The wind howled through the ruins of Frost Moon Province, carrying the scent of charred wood and old blood. Kalima Chileshe stood at the edge of the crater—his crater—where the village of his childhood had once been. The ground was still warm beneath his boots, even after all these years.
*"You came back."*
The voice was brittle, like dry leaves crushed underfoot. Kalima didn't turn. He knew who it was. The old woman—one of the few who had survived his rampage—leaned against a shattered pillar, her fingers clutching a tattered prayer flag.
"I didn't come to ask for forgiveness," Kalima said, his voice low. The blue-white flames flickered at the edges of his vision, restless.
The woman laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "No. You came to remember. To punish yourself." She coughed, her breath rattling. "But memory is a luxury the dead don't have."
A gust of wind scattered ashes between them. Kalima clenched his fists. He could still hear the screams, still see the way the flames had clung to skin, erasing everything they touched.
"You think you're the only one who burns?" the woman whispered. "Look around. The empire burns us all."
---
Three days earlier, the Ghost Tigers had gathered in the shadow of the Pagoda of Fallen Stars. M'hango sat cross-legged, his gravity-warped hands folded in meditation, while Mwanabeti paced like a caged beast.
"We can't keep running," John Mwanabeti growled. His golden aura pulsed with each step, the air around him shimmering with heat. "Zhang Wei's dogs are closing in. If we don't strike first—"
"Strike with what?" Humphrey Bwalya interrupted, his voice a blade of sound. "More fire? More blood? That's what they want. That's what we *are* to them—monsters."
Vincent Kabonde flexed his fingers, the bones beneath his skin shifting unnaturally. "Then we give them something worse than monsters. We give them men who refuse to play their game."
A silence fell. Kalima, leaning against the pagoda's cracked wall, met Mwansa's eyes. The shadow-wielder nodded once.
"Frost Moon," Mwansa said. "That's where this started. That's where we end it."
---
Now, standing in the ruins, Kalima felt the weight of their decision. The old woman was right—he *had* come to remember. But not just his sin. He'd come to remember the boy he'd been before the flames took him.
A shout echoed through the ruins. Mwanabeti.
Kalima turned just as the first arrow struck the ground at his feet.
Iron Fist Legion.
They poured from the skeletal remains of houses, their armor glinting under the sickly sun. At their head stood a man in a commander's helm, his face hidden behind a mask of polished bronze.
"Kalima Chileshe," the commander called. "By order of Warlord Zhang Wei, you are to be—"
Mwanabeti's fist met the man's chest before he could finish. The explosion sent bodies flying, the shockwave rippling through the ruins.
Chaos erupted.
Humphrey's scream shattered the air, sending soldiers clutching their ears. Mwansa melted into the shadows, his blades flickering like nightmares. Kabonde's hands twisted, and a soldier's armor *bent* with him, crushing inward.
Kalima didn't move.
The blue-white flames coiled around his fingers, hungry. He could end this. One glance, and the entire legion would be ash.
But the old woman's words echoed in his skull. *Memory is a luxury the dead don't have.*
He exhaled. The flames dimmed.
Instead, he stepped forward, catching a sword strike bare-handed. The metal seared his palm, but he held on.
"We're not your demons," Kalima snarled at the wide-eyed soldier. "We're the reckoning you brought on yourselves."
He yanked the blade aside and drove his fist into the man's gut—just enough to drop him, not kill.
Around him, the battle raged, but for the first time, the Ghost Tigers fought *without* hellfire. Without the rage that had defined them.
And the legion faltered.
---
By dusk, the survivors fled. The Ghost Tigers stood amidst the wreckage, breathing hard.
Mwanabeti wiped blood from his lip, staring at his hands. "I didn't… I didn't burn them."
Kabonde laughed, raw and disbelieving. "Neither did I."
Mwansa emerged from the shadows, his blades clean. "They'll be back."
"Let them come," Humphrey said. His voice was steady. "Let them see what we are when we're not afraid of ourselves."
Kalima looked back at the crater. The old woman was gone. Only the prayer flag remained, fluttering in the wind.
He picked it up, folding it carefully.
"Then we show them," he said. "We show them all."
---
Far to the east, in the Jade Capital, a scroll unfurled across a polished table. The words, written in careful ink, were simple:
*The Ghost Tigers have returned. And this time, they're not running.*
The hand that held the scroll trembled—not with fear, but with something far more dangerous.
Hope.