Chapter 243: Self-Consuming Heart

The inner core room opened under the First Ember, smaller than the outer heart room but more deadly, because every one of the city’s heat lines came in there as a small strand of light, and the crown’s black heart was eating them one at a time, wrapping around each strand and pulling it into itself, taking from the city’s kitchens, its clinics, and its residential lines, so that above them, fire was starting to go out across whole areas of Cinderhold.

Tessa kept the relay open.

"We’ve lost most of the lower kitchen line," Tova reported.

"The clinic is starting to lose heat in room three," Velis said. "We’re moving patients to room one."

"We have three vent lines left in the west residential line," Ferrin said. "All the others are black."

Austin Veyron looked at the self-consuming heart and knew what DEVOUR wanted him to do, to take the core in, devour the consumption, and keep the city’s heat lines alive until this was over, so that every kitchen, clinic, and home would be safe, but all of them would be depending on him.

Veyra stood next to him. "Name it."

"The core."

"And what would it make?"

"The last furnace in the city."

"Then smaller," Sable said, lifting the crown shard toward the First Ember. "Give the heat another path."

Nyra traced the core’s lines with the heart shard. "We can use the First Ember to send the heat back to the source lines. It wouldn’t own the heat, it would only be directing it back to where it came from. But the crown’s heart is what’s holding the lines together at the lowest level."

Maelor stood across the room with black fire wrapped around his armor. "You think it owns them because you’re afraid of what it means to take care of them. Everything consumes what feeds it. Cities consume coal, food, and people. I’m only letting it consume honestly."

"No," Tova said over the relay. "A kitchen uses food, but it doesn’t own the people who bring it. A clinic uses heat, but it doesn’t own its patients."

"A pipe carries fire," Velis added, "but it doesn’t own the clinic room it heats."

Their words reached the First Ember, and it began pulling on the heat lines, glowing with black and white fire.

Maelor slammed the portable crown flame into the ground, and black heat lashes flew from the core, one going toward Tessa until Seris knocked it away with her wing, and another going for Nyra until Sable cut it away before it could reach the line, while Veyra rushed across the room to meet Maelor’s flame sword with her one good arm.

Sparks flew into the city’s heat lines, and one residential line went dark.

"We’ve lost heat in the west line," Ferrin warned.

Austin Veyron looked at the lowest phrase in the core.

THE HEART SURVIVES BY CONSUMING WHAT FEEDS IT.

The heart believed it was meant to consume whatever fed it, and used the very lines that fed it as its reason to devour the city.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The heart-survives-by-consuming-what-feeds-it claim. Not the heart’s raw fire, the city’s heat, or the source lines."

"Witnessed," Veyra said, keeping Maelor’s sword away from the First Ember.

"Witnessed," Sable answered.

Austin Veyron placed the white root chain on the black core.

DEVOUR opened, and the claim tasted like a king burning the food stores and calling the smoke a meal.

THE HEART SURVIVES BY CONSUMING WHAT FEEDS IT.

He consumed survives.

The black core let out a high-pitched scream, and the heat lashes stopped moving, because the self-consuming fire could no longer devour and call it living, and the heat lines began pulling free of the black center, though they still needed to be directed.

Nyra held the heart shard above the First Ember. "Send each line back to its source now."

Tessa told the city the new line paths.

SOURCE VALVES OPEN ON LOWER KITCHEN LINE.

SOURCE VALVES OPEN ON CLINIC LINE.

SOURCE VALVES OPEN ON RESIDENTIAL LINE.

Tova’s crews opened the source valves for the kitchens, Velis’s crews opened the source valves for the clinic, and Ferrin’s crews opened the valves for the residential line, while the First Ember moved the heat lines back to their sources one at a time, so that the city’s heat returned piece by piece as people helped each line back to where it was needed.

"You can’t let a thousand hands control one fire!" Maelor yelled, breaking away from Veyra.

He ran at the First Ember, and Austin Veyron met him, the two of them tumbling into the inner circle of the room, and while Maelor was weakened, his crown flame still carried the power of every contract that had failed him.

"Take the ember," Maelor hissed. "You want it. You know they’ll worship you if the fire is yours."

Austin Veyron wanted it, because the First Ember was close, and if he devoured it, he could control the city’s heat lines without anyone having to open valves to feed the city.

Veyra’s voice cut through the fight. "Name it."

"Their safety. In my control."

"And what would it make?"

"The one who owns everyone’s safety."

"Then smaller," Sable said, driving her shard into the floor of the core room, and white cracks spread across the heart.

Austin Veyron pushed Maelor’s sword aside, and Seris dove on him from above, forcing him away from the ember, while Veyra moved in on his other side and drove her blade through the portable flame at Maelor’s chest.

The crown flame broke, and Maelor fell to the ground beside the heart as it began to collapse, while the First Ember remained above the heat lines, not swelling into a new crown, but becoming a public switch that showed where each heat line started and where it ended.

The crown-heart broke, black fire collapsing in on itself and then exploding outward in a cloud of cooling ash, and one shard of the core flew through a crack in the wall and away east through the deep roads.

Maelor watched it flee and chuckled. "There are more cities with fires. The crown will always find another home."

The city above them changed, so that for the first time its people could see each other’s kitchens, clinics, vents, and the source lines they all shared, and the heart was gone, though one shard had made it out toward the next sanctuary.

Veyra sank to the ground and didn’t get up, and when Austin Veyron knelt in front of her, she grabbed the front of his coat and rested her forehead against his, the way he had only ever seen her do with Rin, and he had never known she could do that with him. "Don’t," she said, when he opened his mouth to speak. "Just be here for a second."

He stayed, and Sable came and knelt beside them and put her hand on his back, and none of them said anything.

Then Rin came on the relay, sounding happier than he had heard her in days. "My whole roof just went warm. I need to know you’re all standing."

"Sitting," Veyra answered. "All of us."

"That’ll have to do. I’m coming down. Don’t move." She clicked off the relay, then clicked back on. "I’m serious."

Elena came on next and didn’t say anything for a moment. "All the counts are white. I’m going to go sit at the window for a bit." Austin Veyron covered the slip over his heart with his hand and laughed, and he hadn’t laughed in hours.

The core room wasn’t safe yet, because ash heat was still moving through the lines and some of the source lines were pulsing unevenly as the First Ember learned how to be public, while above them the city showed yellow wherever lines were running low, because the workers were tired, or the lines needed fixing, or the coal hadn’t reached the area yet.

Tessa gave them the first count since the heart fell. "Seven stoves working in the lower ward kitchens. Four rooms heated in the clinic. Six vent lines in west residential. The coal cart is late to east residential. No crown contracts."

"We won’t call that a win until everyone has heat," Tova replied. "The counts will tell us where to send the next cart."

Velis and Ferrin stayed with the engineers and decided to leave the First Ember at the throat of the heat lines, where it was easy to see where each source line ran, so that none of them could ever be hidden by a crown again.

Austin Veyron looked at the small ember and felt tempted to take it, to devour it and keep it safe from anyone who might try to use it for their own advantage.

Veyra knew what he was thinking, even from the ground. "Name it."

"Keeping it safe."

"And what would it make?"

"The one who believes only he can keep things safe."

"Then smaller," Sable said, touching the wall of the core room. "Let the city keep its switch."

Austin Veyron stepped back from the First Ember.

Seris examined the crack the shard had flown through. "Maelor’s next sanctuary may not be a city. It will be somewhere with many small fires and no public count to stop it."

Tessa looked at the broken crown flame on the ground. "Then we need to send the warning out before it reaches its next fire."

She sent the shard’s path and the new map to every freehold with an open route, so that Cinderhold’s new map could help other cities if the crown came for them.

Above them, the city kept carrying coal, opening valves, moving clinic beds, and reading out its counts, and the heart was gone, but the next fight was already heading east on a shard of black fire.