He turns his eyes away from the scene. As the fire blazes before him and a familiar smell fills his nostrils, his guilt wells up in his soul; the highest crime he had committed, and it would forever be his burden to bear.

Fire. It had started with fire, and it was now to end with fire. Fire and gold.

Behold your fatal sin.

The two had been acquaintances before the disaster, but the thirteen-year-old boys seemed to have little in common. Each lived his separate life; there was Adelair, the rich man's son, and Methian, a farmer's, and aside from required religious meetings, the two were never even in the same building as each other at any given time. Until the Great Fire.

The fire ravaged the tiny farming town of St. Oroth and destroyed everything in it. It was universally understood to have been arson, but the perpetrator was never found. Nearly every man, woman, and child, from the oldest war hero to the youngest newborn babe, died that day. The sight was horrific; the stench was worse. Methian and Adelair sought shelter in the well; Methian and Adelair alone survived. The sight was etched into their memories. Everything about that night was etched into their memories.

With the destruction of all his father's property, Adelair was as penniless as Methian in the days after the disaster. He had never worked a day in his life, and there was no one to take him in. He seemed doomed to starve. But Methian was always a stubborn one, stubborn and loyal; he found a place to live and taught Adelair to help him work the land. The two grew up strong of body and bond; having lost everyone else, the two boys who shared only a common birthplace became like brothers. Adelair was always fair, Methian was rather dark, and of the two Adelair was the more cunning and Methian the stronger; but even though none who saw them would ever guess they were brothers, they would tell people that they were. Theirs was a sense of camaraderie that perhaps even surpassed blood brotherhood.

As the years passed and the boys grew into men, they found their way in another town, where the work was plentiful, the people were accepting, and the girls were pretty. From sixteen until twenty, the bond-brothers lived in that wholesome town of Bajest. But Fate is a fickle mistress. She brought them together; she conspired to drive them apart.

Methian never valued wealth. While he and Adelair lived together, it seemed their communal purse had an irreparable hole in it. Methian was always giving any and all spare money they had to others--widows, orphans, the church, or even just a neighbor going through a hard time. Adelair remembered his childhood of silken sheets, tapestries on the walls, servants to do his bidding and no work to do all day long. He wanted to build up his fortune again. So perhaps he felt it justified, or perhaps he simply didn't notice, that something in him began to resent Methian. When they separated their accounts from each other, and each man kept his own money his own way, it seemed that the seed of discord was buried.

It did not remain long alone.

Marietta Dahle was a beautiful girl, the pride of Bajest and the envy of every other woman. Her family knew she was sickly, but no one else did; she always appeared cheerful and strong, unwilling that anyone but her nearest and dearest should worry over her. Adelair, like nearly every other young man in Bajest, had his eyes set on her. He bought for her lavish gifts and serenaded her in the street. He wrote her poetry and made lofty promises. The poor girl, she so often had to turn down hopeful suitors, but had so little willpower with which to do so; she tried to tell him no, and broke down crying as she did it.

Not one to spare the dramatics when foiled, Adelair spent weeks fuming and pouting about the house, which invariably drove Methian to spend his time out of it. What happened in those weeks was a mystery to all the young men in the town, Adelair most of all; for without doing anything showy or grand, and perhaps without even directly trying, Methian won the heart of Marietta Dahle. When the match was at last made public, the older men and women of the village smiled upon the couple, saying that Marietta had found a man of a like temperament to her own, and they wished them all happiness. Most of the young men were bitter about it, and Adelair was no exception.

But Fate had her hand in this and everything, and before they could marry, she stole happiness away from them. Marietta's sickness acted up again, and in just three agonizing days, she was dead.

After the funeral, Methian sought comfort from his brother. For days he mourned, comforted only by Adelair's presence. Then he lifted his head, bit his lip, and returned to his work, resolved that from then no one would have to see his grief. Adelair was glad to see his brother internalizing; it took from him the pressure of comforting the man who won the woman he could not. That seed, too, was buried, just like Marietta, and also like the girl, anything but forgotten.

For seeds have a way of sprouting up just when one thinks they'd died, and Fate was busy seeing to it in a way no one expected.

The Inquisition came to Bajest.

Many were accused, few were found innocent, and all whom the Inquisitors set their eyes on died. Any charge, from theft to adultery to heresy to witchcraft, was punishable by death. The accused had a chance to clear their names, but it didn't make a difference if a man drowned innocent or floated and was burned as a warlock. Either way, he still died.

Methian hated the Inquisition. The Inquisitors hated Methian. They wanted to burn him, but in more ways than one. They wanted his defeat to be utter. They didn't just want him to die; they wanted him destroyed.

The head of the Inquisitors who had come to reside in Bajest was a tall, gaunt, cynical man named Maleur. Fate chose him as her messenger.

Maleur knew of the relationship of Methian and Adelair, and he knew their history. His sadistic soul knew he had to make the one betray the other. His twisted mind knew how.

But that is history. This is now, the present, the moment they live in; the moment they live and die in.

"Behold the criminal!" Maleur's voice echoes throughout the town square. The people are frightened; the children cling to their mothers and many cannot find the strength to stifle their tears. But Maleur's strident voice carries on. "This man started the Great Fire of St. Oroth. This man murdered dozens of people in one fell swoop! He has planned and plotted to deliver this same fate unto our village because he has refused to respect us, the Inquisitors, God's Hands of Judgment! For these crimes, he must be burned!"

A child starts crying, clinging to his mother's dress. "Silence!" Maleur commands, shifting his evil eye to the child, who is barely five. The mother kneels down to hold her child, saying softly, "Shh, child, shh."

In the middle of the square, tied to a wooden pole and surrounded by kindling that in mere moments the Inquisitor will take his torch and light, stands Methian. He is afraid, so very afraid, but he refuses to show it. He tells himself his life is in God's hands--the hands of the loving God his parents taught him to know, not the cruel one the Inquisitors preached. But letting go of life is not easy. His eyes scan the crowd for Adelair.

He sees him there, standing rather far to the back and side, with his head bowed. Just seeing him there strengthens Methian, just a little.

"And if any of you should think we have invented this charge, I let you know now that we have a witness--a man who will vouch for this story himself. We have the witness of Adelair Bouron!"

A gasp echoes through the crowd; all eyes fly to Adelair. He cannot find the will to lift his eyes to those of the man he once called his brother. He cannot bear to see them now. He is already almost ready to collapse under the weight of all the searing gazes boring holes into his bowed head.

"And now, God's fire comes to smite the wicked and dispense His holy justice. Your wickedness be burned away with the chaff in the fires of earth and of Hell!" With those last words to the accused, Inquisitor Maleur lights the straw.

Adelair turns his eyes even farther away from the scene. He closes them, but still his mind envisions it. He covers his ears as discreetly as he can, but the weeping and wailing of the women and children and the screams of his brother still fill them. And as the fire blazes before him and that traumatically familiar smell of burning flesh fills his nostrils, his guilt wells up in his soul; the highest crime he had committed, and it would forever be his burden to bear.

Fire. It had started with fire, and it was now to end with fire. Fire and gold.

His treachery was bought for price of gold.

He feels the sickness in his stomach; he can remain here no longer. He runs through the town, out the gates, out farther and farther, running like his life depends on it--or his soul.

His soul was bought for price of gold.

The ashes of St. Oroth remain not far from Bajest. By the time he reaches them, he is sure the deed is done and his brother is dead, but the red hue of the bonfire remains on the horizon. He tries to tell himself that it's over, but his mind replays the scene before him. He drops to his knees in the rubble and sheds bitter tears; his petty vengefulness had cost a greater price than he could pay.

Behold your fatal sin: a traitor's soul resides within.

Escape. He must find escape.

But some burdens cannot be escaped. Some burdens men only convince themselves they can run from, until they pass the point of no return.