Lykor wouldn’t know if we didn’t hunt for the Heart tonight. Serenna’s inhalations came fast and shallow as reckless desire clouded her thoughts. Some part of her scattered mind broke through the circulating haze of lust.
“I—I didn’t mean to interfere with your evening,” Serenna whispered, feeling like she was tumbling through open air. “We can start our search in the morning.”
Releasing her, Fenn cleared his throat and straightened. “Well, since we have orders, let me retrieve my clothes.”
Essence shimmered and pulsed around him. Stretching out a claw, a blue tendril exploded from his palm, streaking behind her. Fenn’s clothing flew into his fingers, hauled by force.
Holding Serenna’s gaze in that wraith way of his, he didn’t blink as he dressed. She lost their silent standoff, her traitorous eyes diving to his middle as soon as he slipped a leg into his trousers. Fenn gave her a fanged grin before retracting his teeth, crouching to tie his boots.
“Come on she-elf, we’d better leave if you’re going to insist on looking at me like that.” Rising, he bound his hair into a tail at the base of his skull. “Otherwise, I might be tempted to defy that order of Lykor’s and discover just how loudly I can get you to scream.”
CHAPTER 46
SERENNA
Serenna screamed.
At her expense, Fenn had warped them with more jumps than she assumed were necessary to avoid the reavers’ presence—just to hear her squeal. From the Lagoon, they teleported through twists and turns of various tunnels and caverns, traveling deeper into the heart of the fortress.
In the pauses between sending Serenna’s stomach catapulting up her throat with his warps, Fenn rattled off the names of the different locations. From the weapons ranges, to the smithies, past furnaces collecting heat and distributing the warmth, he followed one current of magma like a fish swimming upstream.
Fenn finally placed Serenna back on her feet. Bright light exploded around her when she opened her eyes. Teetering on the edge of a craggy precipice, she locked her knees with a gasp.
Serenna looked out over a vast lake of fire at least the size of one of Centarya’s training rings. Magma churned below in bubbles of blacks, yellows, and oranges, popping like tar. Channels of sluggish, molten rock webbed out like veins, feeding various rivulets before disappearing through underground tunnels.
A wave of heat rose over the surface, shimmering like liquid metal poured from a forge. Fed from a source somewhere deeper in the volcano’s dying heart, the Slag slowly cooled as the centuries wore on, solidifying into stone.
Scaling a path along the cavern walls like one of those pocket goats, Fenn wound up a carved trail hugging the rocky ledge. He angled toward a slender natural bridge, stretched across the length of the chamber.
Serenna balked, placing her hand against the stony wall. “That can’t hold us,” she protested, wiping her back as a trickle of sweat snaked down her spine.
Completely showing off, Fenn warped to the middle of the suspended rock. Sitting on the edge, he swung his legs over the simmering flames a hundred feet below.
To delay joining Fenn in his precarious position over the magma, Serenna surveyed the domed cavern reaching hundreds of feet above. Pitted cavities reminding her of dips in coral sporadically dotted the rocky walls. Whips of snowy air danced through the chamber like streamers in the wind, ushering in minimal relief through holes honeycombed into the rock.
Serenna reached her perception up to snatch at a coil of air, drawing on a whirlwind of snow. The flakes briefly danced around her before melting, the frosty breeze a fleeting reprieve.
When Fenn beckoned to her from his perch, Serenna tentatively followed his route—minus the warp. She paused, placing a foot on the archway. Narrow, and no more than eight feet across, she was skeptical of the bridge’s ability to support their weight.
I’m sure the druids have magic in place holding it up. Fenn had mentioned that something they couldn’t perceive preserved the entire fortress. We’d be boiling alive in this cavern if that wasn’t the case. Serenna almost had herself convinced as she scurried forward to reach him.
Head swimming, she settled next to Fenn. Serenna tucked her legs up to her chest, reluctant to dangle her feet over the ledge like him. “What now?” she asked, surrounding them in a steady swirling of icy wind.
Fenn shrugged. “You moved water in that lake with your magics.” He shot her a scowl, evidently still touchy about that shared experience. “Why not shove this magma around in the same way?”
“And the Heart will conveniently be sitting underneath the fire?” Serenna raised her brows. “I doubt it’s that simple.”
“Well that’s not the right attitude to have.” Fenn reached out, catching a drifting snowflake. “Lykor wanted us to search here.”
“Lykor is also the one who didn’t want me practicing with fire.” Serenna scoffed at her captor’s absurd expectations, binding her hair away from her neck with a leather tie. “All I’ve ever managed was pulling flames from magma—and that was under stress.”
“I think you can do anything she-elf,” Fenn said, his certainty making something in Serenna’s chest catch. “You’re twice as fierce as any warrior, even though you’re practically half our size. I don’t know anyone more terrifying than you.” Spinning his lip ring, Fenn backtracked with a considering frown. “Well, aside from Lykor. But you always grumble about how I—”
“Always state the obvious,” she finished for him.
The heat broiling upward had Serenna wiping beads of perspiration away from her face. She abandoned her efforts of hauling in the outside air—it was a losing battle anyway. Wobbling to her feet, Fenn rose to join her.
Teetering on their rocky perch, Serenna suppressed a shudder—open air was the only thing separating them from plunging to a flaming death. She glanced at Fenn. He can warp us to safety if this bridge collapses. Probably.
Turning back to study the expanse of roiling molten rock, Serenna drew in a deep breath, sending her focus below. This shouldn’t be any different than pushing with force or manipulating water. She simply had to move the burning sludge instead.
Scattering her perception like pollen on the wind, Serenna dissolved into the heartbeat of the earth. Enveloped by her surroundings, the elements thrashed in time with her pulse.
Serenna snatched at the fire, bending the flames to her will. Using her hands to direct the pressure building in her chest, she parted the magma clear across to the edge of the lake. A hissing blaze fountained like a miniature geyser, bubbling faster. Small, disturbed swells rolled, slapping against the rocky wall.
Gritting her teeth, Serenna wrestled with the inferno to keep the laughably narrow channel clear. She and Fenn both scanned the now-exposed steaming floor, observing nothing but bare black rock, solidified into wavy ridges.
Serenna released her grip on the earth. The sluggish flames retraced their disrupted path, crawling back to consume the empty space.
“This seems ridiculous,” she protested, wiping a fresh sheen of perspiration from her brow. “What if the Heart is buried beneath that layer of rock? I don’t think I can move stone.”
“You would surrender so easily? I know you possess more determination than that.” Fenn waved a claw, as if trying to cut through her doubt. “Lykor won’t permit us to rest until we find the Starry Heart.” Like that was supposed to be motivation for her.
“I doubt that,” Serenna insisted. “Lykor isn’t painfully literal like you.” She scowled up at Fenn. “You could help, you know.”
“I fear I need to regenerate first.” He tugged at his lip ring, shifting his weight. “My magics are running low.”
Serenna rolled her eyes. “You found enough time to go to the Lagoon.”
To speed up this mission of theirs, she nearly offered to replenish his Well with her reserves. But persuading him to unlock her tether felt like a battle she didn’t have the energy for.
Serenna decided to appeal to his vices instead. “Lykor said we have to start searching tonight—and we did. He didn’t say we have to finish. We can continue tomorrow. If we leave now, you can return to your…activities before the night is over.”
“Maybe I’m right where I want to be,” Fenn all but growled at her, snagging her hand, fingers tightening over hers. “I find it difficult to believe that the druids would bury the relics in unreachable locations.”
“But they also wouldn’t make it easy for the Aelfyn to reclaim them.” Serenna pursed her lips. “And we’re only chasing Lykor’s interpretation of possible locations.” Out of principle, she wouldn’t allow herself to be swayed by Fenn’s logic.
Rings swinging in his ears, Fenn jerked his head toward the lake of fire, ordering her like he would his subordinates. “Keep trying, she-elf. If you need an incentive, I promise to take you back to the Lagoon once we find the Starry Heart.”
Serenna huffed but swallowed her protest, letting the retort die in her throat. When Fenn stubbornly shoved his talons into a pocket, she knew there’d be no swaying him.
With a defeated sigh, Serenna extended her hands again, shifting the bubbling magma one sliver at a time. Working around the chamber, rotating like the stars wheeling across the sky, she drove away the flames in sections, revealing the rock underneath.
While Serenna funneled all of her focus on manipulating the fire, Fenn searched the exposed slabs. When he found nothing of note, he’d give her arm a squeeze, signaling for her to move on to the next segment.
Exhaustion began to tug on Serenna’s limbs as she maintained a steady connection with the earth. Sweat poured down her face from the exertion while the chamber’s heat threatened to singe every pore. Never having tested the limits of her endurance, she was uncertain how long she could channel her shaman power.
“Wait,” Fenn finally said nearly a half hour later, fingers tensing against her. “Right there.” He pointed with a talon almost directly below, frowning as he peered over the edge of the bridge. “Is that a hatch?”
