“Cold?”

Dave’s eyebrows had lifted slightly. The teasing had faded from his expression.

James nodded. “I didn’t dare hold up my hands to it. As much as I wanted to. I remember thinking, finally, warmth. Finally something that wasn’t snow and wind. But I felt nothing on my cheeks, nothing in the least. No heat. Not even the suggestion of it. The air didn’t move. The grass beneath it wasn’t even singed. The people walking around it weren’t sweating, weren’t flinching. It just… shone. With such ferocious intensity and luminosity. All by itself. Like it had decided it didn’t owe the world anything.”

“I wandered close to the fire.” James continued.

“Maybe it was the Dwarini in me. I wanted to get ever closer. Study it. Partake in it. But I stopped at a certain threshold. Maybe instinctively? Maybe in veneration, maybe in fear. I was quite close. Closer than I was to this fire.”

He motioned to the hearth.

“But it wasn’t similar in the way this fire flickers and twists. It moved… slowly. Deliberately. Not like normal fire, all wild and reaching. This ball…” He frowned, searching. “I don’t know. I didn’t stare too long. It felt wrong, somehow. Like I wasn’t worthy. Does that make sense?”

Dave gave no reply. He seemed entirely engrossed in the image James was painting.

“It was contained. Like it knew exactly how far it was allowed to reach, and it wouldn’t go a hair’s breadth beyond that. It was… disciplined. I realised then that where I stopped was as far as the dancers- shall I call them- the dancers were as well. Our formation traced out a perfect circle, and every movement of the dancers were skirting around the edges of the fire, as if tracing out its radius of influence.”

He fell quiet. The lodge’s modest fire crackled as if on cue, throwing a brief cascade of sparks up the chimney. The warmth on his shins suddenly felt indecent, almost greedy.

Dave watched him for a long moment, his own mug forgotten.