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?”
Fighting against a weary haze, Serenna blinked the chamber back into focus. Gulping in breaths, she swayed, a flickering flame on the cusp of being snuffed out.
Steam coiled above the exposed rocky surface. Smooth, flat metal as large as a door gleamed like a silver mirror in the sun, somehow unharmed from the magma.
“How am I supposed to move that?” Serenna asked, arms shaking as she held the flaming tide away from the revealed strip of earth.
In answer, a burst of Essence whirled around Fenn—a sight Serenna still wasn’t accustomed to seeing from a wraith. He punched out a claw, casting down a blue stream of force. Forehead furrowing in concentration, the pressure of his magic hummed in the air. On silent hinges, the metal trapdoor swung open, revealing a darkened cavity burrowing further into the ground.
Fenn’s eyes widened, glancing between her and the pit of darkness disappearing below. He asked, “If I warp down there, can you keep the magma back?”
A strike of unease flashed in Serenna’s chest. “Take me with you. What if there’s more fire down there?”
She bit her cheek, restraining her worry that he’d be charging into the unknown alone—that line of thinking would only encourage him to prove that he could.
Fenn chewed his lip ring, studying her and then the open hatch—weighing the risks to her safety, she had no doubt.
“I might lose my control for a moment after we jump,” she admitted, trembling from the strain of holding the magma back. “But I should be able to keep the flames away from us if we go down that entrance.”
Taking matters into her own hands when Fenn continued to hesitate, Serenna clasped his claw. Pulse thrashing in anticipation, she met his apprehensive gaze with an encouraging nod.
