a presence. A force that pulls at something deep in my chest. It doesn’t scare me. It dares me. Challenges me to come closer, to see what it’s hiding. Some people chase storms. Me? I chase the burn.

"You're not briefed yet," he snaps, stepping closer like proximity equals authority. His chest puffs out a little, shoulders squaring up. It's a classic move—trying to reassert dominance with posture and volume.

He might be the biggest voice at this base, but he knows he’s not the biggest presence anymore. Not with Blackstrike incoming. Still, he’s clinging to his scraps of control like they matter. Like he needs me to remember he runs this place, even if he’s not really the one calling the shots.

"Brief away, Commander," I say, keeping my tone neutral, flat. No heat, no challenge. Just enough compliance to keep him from puffing up any further. Let him have his moment. For now, I’ll play along. Doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten who actually has the authority here.

He grits his teeth, clearly resenting that he even has to explain this to me. "We’ve had six fires spark up across a hundred-mile radius in the last forty-eight hours. Too fast. Too exact. No lightning. No campers. No idiot kids with fireworks. Someone's starting these. And they know what they're doing."

He crosses his arms like he's bracing for my skepticism, but I just nod. He's not telling me anything I haven't already guessed. Still, he leans in slightly, like proximity can make him seem more important. "This isn’t some random nut job with a grudge. It feels calculated. Coordinated. And it’s making us all look like amateurs."

There it is. The crack beneath the command. He doesn’t like being out of control, and whatever’s out there lighting up the Rim has knocked him sideways. He’s used to being the one giving orders, the loudest voice in the room, the guy with the final say. But the Blackstrike Unit doesn't answer to him. And neither do I. That eats at him—not enough to show open disrespect, but just enough to make every word he spits feel like a warning. He’s trying to reassert control over a situation that’s already too big for his authority.

My pulse kicks, a beat of adrenaline riding up my spine. "Serial arson?" The question comes out low, measured, but my brain is already racing. Patterns. Targets. Intent. Someone isplaying god with gasoline and topography—and doing it with a terrifying level of control.

"Feels like it. But no evidence. Nothing sticks... not until now. I’ve got half my crew running on fumes, three hot zones flaring up at once, and the damn governor breathing down my neck for answers I don’t have. Blackstrike’s the only unit that can hit drops this deep, this fast, but even they don’t loop me in. They operate on need-to-know—and apparently, I don’t. But I’m telling you, Vale, something’s off here. It’s too clean. Too coordinated. And it’s got me losing sleep and pulling favors I didn’t know I had."

"And what makes you so sure this one's different?" I ask, though I already suspect I won’t like the answer.

His jaw ticks. That flash of irritation again. Not at me this time, but at the situation—at being blindsided, outpaced, and forced to rely on people he can’t command. He opens his mouth, then hesitates. Whatever he wants to say, he doesn’t quite have the words for it. And that, more than anything, tells me how far out of his depth he really is.

Before he can answer, a roar splits the sky—deep and thunderous, too guttural for jet engines, too fluid for rotor blades. It hits my chest like a war drum made of bone and old gods. Primitive. Wrong. Heads jerk upward all around us.

Radios chirp to life, voices clipped and confused. Even the commander flinches like someone walked over his grave. For a half-second, he forgets to posture. And in that pause, I see it clearly: fear.

Not of the fire. That, he understands—knows how to contain, how to predict, how to survive. But what’s coming out of that sky? That’s different. That’s something older than fire, older than fear.

It’s not just a threat—it’s a reckoning. And even a man who runs a base like a fortress knows when he’s staring down something that doesn’t play by human rules.

He nods toward the sound and shakes his head. "I don't know what to think anymore, but Fane and his unit believe... hell, I don't know what that secretive group of arrogant... Forgive me. I've been under a lot of pressure. In any event, that's Dax Fane, leader of the Blackstrike Unit,. They call him the dragon."

I shade my eyes and look up just in time to see something black and massive banking through the smoke column. It moves like a predator in flight, every movement of its wings a calculated decision. Not just fast—precise. Lethal.

Whatever the aircraft is that he’s flying looks as if it was carved out of obsidian and nightmares, matte black with no markings, a sleek, impossible silhouette that seems to cut through both cloud and flame as if neither could touch it. It doesn't fly over us. It owns the sky.

Then a shape detaches from it—not ejected, not launched, just let go, like gravity answers to it. No parachute. No emergency gear. No hesitation.

Just a man—or something that looks so close, it almost passes for one. Broad-shouldered, dense with muscle, falling like a meteor with purpose. He doesn't brace. Doesn't scream. Just plummets through smoke and flame like the sky itself handed him over to the earth.

He doesn't just fall—he descends, like the world makes room for him. The wind curls around him, moving like smoke that knows who it belongs to. Fire pulls back, coiling in place as if reluctant to touch him. Trees groan in the distance, not from flame, but something older—a presence returning to ground not walked in centuries.

The whole damn forest seems to hold its breath. Not in fear, but in recognition.

At the last minute, some kind of chute—if you could even call it that—deploys in a sudden, controlled burst. Not nylon. Not standard issue. More like something engineered in a lab no one admits exists. It slows his descent just enough to keep the landing from being lethal, but not enough to dull the force.

He hits the earth like it owes him something. The impact rumbles through the soil and into my boots, vibrates in my bones, and sends a blast of scorched wind outward. Knees bent, one fist embedded in blackened dirt, his head is down like a predator taking a breath before the strike. Steam rises from the ground around him like the earth itself is exhaling in relief—or surrender.

When he moves, it's with the kind of deliberate power that says he's used to being obeyed—by people, by flame, maybe even by fate itself. Not cocky. Not performative. Just certain. Like gravity adjusts to him, not the other way around. There’s a stillness in him that speaks of ancient violence barely caged, and every movement says: obey or burn.

And then he stands. No gear. No burn marks. No blood. Just raw muscle wrapped in black tactical fabric molded to every lethal line of his body.

Of course, the walking inferno would look like sin on two legs.

His shoulders roll with a predator's grace, steam curling from him like he didn’t just fall from the sky—he claimed it. The way he moves, the way he exists, it all feels too big for one man. Like the ground should split open and offer something in return just for holding him upright.

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