Penned by M. Noctis
on Bloomburrow 24th, 1641

A slim volume of verse, gifted without ceremony to the Reach Library of Spire-town. The donor—Meriel Noctis—offered no preface beyond a quiet remark that these were but “reflections of the inward kind.” Each poem seems to mirror a face, a moment, or a burden that the author had held in long and private counsel.

“Drawn to the Ember”

I know the fire’s kiss will sear,
Yet still I drift, yet still I near.
The dark between us calls me on,
Till night itself and I are gone.

I circle close, in foolish grace,
Each pass a longing, half-embrace.
The heat that blisters, I call sweet,
And yearn again that we might meet.

For what are wings, if not to burn?
For what is flight, if not return?
To blaze, to fall, to rise the same—
Forever moth, forever flame.

“Moth to a Flame”

In the hollow of the square,
a glass flame breathes,
not in haste,
nor in hunger—
but as a stone might breathe,
slow and without apology.

Some call it omen.
Some call it homecoming.

Yet the wings that find it
neither ask nor answer—
they arrive in spirals,
drawn to the heat that remembers
how to unmake them.

It is an old light—
patient as the wheel of seasons,
knowing there is no gentle way
to wake the roots
that drink from poisoned earth.

There are those who would hood the flame,
fearing the fall of ash

They speak of safety,
but the dark is not patient,
and shadow will drink what it is given
until the last path is swallowed whole.

So the lantern burns in the open,
showing the grain in every door,
the cracks in every hinge,
the dust in the rafters where rot takes its hold.

No hand flings its embers to the thatch—
yet thieves of light will always find tinder,
pressing their own marks in the grain,
and cursing the flame
for what their kindling became.

Better the light be steady,
even if the moth perishes,
than to let the night grow thick
and every step become a stranger’s guess.

If the moth burns,
it is not the lantern that struck the match.

It is only that the dark,
once named,
will not forget its hunter.

“Inheritance of Ash”

The ember came first in dream—
a coal left smouldering in cupped hands,
warm with a promise
that could not be washed clean.

It burned with marrow-smoke,
fed on oaths sharpened into chains,
and victories gilded in ash.
Names whispered through the ages
clung like soot to the skin,
as if the blood itself were tinder
for every fire they had lit before.

This was the gift:
not gold, nor crown, nor sword—
but the weight of their kindling,
the quiet demand
that the flame be carried on.

Yet there is wood untainted,
drawn from branches spared the axe,
and sparks that need no poison to glow.
Kindling that speaks not of conquest,
but of gardens walled against the frost,
of doors left open to those in need.

For the flame is not meant
to crown the past—
but to burn it clean,
to scatter its husks into the wind
until the smoke no longer
smells of them.

The ember waits still—
not for a keeper of ghosts,
but for a herald of dawn,
one who will tend its light
until it owes nothing
to the sins that first kindled it.

“Twin Flames”

Two flames in one hearth—
one for the vow,
one for the heart.

Some say the line of love
is the death of duty,
but they have never seen
how cold a vow grows
when left alone in the dark.

To starve either
is to hollow both,
and the ash that falls between
is the proof of neglect.

Better to tend them together,
so love keeps duty warm,
and duty keeps love safe—
neither burning brighter,
but burning as one,
until even the night
cannot tell them apart.

“Hearth Against the Storm”

There are fires that leap for the sky—
all roar and cinder,
their breath a wall of heat
that blinds the path ahead.
They burn because they must,
because the spark within
has never known stillness.

But there is another fire—
low, banked, and patient—
that waits in the hollow of the night.
It does not rage,
yet it endures.
Its light is a hand upon the shoulder,
its warmth a quiet reminder
of the way home.

When fury strikes,
the world narrows to flame and fuel,
every shadow an enemy,
every moment an open wound.
The heart beats to the drum of embers,
and the air tastes of nothing but smoke.

Yet even in that storm,
a hearth can be found—
the one who stays,
who keeps the flame from spilling past the walls,
who draws the breath back into the body
and steadies the hands before they destroy.

This is the fire worth guarding:
not the blaze that scorches the earth bare,
but the one that gives light enough
to see the face beside you,
and remember
that the truest victory
is not in burning the world down,
but in keeping it alight.

“Where the Flame Rests”

The world lays its stones at the feet of the willing,
calling it the high road,
as though height alone were virtue.

Step after step,
the air thins,
and even the steadiest flame gutters
when the wind grows sharp enough to bite.

To walk here is to feel
every gaze like a hand at the throat—
praising, weighing,
ready to claim the stumble as proof
that all fires must fail.

Yet not every spark is meant for the summit.
Some burn truest in the valley,
where the air is thick with breath and rain,
and roots push steady through the soil.

There is no shame in letting the path fork,
in resting where the wind is kind,
and the night long enough
for embers to keep their glow.

A fire is not lesser
for refusing the climb.
It is only truer—
choosing to burn where it can be seen,
rather than vanish
in the thin air of distant heights.

“A Dream Of”

The heart is not built for embers alone.
It was meant to rest at the edge of another’s flame—
to feel its heat not as a passing kindness,
but as a constant that neither falters nor fades.

Yet mine has known only the solitary glow,
a fire kept for the sake of others,
banked and guarded until the smoke stings my eyes.
I have burned for those who will never see the light,
and watched the sparks drift away into the dark,
uncaught, unmissed.

I have known many nights of tending,
but none of simply being held
in the easy circle of someone else’s arms—
no warmth that asks for nothing,
no laughter that lingers after the fire has died.

What would it be
to feel the dark pass without guard or duty,
to wake not to cold stone and another day’s toil,
but to the slow, steady heat
of a hearth that waits for me alone?

Perhaps such a thing was never meant for these hands.
Perhaps they were shaped only to stoke the flames of others,
never to feel them burn for me.
Yet still—
when the night is long enough,
and the watchtower wind cuts to the bone—
I dream of it.

And in that dream,
I almost believe it could be real.