W A N T E D

Lord Orrington raised a glass, the silver contents of which might have been sparkling with some kind of barely discernible spell, and clinked it in toast with Lady Orrington. "There's something satisfying about fire," he said. "It changes, it transforms what it touches into something altogether different, on a basic, chemical level. It changes the landscape forever. Fire is the natural cleanser."

The Lady nodded, sipping her drink lightly, peering over the rim with smoldering admiration. "That's a very nice way of saying that your competition is gone."

"Well. Sometimes I'm just a nice guy." He sat his glass down and turned with a sweeping motion toward the enormous map on his wall. "Now that the Eladrin settlement has been wiped out, there is more than enough room for my new hunting reserve. It's amazing how such a powerful enemy will fall to such a primal weapon."

The Lady giggled, snapping her fingers. A blue flame leapt to life between them. "Well... the fact that it was magically uncontrollable helps."

"Indeed it did," he admitted. "You sexy thing." He smiled and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. The magical flame extinguished, forgotten as her concentration shifted elsewhere. They kissed--

--And an arrow smashed through the Lord's head, through to the Lady's. Unable to separate, they collapsed to the ground together, convulsing as their newly ruptured brains tried to process what was happening, even as those brains began to shut down.

A servant entered with fresh food and stopped cold, the tray he was carrying spilling to the floor. He looked up to see a hooded figure in the window, lowering a bow with shaky, discolored hands. Hands that looked burned. He could not see a face, but he heard a raspy voice. "Tell all the humans. The Eladrin lands should never know the untrustworthy stench of your kind again. Return there at your own risk."

And then the hooded figure was gone, tumbling deftly back through the window.

The pain was excruciating. A potion would heal it, and that wouldn't be hard to find. But for now, the feeling the flames had left imprinted on his mind hounded him, the raw nerves under his burned skin throbbing. Silvus Highblade had been lucky to be near the enchanted pool in the temple, but few had reached it in time. It was so far beneath the ground, and accessible by a single narrow staircase. The sounds of the bottleneck above were horrendous even as the flames spread down to where he was. He was speaking to his mother, a druid priestess. They tried, but the fire was hot, it moved fast and the pool was only so big. People would have the flames extinguished, but in making room for others be exposed to them again.

Silvus was finally shoved in by his mother and paralyzed by a spell. Her final act left him as the sole survivor. He hadn't immediately understood that the flames disappeared because the one controlling them with her mind had released her hold on them.

But once he did, he began searching for her. It didn't take long.

All he knew was gone. His own skin was black and bloody. Everything would be different now. That was the thing about fire. It changed whatever it touched.