Iron Hunger

The fire had stopped.

Smoke still clung to the air like a shroud, curling through the broken alleys of the Hollow. Ash coated the stone like snowfall. Here and there, embers still flickered — not alive, not warm, just twitching remnants of something that once tried to burn.

Logan sat in the rubble, knees drawn to his chest, his bandaged arm limp across his lap.

The boy's body lay a few feet away beneath a bloodied tarp.

He hadn't moved.

Not in hours.

---

No one spoke to him.

Some were afraid. Others were angry. Kaela had tried—once—but Logan hadn't answered. Hark had watched from across the ruins, fists clenched, face like stone.

There were twelve dead. Seven more missing.

And the Hollow, once hidden from the Iron Court's reach, had been gutted in a single morning.

By one man.

Logan didn't hear the voices around him anymore. Only a low, internal hum — like a furnace behind a wall, roaring softly in the distance.

It wasn't coming from the air.

It was coming from within.

---

He looked down at the Ash Plate mark.

It no longer glowed red.

Now it throbbed, dim and dark like coal beneath wet ash.

When he closed his eyes, he felt it watching.

Waiting.

And for the first time… whispering.

> "He died because you were weak."

> "You should've burned hotter."

> "You let him follow you… and you let him die."

---

A hand touched his shoulder. Light. Careful.

Kaela.

"Logan. You need to stand."

He didn't.

She crouched beside him, her voice raw. "We're gathering the survivors. Moving deeper into the undercity. There's still a fight to be had."

He finally spoke — hoarse, hollow. "He was just a kid."

Kaela didn't flinch. "So were you, when you lost your family."

He looked at her. "And now someone followed me into fire."

Kaela's voice dropped. "He didn't follow a hero, Logan. He followed a spark. Something we haven't seen in years."

"That spark got him killed."

"And without it, we're already dead."

---

They buried the boy in the ash-field behind the Hollow. No name. No family to weep over him. Just rebels and orphans with dry eyes and bruised ribs, trying to remember what dignity felt like.

Logan didn't say anything.

He just placed the broken wooden sword beside the grave and walked away.

---

That night, as they camped in a new hiding place deep beneath the city — a collapsed aqueduct lit only by a single rusted lantern — Logan couldn't sleep.

He stared at the Ash Plate mark.

Waited for it to whisper again.

It didn't.

Instead, something worse happened.

The pain returned — sudden, sharp, unnatural. He gasped, clutching his arm as the veins around the fragment lit up, glowing black-red like molten cracks in a volcano.

Images flashed behind his eyes.

A burning forest.

A city of iron melting.

A boy with a missing face reaching toward him.

Then—

A voice.

> "Feed me."

---

He screamed.

Kaela and Hark burst in.

"Hold him!" Hark shouted, forcing Logan down as the bandaged stump erupted with fire and smoke.

Kaela drew her dagger, poised to sever something — anything — but stopped when Logan choked out:

> "Don't… It's not… it's hungry…"

The flames died just as fast as they came.

The lantern flickered out.

Only silence remained.

---

Later, Logan sat alone by the dark, shivering.

Kaela approached again. This time with no blade. No orders.

Only her voice.

"You're not the first to be burned by a Plate."

He looked up. "You've seen one before?"

She nodded. "Years ago. A rebel bonded with the Ember Plate. It gave him the power to scorch battalions."

"What happened to him?"

She didn't answer right away.

Then: "He forgot who he was. Burned his own camp to the ground. When we found him… he wasn't screaming anymore."

Logan swallowed. "Did he have a name?"

Kaela met his gaze. "Not when we were done."

---

As she walked away, Logan whispered to the darkness:

> "I won't forget."

But even as he said it… the Ash Plate pulsed again.

Not red.

But deeper now.

Almost… purple.

---

✦ End of Chapter 5