Now is the time for fire.
I simply let go.
Fire explodes out from me, a sharp blast that radiates in a rippling wave, ripping through fleshy bodies, tearing through the stone towers, blasting stone apart, filling the air with rocks that turn to lava, a deadly rain.
The world around me turns amber. Bright, fiery light illuminates the sky, and the air fills with simmering heat that radiates out and out andout…
Silencing the distant shrieks.
But now my fire lights up somethingelse.
An impossible thread.
It extends from my heart far into the north, a glistening line of magic that’s all too familiar to me.
This thread formed between me and the Oracle when we first met. Since then, it has connected us during visions for which I have no explanation. But the connection is undeniable.
Whatever peace I felt in the quiet eye of the firestorm I created vanishes in an instant.
Always, this thread has appeared when I could see the Oracle, even if I can’t touch her, usually preceded by a flash of golden energy from the Dragonstone Blade, but…
Where is she?
Why don’t I see her already?
I blink and?—
I’m standing in the middle of a snowstorm, an icy wind sending a violent shudder down my spine. Ahead of me, two figures become visible, one a white wolf, the other…
I recognize Stellen, King of Frost, his pale-gray robes billowing in the wind as he slides from the wolf’s back.
He’s holding another form to his chest, cradling the woman who holds my fate in her hands.
The loll of the Oracle’s head makes me stiffen, her right arm swinging free, her body limp. Her eyes are closed, and her lips are blue.
Even from a distance, I can tell she’s barely alive.
The amber thread connecting her heart to mine tugs at me, a faint pull, but I’m already running.
She’s clearly freezing.
She needs my fire!
Stellen’s urgent whisper reaches me across the distance, somehow carried above the wind. “Hold on,” he commands her as he lays her onto the snow while his wolf lowers herself beside them, a shield against the wind. An impossible feat.
I have to reach the Oracle. Warm her. But the thread flickers and fades,and my feet suddenly bog in the ground, the snow melting in my heat, turning to a torrent of water against which I push with all my might.
Across the distance, Stellen’s next whisper amplifies the shudders raging down my spine.
“I have no choice,” he says. “It’s the only way?—”
I’m wrenched back to myself, a shout on my lips.
Burning lava flows around my feet, not melting snow, turning to molten amber any remaining debris, stones, bones, even the final scraps of vampyric clothing.
Streams of lava spill through the rubble of the Ember Tower behind me and the Iron Tower ahead of me, consuming the stones it flows across.
Ash floats through the air. Black snowflakes.
