The Last Star-Bearer: Heir of the Shattered Light

CHAPTER 12: FIRE-RY

Tristan lay still on his back on the floor, limbs splayed, smoke curling from his clenched fist. His chest rose and fell in shallow, ragged bursts. He is unconscious from the shock, but alive.

Professor Vance dropped to his knees beside him, fingers pressing against the boy’s wrist, searching for a pulse. When he found it... rapid, uneven, but present, he exhaled sharply through his nose, eyes closing for just a breath of relief.

Then he stood, slow and deliberate, his staff planted firmly in the smooth floor of the room.

Silence still gripped the classroom. Even Gildart had gone pale, the smirk wiped clean from his face. He stared at Tristan’s still form, then at his own hands... as if seeing them for the first time. He want to gloat but he feels somehow guilty.

"Everyone," Professor Vance said, voice low but carrying like thunder across still water, "step back. Give him air."

No one needed to be told twice. Students shuffled backward, some stumbling over their robes in haste. A few clutched each other, wide-eyed. One girl from Heron House quietly wept.

Professor Vance knelt again, placing both hands over Tristan’s chest. His lips moved in a whisper, ancient syllables threading through the silence.

“Vitaris flamma, redimire vinculum…” A soft blue light seeped from his palms, sinking into Tristan’s skin like rain into dry soil. Slowly, the heat radiating from the boy’s body began to recede.

Then, a twitch. A gasp.

Tristan’s eyes flew open... gold-tinged irises flashing like struck flint, before rolling back as he coughed violently, choking on air that felt suddenly too thick, too cold.

“It’s alright,” Professor Vance murmured, steadying him. “You’re safe. Breathe. Relax”

Tristan obeyed, gulping air like a drowning man. His hand uncurled instinctively, revealing cracked skin and a palm blistered black at the center, but no blood. Magic had cauterized the wound even as it caused it.

“You contained a hell of a firestorm in your fist,” Professor Vance said quietly. “You should be dead. Or worse... burned out, soul-scoured by your own energy. But you’re not. That tells me something… interesting. Your own elemental magic protects you from further harm.”

Tristan turned his head weakly. “I… didn’t mean to…”

“I know,” Professor Vance said. “Anger is a spark. In the right hands, it can start a revolution. In the wrong, it burns the holder first.”

He helped Tristan sit up, supporting his weight like a father might with a child. Around them, the class watched in stunned silence.

Then, a voice... small, uncertain.

“Is he going to be expelled?” It was Lyra, a slight girl from Crust House with ink-stained fingers and a habit of taking notes in poetry. She held her quill like a talisman.

Professor Vance looked at her, then at the rest of the students.

“No,” he said firmly. “He will not be expelled. But he will face consequences. And so will others.”

His gaze cut to Gildart.

The boy stiffened. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t have to but your words did,” Professor Vance replied. “Your words were the tinder. His pain, the kindling. Magic doesn’t care about blame... it responds to emotion. You lit the match.”

Gildart opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. Something flickered behind his eyes...not guilt, not quite, but the shadow of doubt. For the first time, he looked unsure.

Professor Vance stood up and said, “All of you proceed to your next class. And Gildart? You’ll stay after class. We have a long discussion about leadership, and why power without discipline is just violence.”

Murmurs rippled through the room. Expulsion was rare. Detention for once golden boy Nearly unheard of.

As the students dispersed, hurrying on their next classes... Professor Vance helped Tristan to his feet. The boy swayed, unsteady, but stood on his own.

“You built fire from its essence,” Professor Vance said softly. “Fuel. Spark. Air. That was wisdom. But magic isn’t just about construction. It’s about containment. About knowing when to hold back, when to let go.”

He placed a hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “You have immense power. Perhaps more than I’ve seen in a student in millennia. But power without control isn’t strength. It’s a betrayal... of yourself, and of those around you.”

Tristan nodded, throat tight. “I understand.”

“You don’t yet,” Professor Vance corrected gently. “But you will. That… thing you created... that fireball, it wasn’t just fire. For a moment, I felt something else in it. Something old. Hungry. Like the flame remembered being worshipped in forgotten temples. Did you feel it?”

Tristan hesitated. Then, barely above a whisper: “Yes.”

A beat passed.

Professor Vance studied him, something unreadable in his eyes. “Then we begin again tomorrow. But not with fire. With water. To cool the burn. To teach you how to flow instead of burn. You may proceed to your room for now. I'll tell your teachers that you need to rest.”

That night, Tristan sat on the edge of his narrow bed in the dormitory, his hand wrapped in a healing salve-infused cloth. The pain had dulled to a deep throb, but his mind wouldn’t rest.

He kept seeing the fire... the way it had grown, not just in size but in presence, as if it had woken up. And Gildart’s words: Anomaly. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard it. Whispers followed him since he’d arrived, He doesn’t belong. His magic feels wrong. Where did he come from?

He’d been found at the old oak tree by his foster parents in the mortal world, soaked and crying as an innocent infant. But now… now he wondered. Has he always been this volatile? Has someone tried to throw him like garbage?

A soft knock came at the door.

“Enter,” Tristan said.

It opened slowly. Lyra stood there, holding a small clay cup steaming with herbal tea.

“Thought you could use this,” she said, stepping inside. “Menthol root and purple moonpetal. For the shock.”

He accepted it with a nod. “Thanks.”

She sat at the foot of his bed, quiet for a moment. “You know… I’ve been reading about elemental construction. In Catharsis of Magic, by Selena Lunaris. She says that fire isn’t just heat and light. It’s a transformation. It breaks down, purifies, and renews. But only if it’s honored, not forced. Feed with determination and not hatred.”

Tristan looked at her, surprised.

She shrugged. “I write spells in verse. I treat magic like poetry. Every element has a rhythm. Fire’s is chaos. But even chaos has a pattern... if you’re brave enough to listen.”

He stared into the tea, watching the steam curl like a ghost.

“Maybe I wasn’t trying to make fire today,” he said. “Maybe I was trying to prove I belonged. And it… twisted it.”

Lyra smiled faintly. “Then tomorrow, try to make water. And see if it listens. Water can be pure or tainted, it will just depend on the one who wields it.”

Then she left, leaving Tristan alone again.

Outside, the moon rose over the Academy, deep beneath the earth, in catacombs long sealed, something ancient stirred... awakened not by spells, but by the raw, unfiltered cry of a young man’s pain.

The first ember of a greater fire had been lit.

And it remembered his name.