Half Eaten Torch

Half Eaten Torch rests in the hollow of my palm, its wood blackened along one edge as if scorched by a stubborn sun. The surface is rough and grainy, like a weathered bone kept from a campfire crumble. Wax seals cling to the base in a caramel crust, melted and reformed by rain and the passage of hands that have counted miles of road and ruin. The tip still holds a stubborn glow, a red-orange ember that refuses to surrender, flickering with a quiet patience that makes the breath hold in your chest. The crack of old resin and ash clings to the air, and the carved line running the length of the handle bears witness to a dozen peddlers’ maps and a caravan’s hurried prayers. If you tilt it just so, you can almost sense the bite marks along the end—the tooth of some creature that claimed the glow for a night, then left the torch to tell its own half-finished story. In the markets that thread the city’s winding lanes, the Half Eaten Torch is more than a curiosity; it’s a token of perseverance, a talisman that readers of the road recognize. Folks speak of stepped paths through damp ruins where light is a scarce ally, of explorers who pressed on when the air grew cold and the ground gave way to memory. The torch isn’t just a tool, but a thread that ties yesterday’s fear to today’s courage, a reminder that someone once stood where you stand now and chose to keep going, ember by ember. The lore around it mutters about caravans that outpaced shadow and about outposts abandoned to the creeping ivy, where a single half-lit flicker marked a way through darkness that would otherwise swallow a map and a heart alike. As a piece of gear, the Half Eaten Torch serves a practical purpose in the world’s travel and danger. When struck to life, it casts a warm circle of light that doesn’t blind so much as reveal—the scratch of a hidden inscription on a wall, the glint of a loose stone that might disguise a doorway, the telltale line where a trap sits in wait, patient as a predator. It isn’t a grand beacon but a faithful companion for the long night: enough radiance to steady your hands, enough heat to remind you you’re still alive, enough presence to keep fear at bay as you move through caverns that whisper your name. Its uses ripple through skirmishes, scavenger hunts, and quiet moments of waiting at a camp’s edge, where teams consult maps and histories, and the ember in the torch seems to answer back with a patient, stubborn glow. The marketplace narrative around the torch is just as telling. A trader near the river’s bend once told me the price ranges from a modest handful of silvers to a curious barter—a trade that often includes worn leather, old candles, or a scrap of cloth. It’s not a king’s ransom, but it is a currency of memory, a way for a buyer to say, “I want a little more light for the next mile,” and for a seller to reply, “Take it; carry a piece of someone’s night into your next dawn.” Saddlebag Exchange becomes the quiet, practical ledger for such moments, a place where these half-forgotten torches are weighed, valued, and sent forth into new hands with the same stubborn glow that keeps the world from surrendering to the dark. So I cradle the torch a moment longer, listening to the soft crackle of a far-off possibility. It’s more than wood and wax and a bite mark; it’s the memory of a road that refused to end, a spark kept alive, a promise that even in the deepest shadow, light can still be found, one half-eaten ember at a time.