Chapter TwoThe Magma Reserve

The Redscar Wastes did not believe in gradual temperature changes.

Aurex brushed Redscar sand and the last of the Blackfrost ice from the fur around his muzzle.

They had covered barely a quarter mile when the mountain split open again.

It tore from summit to base. Orange light poured through the fracture, followed by a column of molten rock that climbed into the sky and broke apart in a slow rain of sparks.

The ground beneath the five Ledgerborn shuddered.

Brimcap Ironhowl rested Riftmaul across one shoulder. The monstrous, oversized double-headed waraxe had dark forged-metal blades, their battle-worn edges catching the distant eruption. Crimson ember-stress fissures ran through the metal toward the Breakheart Core buried in its center. Its real triceratops-bone haft was thick enough to fill both his paws, bound in leather and metal. An emblem medallion and fur tassel hung from the haft. The Core pulsed once, answering the heat in the air.

Riftmaul had carried that name before Brimcap was born. An older Keeper of the Watch had used it to open a passage through a collapsed watch-road, reaching the people trapped beyond the break. In his family, the story was always told with the rescued people’s names before the axe’s. When the weapon passed to Brimcap, a smith repaired its heads around the Breakheart Core and renewed the bindings on the triceratops-bone haft. Brimcap had replaced the leather himself since then. He could not remember every name from the old story. He remembered what the axe had been for.

“Good,” Brimcap said.

Mireglyph looked at him.

“No.”

Brimcap nodded at the mountain. “Fire.”

“Yes.”

“Big fire.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Mireglyph sighed. “I see the distinction. I object to it.”

The Map of Eternity opened in Mireglyph’s hands. Its second symbol burned across the moving surface, its colors shifting with the light from the eruption. Beneath it, two words formed:

MAGMA RESERVE

Stormrune leaned over Aurex’s shoulder. The runes in his bracer stirred, blue sparks running from one mark to another.

“That is definitely where we’re going.”

Another eruption rolled across the horizon. Its shockwave reached them several seconds later, rattling the stones underfoot and snapping Mireglyph’s indigo robes against his legs. One sleeve began to smoke.

Mireglyph stared at it. A tiny flame appeared at the cuff.

Stormrune slapped it out.

“I had that,” Mireglyph said.

“You were observing it,” Stormrune replied.

“I was determining whether it intended to spread.”

“It was fire.”

“That does not answer the question.”

Brimcap started walking toward the smoke-stained ridge.

Mireglyph folded the Map. “Stay together,” Aurex said.

Nobody answered.

He followed.

They found Deserthold by accidentally walking through it.

The waystation had gathered itself into the lee of a black-stone outcrop. Low shade walls broke the wind. Water tanks wrapped in reflective cloth stood in rows beside a handful of stalls selling goggles, gloves, filters, and things Aurex could not identify but suspected were useful if one planned to stand near an active volcano. A crew of workers carried cooling plates toward the eastern gate. Two children sat on an overturned crate, sharing a bowl of dark seeds and arguing over whose turn it was to hold the spoon.

The place was small, but it was not empty. People had adapted their lives to the heat rather than waiting for it to become kind.

Aurex felt the change in his armor. The sun-emblem on his breastplate warmed until it seemed to hold a little daylight beneath the metal. His white cloak, still dusted with Blackfrost snow, now felt absurdly heavy. He loosened its clasp.

A woman at the nearest stall looked up from a ledger.

“Reserve basin is east. Upper ridge. Don’t take the black trail unless you enjoy losing boots.”

Aurex studied the three roads leading out of the station.

“We weren’t asking for directions.”

“I know,” she said, and returned to her ledger.

Stormrune hid a cough behind his fist.

Brimcap pointed at the eastern road. “Lost.”

“We are not lost.”

“Then you were studying the roads for pleasure?”

Aurex opened his mouth, but the Map gave a small, paper-dry rustle against Mireglyph’s robes.

Mireglyph noticed. “It has the good sense not to answer.”