We didn't return to the capital. There was no time. From the northern wastes, we turned our exhausted band south and east, riding hard for the smog-choked heart of the Empire's war machine: the Ashfall Forges.
The journey was a blur of grim landscapes and grimier inns. The pendant and the echoing dragon-pains were my compass, a constant, nagging pull toward a specific, growing heat on the horizon—not the warmth of the sun, but the sick, mechanical fever of the forges.
Haiying, disguised as a minor noblewoman assessing supply lines for the "war effort," used her remaining imperial seals to gain us swift passage. Commander Song and his four remaining men were our "retinue." I was the quiet, odd-eyed scribe, constantly clutching a ledger to hide my trembling hands. The closer we got, the more intense Ignis's silent scream became. It was a cold fire in my veins, a desperate hunger that mirrored the forges' insatiable consumption of coal and stolen magic.
The Ashfall region was a hellscape. The sky was a perpetual twilight of grey smoke. The ground was covered in a fine, choking black dust. The great forges themselves were vast, windowless citadels of brick and iron, their chimneys belching fire that burned with an unnatural, too-bright white heat—Ignis's stolen essence.
"The Spark," I murmured to Haiying in the cramped privacy of a rented room overlooking the main forge complex. The ache was a focused point now, a needle of desperate cold in the furnace's heart. "It's not in the main foundries. It's deeper. Somewhere they... processed the raw power."
"Administrative block," Commander Song said, studying the complex through a slit in the shutter. "Heavy guard. Not military. Private. The Emperor's personal greed, guarded by his most loyal dogs."
We couldn't assault it. We had to slip in. The plan was born of desperation. Using Haiying's authority, we got ourselves invited to a dinner with the Forge-Master, a bloated man named Kwan whose eyes were as dead as cinders.
The dinner was held in a lavish hall within the administrative block, a grotesque display of wealth carved from the mountain's pain. The air still tasted of metal and despair. I played my part, head down, scribbling nonsense. But my entire being was fixed on the pull, which led downward.
During a toast, I "spilled" wine on my tunic. With profuse apologies, I was directed to a servant's area to clean up. Once out of sight, I became a shadow.
The guards here were different—not soldiers, but jailers, their faces blank with a lifetime of ignoring screams only they could hear. I followed the icy-fire pull down a disused ventilation shaft, then into a sub-level that hummed with the same sickly frequency as Silanis's prison, but hot and dry.
I found it at the end of a corridor lined with lead doors: a vault. Not for gold, but for a relic. The lock was complex, mechanical. The pull from within was a weak, flickering pulse. Ignis...
I had no Tear, no key. Only the pendant and the connection. I pressed my hands against the cold metal door, my forehead resting against it. I didn't know what to do. I just poured my will down the bond, toward that fading spark. I'm here. We're here. Hold on.
A whisper, faint as the last ember in a dead hearth, brushed my mind. ...daughter of water's friend... the spark sleeps where the first flame was stolen... the heart of the stolen hearth...
An image flashed: not this sterile vault, but a natural cavern, deep under the complex. A place of beautiful, deadly geothermal vents, now capped and drilled. The first place they had shackled him.
The vault door suddenly clicked, not because of me, but because the shift change was ending. Bootsteps echoed. I fled, the new destination searing in my mind.
Back with the group, I conveyed the information in a frantic whisper. "We have to go down. Into the geothermal taps. That's where the Spark is hidden, not in a vault."
Commander Song's face was grim. "The geothermal levels are restricted. More guards, more dangers. Gas leaks, superheated steam."
"We have to go now," I insisted, the cold-fire ache spiking into a sharp pang. "He's fading. Fast."
Haiying made the decision. "Create a diversion. A fire in the main coal store. It will draw guards. We go down in the chaos."
It was reckless. But time was a blade at our throats. The war with Sky-Fire was a gathering storm on the border; every moment we spent here was a moment not spent securing the throne or the front lines.
The diversion worked too well. As alarms clanged and the sky lit up with the glow of burning coal, we slipped into a maintenance lift heading down. The heat became oppressive, wet, and metallic.
The "heart of the stolen hearth" was a nightmarish cathedral. A vast natural cavern where beautiful, blue-hot thermal springs had been brutally harnessed by colossal iron drills and siphons. And in the center, encased not in a lattice, but in a sphere of shimmering, heat-siphoning crystal, was a single, floating ember. It was golden-red, pulsing weakly. The Spark of Ignis.
Getting to it meant crossing a gantry over a seething, artificial lake of superheated coolant. Guards were already responding, alerted by the overall chaos.
"Go!" Commander Song ordered, he and his men forming a line to hold the entrance. "Get the key!"
Haiying and I ran across the shuddering gantry. The heat was blistering. The Spark called to the pendant at my chest, which glowed with a warm, protective light.
We reached the central platform. There was no lock, no sigil. Just the crystal sphere and the dying ember inside.
"The blood again?" Haiying asked, her face shining with sweat.
Before I could answer, a guard broke through Song's line, his axe raised. Haiying, with a speed I didn't know she possessed, sidestepped and drove a hidden dagger from her sleeve into his armpit. He fell, but more were coming.
Time. We had no time.
I did the only thing I could think of. I slammed the silver pendant, the relic of the Pact, directly against the crystal sphere.
A resonant chime echoed through the cavern, a pure note that cut through the industrial roar. A web of cracks appeared in the crystal. Not breaking it, but connecting to it.
The weak ember inside flared. A whisper, hot and dry as desert wind, touched my mind. ...FORGE A NEW FIRE...
The crystal sphere didn't shatter. It dissolved into motes of light that flowed into the Spark. The ember brightened, grew, and floated freely. It wasn't a key to be taken. It was a seed to be planted.
I cupped my hands around it. It was warm, not searing. It felt like hope.
"Now we run!" Haiying yelled, pulling me back as Commander Song's men fought a desperate retreat toward us.
We fled the cavern of stolen fire, the Spark a beacon in my hands. Behind us, the great siphons, deprived of their central focus, began to shudder and whine. The heart of the forge was failing.
We burst onto the surface into a scene of even greater chaos—the coal fire raging, the forges' lights flickering. We didn't look back. We mounted waiting horses and rode into the choking night.
In my palm, the Spark of Ignis pulsed, a tiny, defiant sun. One prison located. One key found, though not a key as we understood it. Two dragons remained in chains, and the clock was ticking down to a war that would be fought over the corpse of a world we were racing to save. The fire was lit. Now we had to find the earth and the wind before everything blew apart.
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Thank you for reading my novel