The room was not built for human comfort. It was a place of stone and shadow, its walls sweating with damp, its air thick with the smell of old ash. Two chairs sat facing one another in the center, illuminated only by the glow of a furnace mouth in the corner.

Julian sat in the left chair. Marcus in the right.

They had been here before.

The woman who had arranged this—tall, robed, and faceless in the fire’s dim light—called it The Contest. The rules were never the same, but the stakes always were: the soul of the loser. They had both laughed at the idea the first time. Neither of them laughed anymore.

The Rivals

Julian and Marcus had grown up as friends, if friendship could be built on competition. Their fathers had been rivals in business, and their mothers had traded barbed smiles at every gathering. The boys absorbed that bitterness like milk. At first it was childish dares: who could climb the church steeple faster, who could hold their breath longer in the pond. Then it became more serious: who could seduce the girl first, who could drink without collapsing, who could fight dirtier.

Now, men grown and weathered by disappointments, they still found themselves drawn to the same contests—whether over careers, women, or money. Each loss cut deeper, each victory felt thinner.

And then the woman appeared.

She had found them in their worst hour, after a night of drinking that had ended with Marcus bleeding and Julian laughing. She had whispered of a game that would settle all debts, a game that would reveal who truly deserved to win. Neither of them had questioned her too closely.

The Game

This night, the woman wheeled in a table covered with a black cloth. Upon it sat two small urns, each etched with symbols that made the eyes ache if one stared too long. Between them rested a narrow dagger, its blade thin as a quill.

“You will cut yourselves,” she said, her voice neither high nor low, but vibrating with something beneath language. “A single drop each, into the urns. One of you will be chosen. One of you will burn.”

Marcus swallowed. Julian smirked.

“Always with the theatrics,” Julian muttered, holding out his hand for the blade.

He sliced his palm, letting a bead of blood patter into the left urn. Marcus followed reluctantly, hissing as the blade nicked his skin. His blood joined the right urn.

The woman drew back the cloth. Beneath the table, a chute opened directly into the furnace. The urns, once sealed, would tumble inside.

“One urn is nothing,” she said. “The other holds… everything. Fire chooses. Flesh pays. The victor may leave. The loser—remains.”

The Waiting

They sat again, facing one another. The urns sat heavy between them. The woman did not touch them. She only waited, as though time itself was another competitor in the game.

Julian leaned forward, flashing that same grin Marcus had hated since childhood.

“Still scared of fire, Marcus?” he asked softly.

Marcus said nothing. His throat ached with the effort of restraint. He remembered being seven years old, trapped in a barn blaze while Julian had stood outside, daring him to last longer inside the smoke. Marcus had run choking from the flames. Julian had called him coward for years afterward.

Now the furnace glowed like that same childhood fire, only deeper, more patient.

First Moves

Julian tapped the table with one finger. “Here’s the trick,” he said. “You have to believe the urn is safe. If you don’t, the fire will smell it. It feeds on weakness.”

“Or maybe it feeds on arrogance,” Marcus snapped.

Julian’s smile widened. “Then you’re doomed either way, brother.”

The woman said nothing. She watched. The fire watched.

Minutes dragged by. Sweat beaded on Marcus’s forehead, though the room was not particularly hot. He tried to focus on his breathing, but every inhale tasted like cinders. He could almost hear whispering from inside the urns—thin voices, eager, hungry.

Julian seemed perfectly calm. Too calm. That infuriated Marcus more than anything.

“You always think you’ve won already,” Marcus said. “Even before the game begins. That’s why I’ll outlast you this time.”

Julian tilted his head. “Is that what you told Clara? Before she left your bed for mine?”

Marcus’s hands curled into fists. He wanted to leap across the table and crush Julian’s smirk. But violence had no place here. Only the urns mattered.

The Turn

At last the woman rose. Without speaking, she lifted the left urn—the one that held Julian’s blood—and placed it above the chute. The furnace yawned open, the glow intensifying until the chamber was painted in red.

Marcus’s heart slammed against his ribs. He wanted it to be Julian. God, he wanted it.

But the woman hesitated. She set the urn down again.

Then she lifted the right urn. Marcus’s urn.

Marcus felt cold sweat break across his back.

“Wait,” he croaked. “Don’t—”

The urn slipped from her hands.

It fell.

And the fire swallowed it whole.

The Price

Marcus screamed as if his very skin were aflame. His chest arched, his mouth gaped, but no sound came beyond a strangled rasp. Heat roared through him from the inside out, consuming his lungs, his veins, his marrow. He clawed at his chest, desperate to dig the fire out, but his fingernails broke against his ribs.

Julian sat back, eyes wide, then slowly began to laugh. It was a deep, shaking laugh, ugly with triumph.

But the laughter died too quickly.

The fire did not stop with Marcus.

Julian felt it too, creeping into his gut, threading through his blood. He gasped, clutching his stomach. Across from him, Marcus’s eyes blazed with hatred even as his body blistered.

The woman stepped closer. For the first time, her hood slipped, revealing not a face but a skull alive with worms of light.

“Did you think,” she said, “that fire would choose only one? It is hunger without end. It takes all who play.”

The End

Julian tried to stand, but his knees gave way. Flames licked from his mouth as he fell forward, striking the stone. Beside him, Marcus twitched once, then went still, smoke curling from his lips.

The furnace glowed brighter, feeding on both of them. The urns had been nothing but theater. The real contest was their belief that one could ever walk free.

When dawn came, the room was quiet again. Two chairs faced one another in silence. Ash clung to the stones like dust from old paper.

The woman gathered her robe, stepped through the fire, and was gone.

The chairs waited.

Soon, others would sit.