The Sea Spinner

Chapter
ONE

The metal handle sears my palm, a withering harbinger.

One I ignore.

I step into the throne room and nearly double over. It's hot as a furnace, the heat a shock to the system after the chill of the corridor. At my chest, my Remnant mark burns with contradictory cold, stirring awake in response to the maegic shimmering in the air. It is thick as syrup, a vermilion haze that suffuses the entire space.

The doors close behind me with a resolute click. The sound makes me want to bolt straight back the way I came. I don't want to be here. In truth, I would rather be almost anywhere else, given the fiery reception I am no doubt about to receive, but the memory of Mabon's deep voice rumbles in my head, imploring me to try.

Maybe this time you can get through to him.

If anyone can make the man see sense, it's you.

Please, Rhya. You know I would not put you in this position without good reason. You know I would not ask this of you unless . . .

I take a deep breath, struggling to fill my lungs, tasting the distinct tinge of elemental power on my tongue. Flame and ash, pressing in from all sides. My knees threaten to buckle as I make my way down a short flight of stone steps onto the gleaming floor.

Set deep in the earth, the cavernous chamber was spared the wrath of the ice giants that ravaged Caeldera two months ago. While the rest of the city is an unrecognizable ruin of glass and debris-roofs caved in from massive boulders that rained down, storefront windows shattered with axe hilts, facade columns crumbled into dust-the throne room looks just as I remember it. Dark stone of pure, petrified lava, veined with red. Massive columns with bases of caged fire holding up a distant ceiling. Trenches of flame lining the perimeter floors, extending up the back wall.

But no people.

On the night of Fyremas, spectators packed inside, shoulder to shoulder, angling for the best view of the ward-charging ceremony. Now it is even emptier than the once bustling shops on High Street. My boot falls echo loud as cannon fire as I make my way down the polished aisle that halves the room.

On the lofted dais, the steward's seat Queen Vanora occupied during her reign is vacant. For one who ruled so long, and with such spectacle, her departure from this world was decidedly commonplace. Crushed to pulp in her gilded ballroom like so many others, then reduced to cinders alongside her most common of subjects on the mass pyre erected outside the city walls a week after the battle.

Were she there to witness it, she would have seethed at the indignity of sharing her last rites with the masses. No mournful bugles or waxing eulogies on her behalf. No rare flowers laid or grand portraits commissioned. But these days no one is inclined toward fanfare.

Not even for a dead queen.

My eyes move to the king's heavy metal throne at the center of the dais. It, too, sits empty. Though I hardly expected to find him there. I doubt Dyved's new sovereign has spent more than a handful of minutes sitting down these past weeks-and certainly not in a stuffy ceremonial chair.

I skirt the platform and approach the back wall of the cavern. It is even hotter here, so near to the trenches of fire that leap high and hungry, so near to the source of the maegic that thrums unabated. One section of the wall juts slightly outward, concealing an old mine shaft that functions as a lift. I lay my palm against the warm stone where a peculiar pattern of gouges marks the surface-a glyph, carved there by some ancient ancestor. One short pulse of maegic is enough to activate it. A fiery glow filters between my fingers as the floor panel beneath me begins to rise swiftly upward.

I've grown somewhat more accustomed to using Caeldera's network of lifts over the past few months, but it is still never an entirely pleasant sensation. My innate predisposition toward claustrophobia are triggered anytime I find myself ensconced by earth. Even now, as I rise upward through the mine shaft, I'm itching for escape. The craving for fresh air, for sunlight and open sky, claws at my throat with razor-sharp talons.

The lift comes to a halt with a jolt that shakes my bones. I step out into a semi-enclosed chamber that overlooks the throne room far below and feel every hair on my body rise in response. This is a place of potent natural power, where the deep enchantment of Anwyvn's very core bubbles to the surface. Tears sting at my eyes, an irrepressible reaction to the thick cloud of maegic.

Around me, the curved walls and low-hanging ceiling are carved with countless glyphs. They are aglow, as though lit from within by pure power-the origin of which is crouched at the center of the chamber with his hands pressed flat to the floor of hardened lava, expelling pulse after pulse.

"Pendefyre," I call softly.

He does not look up.

"Pendefyre," I say again, louder. His head jerks, but he still does not look at me. In fact, he seems to redouble his focus, pressing even more firmly against the red-veined stone. Every knuckle of his strong, tanned hands is white from lack of circulation. Flames lick out between his fingers, burn twin paths up his arms, ignite a trail down his bare chest to where a dark design of whorls and spirals mars the flesh.

The Fire Remnant.

It is no less mesmerizing in this moment than it was the first time I saw it, furling outward across his right pectoral in a triangular pattern. But my awe is now laced with alarm as I watch Penn giving more and more of himself to the wards that shield his city from harm. For several long seconds I stand there, paralyzed, my vision consumed by the hungry flames that furl across his skin.

How much more can he give before he burns out completely? How much further can he push himself without causing permanent damage?

No wonder Mabon came for me. No wonder the Ember Guild is so concerned about their leader. The previous Fire Remnant, King Vorath, died here in this very room, doing this very thing. He reached for too much power, pushed himself too hard. And he lost his life because of it.

Angry as I may be at Penn for his attitude of late, I cannot stand idly by while he kills himself in his obsessive quest to make Caeldera safe.

Whether my efforts will be successful is another matter entirely. My teeth grit as recollections of the last time I found myself standing at this threshold-the result of Jac's relentless wheedling to accompany him a fortnight ago-sweep over me. Penn made his position clear that day. Incontrovertibly so, seeing as he bellowed loudly enough to bring what remains of this keep down around our ears about how we should both mind our godsdamned business and keep our noses out of his affairs.

All hail King Pendefyre, the Pigheaded.

Swallowing down the irritation that lingers bitterly on the back of my tongue, I take another faltering step. "Pendefyre. Look at me."

But Penn is unreachable. He is entirely engrossed by his task, pouring every bit of his power into the wards. My heart pangs as I watch him draining himself dry. His expression is savage-a mix of determination and agonized desperation. His face is white as parchment. An overgrown curl of burnished chestnut hair falls over his forehead, concealing his eyes from view, but I know without seeing that they are alive with maegic, the irises burning like hot coals.

The steadying breath I pull into my lungs has the opposite effect. It shimmies through me with intoxicating provocation. Penn's maegic is affecting me more than I want to admit. The Remnant at my chest prickles relentlessly, awake and alert, eager to come out and play. I steadfastly ignore it. Adding air maegic to this scenario will likely have the same effect as dashing a cup of spirits on an open flame while attempting to put it out.

Combustion.

A fresh pulse of power rolls through the chamber. I watch it ripple through his body, the muscles of his bare back flexing, the tendons of his arms going taut as raw maegic transfers from him into the stone. The wards around us throb bright as starlight. My legs buckle as it hits me, stealing the breath from my lungs and sending me to my knees. I land with a bruising thud.

Blinking away the pain, I bring Penn back into view. A sharp blade of panic sluices through me. The fire snaking up his arms and coiling around his chest has grown. It now surrounds his entire form in a thick cloak of flames. He crouches there, within a blazing ball of heat, immolating as I watch. Through the white-hot flickers, I see blood beginning to pour from his pointed ears, dripping down the broad column of his throat, pooling in the rigid indentation of his clavicles.

"Penn!" I cry, a ragged plea. "Pendefyre!"

This time, he does not react at all to the sound of my voice. He is lost in the throes of his power.

I have to put a stop to this. Now. Before it's too late.

Before I lose him.

Gritting my teeth, I force myself forward inch by inch, half crawling across the floor toward him. It is like crawling into the midday sun. Sweat pours down my spine, slicks down my neck. The heat on my face is an unrelenting scorch. Any trace of the tears glossing my eyes evaporates in an instant. They are dry as desert sand, each blink of my lids an unpleasant scrape. My lashes feel like tinder, ripe for catching.

I wonder at what temperature my tunic will ignite as I drag myself across the blistering floor. The petrified lava is so hot beneath my fingertips, I think it might turn molten as it was a millennium ago, the last time this volcano erupted. I push past the pain, forcing myself to continue forward. Closing the gap between us, one excruciating sliver at a time.

It is not only physical pain that thwarts my progress. My very soul seems to sear, fueled by the Remnant bond that links me irrevocably to Penn. Usually I find our connection calming. Comforting. An unconscious tether in the back of my mind, letting me know where he is and, in rarer times of great emotion, what he is feeling. Like the scent of burning leaves on an autumn wind, I can sense him from afar and find my way to him if necessary.

There is nothing calming about our bond in this moment. Nothing remotely comforting. It is a charred current of unadulterated energy that scorches a path from his heart to mine. Within my own reserves of maegic, deep within the wild storm that swirls inside, I feel the placid waters of my power beginning to simmer beneath Penn's heat. All that is cold and controlled at the core of my being seems suddenly in danger of sparking. By the time I reach him at the center of the chamber, I am struggling to keep my own destructive abilities in check.

"Penn, you have to stop this." I lift a hand toward him but jerk it back from the flame as pain bites at me, a stinging lash across my fingers. Blisters bloom on my skin. "Please, Penn. Please listen to me."

The fire is so bright, so hot, it is hard to see and even harder to breathe. I try three more times to reach him through the ball of flame that surrounds his body, telling myself it is only pain, that any burns I receive will heal quickly, but I never manage to touch him before snatching my hand back, my singed flesh smarting in agony.

More blood is pouring from his ears, dripping down his chest in rivulets. Within the ball of fire, his skin is stark white. Corpse white.

Please, a small voice cries out from somewhere deep within me. Please, Pendefyre. Hear me. Stop this.

But he does not.

I cannot use my power to help him any more than I can use my hands. In desperation, I reach within to the bond that burns between us. I grab hold of that invisible tether that connects my heart to his, connects fire to air, and begin to tug on it, a spool of yarn without end, unraveling his psyche into mine.

I am not certain it will work. Not until I see the flames consuming Penn starting to disperse, weakening as I absorb some of the damage he is inflicting upon himself. I nearly bite through my lip as my nerve endings bake, as the marrow in my bones crackles with heat.

Skies, how much pain he is in, if this is but a shade of his power.

I cannot handle much more without doing myself serious harm. But there is no choice. Blood pours from his eyes as well as his ears now, trickling down his cheeks, dripping off his sharp jawline. And so, I take more. I pull his fire toward me, into me, until I think the blood will boil in my veins, until I feel my limbs turn to kindling, until each breath burns like my lungs are full of embers.

I channel every bit of heat and flame into the deepest recesses of my own power, where the air currents within me blow hard enough to extinguish them. Candles in the wind, no match for my storm. The flames around Penn weaken further, growing faint and translucent as they lick across his flesh.

More.

The heat is unbearable. I think my body will crack apart, think my mind will cleave beneath the force of it. The world fades around me, blackness closing in at my peripherals. I am losing the battle against unconsciousness. Just before my final shred of strength falters, my inner voice cries out one last time-a pained and broken prayer to the man crouched beside me.

If you die here, you take me with you.

He hears me. Somehow, someway, he hears me. The flames splutter out with a whooshing sound that echoes off the walls. The relentless wave of heat subsides so fast, I am certain I must be hallucinating. In a blink, I can breathe again. Ragged, desperate gulps of superheated air-but at least I am breathing. I stare down at the veined lava floor of the chamber where my hands and knees are planted. My arms and legs tremble with the effort to keep from collapsing entirely. The sleeves of the plain uniform I wear to treat patients at the infirmary are scorched beyond repair, the skin beneath flushed the angry scarlet shade of a fresh burn. My fingers are a mess of char, the tips blackened. I stare at the damage for a moment before my arms and legs do finally give out and, in an exhausted heap, I fall.