Nestled at the base of a sheer rock face, partially obscured by a curtain of wind-driven snow, was a narrow fissure, a dark opening, barely wider than a person's shoulders.
"C-cave?" Emily breathed.
"Or a den," Sigrid grunted. "Let's hope whatever lives there is s-smaller than us."
They struggled through the last few yards of deep snow, collapsing against the rock face beside the opening. The fissure led into darkness, but crucially, it offered immediate shelter from the howling wind. The air inside felt still, and marginally less frigid.
"I'll go first," Sigrid said, peering into the darkness and holding Grognak ahead of her. "Stay close behind me. And keep the fire going."
Emily nodded, summoning slightly larger flames. Sigrid ducked low and squeezed through the narrow opening, axe held ready. Emily followed right behind, crawling on her hands and knees through the tight entranceway. Her hips stuck momentarily, but came loose with some insistent wiggling, much to her relief.
The fissure opened up almost immediately into a small, dry cave, perhaps ten feet across and high enough for Emily to stand comfortably in the center and Sigrid to stoop only a little. The floor was relatively smooth rock, free of snow, and the air was blessedly still. It smelled earthy and slightly damp, but not unpleasant. There were no obvious signs of recent habitation, animal or otherwise.
"Safe," Sigrid declared, lowering Grognak, her voice echoing slightly in the enclosed space. Relief washed over her face, though she was still shivering violently.
Emily crawled the rest of the way in and sagged against the cave wall, utterly spent. The small flames in her hands sputtered and died as her concentration lapsed. The darkness that enveloped them was almost total.
"Fire," Emily whispered, her teeth chattering too hard to speak clearly. "N-need a real fire."
"Right." Sigrid felt around near the entrance. "Some dry brush caught in the opening." She gathered a small pile of twigs and desiccated roots that had blown into the fissure.
Emily winced at the draft from the now-cleared fissure. The Bronzeband was cold against her ankle, but warmed slightly as she channeled its power. With a low grinding sound that echoed in the cave, the rock around the entrance stretched inwards, narrowing the fissure until only a tiny crack remained, sealing them inside while still allowing a trickle of air.
"Not just a fire mage, then," Sigrid commented, letting out a low, appreciative whistle as she arranged the kindling.
Emily managed a weak smile and indicated her ankle. "That's from the Bronzeband. I won it in a duel. It lets me controls stone."
"A duel, eh? Against who?" Sigrid asked, arranging the kindling.
Emily hesitated, the memory of Richard's smirking face and horrific end still fresh. "A pirate. Long story."
"Bet it is," Sigrid grunted, not pressing.
Glancing wearily at the pile of twigs and roots, Emily coaxed a spark from her fingertip. The kindling caught quickly, and a small, cheerful fire sprang to life in the center of the cave, casting flickering orange light on the rock walls and the shivering bodies of the cave's two inhabitants.
Sigrid and Emily huddled together beside the growing flames, reaching out to take in the welcome heat as feeling slowly returned to their extremities. For a long time, the silence of the cave was broken only by the fire's crackle.
Sigrid finally broke the silence, her voice low and rough. "That teleport thing... does it always...?" She gestured vaguely at their shared lack of clothing.
Emily hugged her knees tighter, staring into the flames. "Yeah. It burns anything that's not either living flesh or an enchanted artifact. Clothes, most often... though my hair tie always seems to survive, weirdly."
Sigrid looked down her bare arms at the flickering fire. "Better naked and alive than armored and dead at the bottom of that ice pit." She patted Emily's shoulder. "That fire-flying... and the jumps... never seen anything like it. You proved yourself out there, and I owe you my life."
"I couldn't have done it without Grognak," Emily said, casting a glance at the axe laying beside Sigrid.
"You and me both," Sigrid chuckled, patting the axe's handle affectionately.
They sat for a while absorbing the heat from the fire, and watching shadows dance across the cave walls.
"So," Sigrid said eventually, tossing a stray twig into the fire. "We're stuck in a cave, naked as newborns, with no supplies to speak of."
Emily remembered her pack, and how she'd dropped it when the frost sprites attacked. It was on the other side of the ravine, buried in the snow—all the food, water and warm clothing Abbot Thelrin had given her was gone.
"Your fire magic," Sigrid said, turning immediately to practicalities. "How much can you do with it? How long does it last?"
"It depends," Emily replied, warming her palms over the flames. "I'm pretty good at summoning fires and throwing fireballs around. Lots of practice with that. I can also summon healing magic—green flames." An image of Richard's pink hands came unbidden to her mind. "Healing small cuts and burns doesn't take too much energy."
Emily's eyes came to rest on the sore-looking red patches on Sigrid's hands, prompting Sigrid to hide them behind her back, wincing as she did so. "Pay no mind to these scratches," she said, pulling her knees up to her chest defensively. "What else can your fire do?"
Emily hesitated briefly before continuing. Sigrid would accept her healing sooner or later. "The flashier stuff, like flying around, that's way more taxing," she said. "Teleportation, well, longer distances take more power, as does bringing someone else. But frequent short jumps also add up. I don't think I have any more of those in me for a while. It's probably for the best that I couldn't bring Aria along to Eyri, I don't think I would have had much of anything left after doing that."
"Aria?" asked Sigrid.
"A close friend," Emily replied. "We were supposed to travel to Eyri Abbey together, but it turns out I can't teleport statues."
Sigrid raised an eyebrow. "You're friends with a statue?"
"A living statue," Emily clarified. "She's... the whole reason I'm doing any of this. The Heartflame is the last ingredient I need for a ritual we're going to do to lift the statue curse and make her human again."
Sigrid nodded, chewing her bottom lip, watching the flames. "Right. Good thing I'm not a statue, then. But the main thing I'm getting here is that we can't teleport back to the Abbey."
"Not anytime soon," Emily confirmed. "Besides, we're already behind schedule. We'll never reach the Heartflame if we take detours."
"Aye. Got to lift that curse." Sigrid said. "But then, folks usually get cursed for a reason. Why's she cursed?"
"A mage named Arctulus did it," Emily explained, telling the condensed story of Castle Elid, Aria, and her discovery of the Stoneshell. "She and the other inhabitants have been statues for centuries. The ritual is their only chance to return to normal."
Sigrid nodded slowly, chewing her bottom lip, watching the flames. "Centuries. Hmm. Well, guess there are probably some advantages to being made of stone. Bet your friend can throw a mean punch."
Emily giggled. "Yeah, that's come in handy now and then."
"So," Sigrid said, her practical nature reasserting itself. "Your fire magic keeps us warm. That comes from your necklace. The anklet... you said it controls stone."
"Yes," Emily said, tapping her ankle. "I can move and shape stone, and other earth materials to a lesser degree—I used it on sand once, but it was really difficult."
"Useful," Sigrid grunted. "Grognak here," she patted the axe, "cuts through most things. Useful too." She eyed the small flames. "But none of our skills conjure food or clothing out of thin air, eh?"
Emily managed a weak smile and shook her head. She thought back to the fibrous leotard that she'd never been able to summon again after the first time. If the nightmoss was still sitting between the Bronzeband and her ankle, it had made itself really small, because she couldn't feel it. In any case, it seemed to have a mind of its own, coming and going as it pleased and responding to her troubles according to its own inscrutable whims.
Sigrid fell silent again, but her eyes were restless, scanning the cave walls, the sealed entrance, the fire. She seemed to be assessing possibilities, already shifting from surviving the immediate crisis to figuring out the next step.
"We should rest," Emily said, feeling the exhaustion finally catching up to her now that the adrenaline had faded and she was warm. The desire to just curl up and sleep was overwhelming.
"Aye," Sigrid agreed. "You sleep. I'll keep watch for a bit. Then you can take a turn if you're up to it."
The cave floor was hard, but compared to the freezing wind and crumbling ledge, it felt like a feather mattress. Emily huddled close to the fire, pulling her knees to her chest, and closed her eyes.
Sleep didn't come easily. Her mind was a jumble of recent events—tramping through freezing snow, desperate teleports, and the fight with the frost sprites. She was also still haunted by visions of Richard's horrifying end, the sight of his desiccated corpse surrounded by black tendrils. It was a good thing that the nightmoss seemed to be on her side.
Emily's dreams were full of shifting shadows and harshly whispering voices, alternating with well-lit scenes and soothing words. Something that shifted between a menacing shadow and an angelic figure promised her comfort and dignity, promised an end to her suffering, if only she would—it wasn't clear what. Her body was enveloped by a dress made of dark shadows, soft and luxurious against her skin, but somehow constricting. Eyes bored into the back of her head.
Emily woke with a gasp, her heart pounding. A cold dread gripped her, though the cave was warm and the fire still going strong. She blinked, trying to shake off the images from her nightmare, the feeling of something lurking just beyond her sight.
She must have drifted back to sleep, because the next time she woke, the fire was lower, and Sigrid was asleep, curled up across from her. Emily carefully replenished the fire, feeding it with more of the dry brush from the entrance.
She glanced at Sigrid's sleeping form, huddled in a posture that almost made her look small. Her muscled body was criss-crossed by scars, and her hands and forearms were still marked with red welts. Some of these, Emily realized, must have been caused by standing too close to the Stoneshell fire in the ravine. Sigrid had not once mentioned this.
Determined and a little guilty, Emily knelt down and summoned green flame to her palms. She passed the flame slowly over Sigrid's hands and wrists, the red patches shrinking and fading until they disappeared completely.
Emily had just finished her task when a thin sliver of pale light filtering through the sealed crack, annoucing dawn. Sigrid bolted awake, stretching dramatically before she felt the air against her skin and her thighs snapped back to cover her torso. Emily stifled a giggle, feeling immense sympathy.
"Right," Sigrid said, her voice scratchy. "Time for breakfast." Sitting up as straight as she could while keeping herself mostly covered with her legs, she looked at Emily, a new determination sparking in her green eyes. "These Wastes might be cold, but they ain't empty. There's things living out there. Things with meat on their bones... and skins thick enough to keep the wind off."
Sigrid carefully pushed herself up to her feet, picked up her axe and walked in an awkward crouch towards the small crack that had been the cave entrance, motioning for Emily to expand it.
"You're going back out?" Emily asked, bewildered. "Like that? Alone?"
"One of us has to," she said, tapping the side of her stomach. "Like I said, meat and skins."
"Shouldn't I..." Emily began, not really wanting to complete the sentence.
"I hunt alone," said Sigrid. "Don't need any fireworks scaring the prey."
Emily's own stomach growled audibly. Admitting that Sigrid had a point while still considering her insane, she directed the Bronzeband's energies to the enlargement of the entrance.
"If I'm not back by noon, come after me," Sigrid said, her jaw tight against a shiver she refused to fully indulge. She slipped through the cave entrance, moving with a determined, if slightly rigid, stride back into the biting wind.
Hours later, Emily looked up from the fire to see Sigrid's grinning face appear in the entrance crack. She enlarged it instantly, and Sigrid stumbled in.
She was shivering violently and covered in snow, her lips blue and her skin almost translucent, looking utterly spent but triumphant. She carried two small, limp forms over her shoulder. They were furry creatures, somewhat like large hares, but with thick, white pelts. In her other hand, Grognak dripped crimson snow.
"Got lucky," Sigrid said, ducking back into the cave. "Cold-hares. Tough meat, but filling. And their pelts are warm and durable." Her voice was hoarse with cold and exertion. She dropped the bodies to one side and sighed heavily at the fire's touch, her skin dripping as the snow and ice melted from it. Emily could see some new cuts and grazes.
She watched with equal fascination and squeamishness as Sigrid efficiently skinned the creatures using Grognak's edge. The pelts were indeed thick and surprisingly large once removed. Sigrid carefully cleaned them with handfuls of snow brought from just outside the sealed entrance, stretching them taut near the fire to begin the drying process. The smell of raw meat and damp fur filled the cave.
"Meat'll need cooking," Sigrid said, starting to butcher the carcasses. "And the pelts will need curing and shaping. Takes time. But we won't starve or freeze." She held up one of the thick pelts, already looking warmer than anything Emily had lost in the teleportation.
Since she'd arrived in Thessolan, Emily had repeatedly greeted all-too-infrequent offers of clothing with immense gratitude. But after her naked jaunt through the snow, she decided that these pelts were the outfit she was happiest to see. "It looks wonderful, Sigrid!"
"Aye," Sigrid grunted, focused on her task. "Won't be nothing fancy, nothing like my armor." A flicker of sadness touched her eyes for a moment. "But it'll keep us warm."
Over the next day and a half, the small cave became a workshop. Emily kept the fire going while Sigrid carefully scraped and cleaned the pelts, rubbed them with handfuls of ash from the fire and some kind of greasy residue she found on the cave walls. It helped to soften and cure the hides, she said. She chewed at tougher parts with her strong teeth, her forehead furrowed in concentration. It was a slow, painstaking process, revealing another side to Sigrid.
They ate multiple meals of cold-hare meat roasted over the fire, tough but filling. The cave was filled with the smell of woodsmoke, curing hides, and roasted meat.
During the long hours of work, Sigrid spoke of the Frostfang Clan, their traditions of strength and survival in the frozen north and the importance of personal honor. She still seemed highly uncomfortable with their shared nudity, avoiding looking at herself or Emily.
Her armor had been an extension of herself, marked with the victories and trials that had shaped her, which she now recounted to Emily. To her surprise, the armor had originally been quite modest, but much of it had already been destroyed in previous battles. The display of scars from great victories was highly important to Frostfangs, and while Sigrid had repaired her armor occasionally, she never patched over the scars with the greatest stories. Emily was reminded of Caelum, and of the mermaids and their alkayi.
In turn, Emily spoke cautiously of her own world. She struggled to explain most of what she talked about—electricity, cars, and the internet were as fantastical and bizarre to Sigrid as they had been to Aria. Her adventures in Thessolan were a more successful topic, and she impressed Sigrid with the breadth of the places she'd been and people she'd met.
They talked about the Stoneshell and the Bronzeband. Sigrid asked detailed questions about how Emily's powers worked, showing a surprisingly analytical mind beneath her boisterous exterior. Though her axe was enchanted, its magic was far simpler.
Emily learned that the name Sigrid Wyrmtamer had been earned through a battle with and victory against a young, ice-breathing wyrm. Ever since then, Sigrid had traveled wild parts of Thessolan, seeking out dangerous creatures and often fighting them. This gave her a specific interest in the petrified dragon near the Crucible. "I've fought dragons, but never a stone dragon," she said. "Wasn't expecting much of a fight initially, to be honest with you. But the more you talk about your stone friends, the more I think this dragon might be more lively than the stories say."
For her part, Emily was hoping to avoid a fight. She had to admit, though, that Sigrid seemed like just the companion to have when one inevitably broke out.
On their third day in the cave, Sigrid finally deemed the pelts ready. Using strips of cured hide as thread, she roughly stitched together two sets of simple coverings, made up of tunics, skirts, and very rough approximations of thigh-high boots. The seams were crude and the fit approximate, but it was clothing.
"It's not much," Sigrid said, holding out a set for Emily. "I never was the furrier of the family. But it's better than nothing."
"It's wonderful, Sigrid," Emily said, hugging the warm fur to her skin.
Slipping the garments on, she realized that, while crude, Sigrid had still shaped them to her tastes. Either that, or there just wasn't that much pelt on the cold-hares. Both the top and bottom were abbreviated, meaning that Emily's midriff and thighs would have to withstand the biting winter cold. Fortunately, the long, fuzzy boots came up to her knees and Sigrid had also made fuzzy bracers for their forearms. And Sigrid's own outfit was even more attenuated than Emily's, leaving the scars on her stomach and the muscles on her legs exposed.
"Thank you, Sigrid," Emily said, once she had dressed, though she couldn't help but tug at the hem of the fur top.
Sigrid nodded, running a hand over her own similarly cropped furs. Her confidence—swagger, really—had returned in full force now that she was clothed again. "Aye. Feels better. Let's get moving."
After putting out the fire and collecting the remains of the cold-hare meat in a crude pelt-pouch, Sigrid and Emily emerged from the cave into the harsh but clear dawn of the Cinder Wastes. The wind was milder today, but Emily could still see her breath and felt the chill against the areas of her skin that Frostfang fashion insisted on exposing.
"Crucible's that way," Sigrid said, pointed with Grognak towards the dark peak on the horizon, now just a little more defined in the morning light. If she felt the cold as Emily did, she didn't show it.
Emily nodded. "Let's go. The solstice is coming." By her count, they had seven days left.
The terrain was deceptive. Snow lay deep in drifts, hiding treacherous fields of shattered obsidian beneath. The wind wasn't constant, but came in sudden, violent gusts that threatened to throw them off balance. On steeper slopes, Emily pulled out areas of stone to break up icy patches, preventing them from slipping. Sigrid moved with a grim, relentless stride, using Grognak to test snow depth and chip away treacherous ice.
Hours blurred together as they marched forward, their eyes locked on the immense black peak of the Crucible. They saw no more frost sprites, but the rough terrain and cold wind were challenge enough. As the day wore on, Emily could focus on little more than placing one fur-clad foot in front of the other, keeping her mostly bare legs moving lest they become too numb from the cold.
At nightfall, they found another cave and cooked and shared the remaining cold-hare meat, drinking water from Stoneshell-melted snow to wash it down.
After five long days of monotonous hiking, the landscape began to change. The snow thinned, replaced by stretches of gritty grey ash. The air grew warmer, the biting wind lessening, only to be replaced by a shimmering heat haze rising from dark patches of ground. The skeletal trees grew sparser, and instead of frost, some bore brittle, ash-coated leaves that crumbled to dust at a touch. The Crucible loomed larger now, almost filling their vision at times, scars of old lava flows now visible down its sides.
"Transition zone," Sigrid grunted, tugging at her fur tunic as sweat poured from her brows.
Emily found the heat to be a welcome relief after the biting cold of the last few days. She no longer needed to light Stoneshell fires in her palms to keep the feeling in her fingers.
As they moved into the ash fields, the air grew stiller, the smell of sulfur heavier. A haze of heat distorted the volcano into wavering, unreal shapes. Flames on the horizon flickered in and out of view, seeming to grow bigger as they walked towards them.
Emily was about to remark on the strange persistence of these optical illusions when Sigrid raised her axe and shouted, "Fire imps!"
They were smaller than the frost sprites, little more than knee-high, made of shimmering heat and flickering flame. They darted through the ash, their chittering cries even higher pitched than the sprites'.
"Eat steel!" Sigrid roared, instantly shaking off the weariness of the long walk at the first sign of action. Axe held high, she charged the imps, screaming a gutteral chant.
Emily launched a fireball at the nearest of the imps. Immediately on collision, the imp absorbed the fireball and grew in height by a head, chittering with delight. Emily screamed.
"Don't feed them!" Sigrid yelled, slicing the oversized fire imp in half with Grognak's blade, which was glowing purple.
Emily watched in awe as both halves of the imp exploded into sparks. "S-sorry," she squeaked.
"Use the stone if you want to be helpful," Sigrid spat, cleaving another two fire imps in half. "Or just stay back!"
Biting her lip, Emily focused on the less familiar magic of the Bronzeband and levitated two medium-sized slabs of obsidian into the air. Grimacing with effort, she shifted them until they were floating on either side of a stationery fire imp, and with a mighty crash, brought them together. The fire imp made a high-pitched squeak as it was extinguished.
"That's more like it!" Sigrid shouted. "Crush 'em!"
Like the frost sprites, the fire imps were numerous, seeming to boil up from the hot ash itself. Some of them charged at Sigrid and Emily, while others lobbed fireballs. Emily found that she could absorb these attacks through defensive use of Stoneshell fire, but was careful not to let any of the imps get too close to it.
Sigrid was in her element, Grognak a terrifying blur of steel. She used the axe not just to kill, but to smash the very ash from which the imps emerged, collapsing their ephemeral forms before they fully solidified. Her movements were as efficient as they were brutal.
They fought their way through the swarm, leaving trails of dissipating ash and fleeting heat behind them. When the last imp vanished, they stood panting in the sudden silence, the air thick with residual heat and the smell of sulfur.
"Alright," Sigrid breathed, wiping sweat and ash from her brow with the back of her hand. "That's the lot of 'em. And no ravines this time."
Emily nodded, letting the last stones she was levitating fall to the ground. "That was intense."
"Eh, I've fought worse," Sigrid said. "Honestly, I had half a mind to ask you to start feeding them again. Make it a real challenge."
Emily said nothing, her eyes aimed at her furry boots as she blushed for a different reason than usual.
"You'll want to be careful with that fire around here," Sigrid said. "Other places it gives you an advantage, but not here. Fire elementals feed on it. And don't expect it to work on the dragon either." She glanced down at her tunic, its fur damp with sweat. "Don't know about you, but I'm ready to combust in these furs," said Sigrid. Her face was red as a tomato.
Loathe though she was to admit it, Emily felt much the same. The thick white fur of the cold-hares had been a lifesaver in the snow and ice of the outer wastes, but was extraordinarily uncomfortable this close to the volcano, especially after the workout she'd gotten dealing with the imps. She cast Sigrid a sympathetic look.
"I'm not suggestin' we strip off, if that's what you're thinking," Sigrid continued, a flash of discomfort in her eyes. "I can use Grognak to shear the fur off the skins." As if to demonstrate, Sigrid grabbed a fistful of white fur from her chest and sliced it off in one smooth motion of her axe, revealing the hareskin beneath.
Emily breathed a sigh of deep relief. She wondered how many other times in her adventures thus far there might have been sensible but unexplored alternatives to stripping off. "Good idea, Sigrid," she said.
Sigrid made short work of her own outfit, leaving a pile of white fur at her feet before moving onto Emily. Emily's heart raced as Sigrid grabbed at her, yanking her violently forward by the fur of her top. "Eep!"
"Sorry, don't know me own strength," Sigrid said dismissively, clearly not very sorry at all. Throughout the shearing, she did not make an effort to use any less strength, and Emily found herself increasingly grateful that they were on the same side.
In a few minutes, Emily stood beside Sigrid in her modified and much cooler hare-leather outfit, realizing for the first time just how much of the clothings' volume had been composed of fluffy fur. Their skirts were now closer to loincloths, and their tops little more than bras. This was, Emily told herself, much more suited to the heat. It was also more than she'd worn in Castle Elid, or at the Coral Gala.
The way became steeper as they approached the foothills of the Crucible. The final approach was a climb. Ash fields gave way to slopes of jagged, black volcanic rock, many warm to the touch. Steam vents hissed from cracks in the ground. Sweating even now, Emily was grateful for the adjustments Sigrid had made to their outfits.
Sigrid led the way, testing footholds for stability with her axe. Where the way became too difficult, Emily shifted rock with the Bronzeband. At last, they reached an opening in the side of the mountain. The air inside was suffused with heat and smelled strongly of sulphur.
Emily looked at Sigrid, her face illuminated by the volcanic glow, rock dust clinging to her damp skin. Sigrid met her gaze, her expression hard but a little excited. "Time to meet the dragon," she said, her voice low.
Emily gulped. "The Heartflame must be somewhere inside."
"Ready, Emily?" Sigrid asked, hefting Grognak.
"Ready," Emily replied, as they ventured into the heart of the mountain.
