Chapter 253: Fire Root

The path down ran beside the black furnace of the Ash Court, past old pipes that led up to the sanctuary filled with fire, though many of them were cracked and marked with black-red rings, and Ysa walked ahead of him with the shard on her wrist, drawing more lines of black fire toward the broken pipes.

"Ysa!" Austin Veyron called out.

Her voice echoed back from the root room. "I live in the cold part of my district. The court told us there was coal, but there isn’t enough to fill all the furnaces. If this can fill them, why would I say no?"

"The binding isn’t finished," Nyra said, placing the heart shard against the pipe. "It’s using her fear of the sanctuary not having enough to complete itself, and if she accepts power over the fire root, she’ll be the one blamed for the cold."

Austin Veyron wanted to run down the tunnel and rip the shard off her wrist, because he knew he could remove it before the binding was complete without having to ask her anything more.

Veyra grabbed his arm. "Name it."

"Taking it off her."

"And what would it make?"

"The hunter who thinks her body is something to fix."

"Then smaller," Sable said, her shard lighting up the black rings on the pipes. "Find the claim that says she’s the vessel."

Root guardians rose from the furnace floor, black figures with pipe arms and furnace doors for chests, and each one carried a chain that read the same.

THE VESSEL BELONGS TO THE FIRE.

One lunged at Tamsin, and she blocked it with her spear, while Rin ripped open the chest of another with her claws, Seris and Calder pushed the third away from the relay wire, and Veyra cut through the black chains before they could reach Tessa’s slate.

Austin Veyron knew that the shard being on Ysa didn’t mean she belonged to the fire, because she wasn’t a part of the furnace or something for another’s hunger to use, and the binding needed her to believe that she had to give up control of her own body if she wanted to help her district.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The vessel-belongs-to-the-fire claim. Not Ysa, the furnace, or the workers of the Ash Court."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable answered.

Austin Veyron placed his white root chain on one of the guardians’ chains.

DEVOUR opened, and the claim tasted like a person’s name being traded for a tool’s, so that she could fit beneath a crown.

THE VESSEL BELONGS TO THE FIRE.

He consumed tool.

All the chains fell, and the guardians stood still as their furnace doors swung open, showing nothing inside but coal and pieces of broken valves, while the black fire around Ysa’s wrist stopped pulling her toward the root room.

Veyra stepped back to his side, her breath fogging in the heat, and before he could ask, she said, "Shoulder’s fine," and then, after a moment, quieter, "You didn’t grab her. Good." She didn’t look at him when she said it, but her good hand found the small of his back and rested there, steady, as he faced the doorway.

Ysa stood trembling at the entrance to the room, and Austin Veyron didn’t step inside.

"Ysa," he said. "It will tell you that either you take the crown or your district stays cold. It isn’t telling you the truth." Then he asked her the only honest question he knew. "Name it."

"My district, warm."

"And what would it make?"

"The person everyone has to wait for before they can light their stoves."

Sable appeared beside Austin Veyron. "What else could you be?"

Ysa looked back at the pipes. "Someone who works to open the valves and has to fight for the coal counts."

The black fire hissed, and the shard spoke from the walls of the room.

ARGUMENT WILL NOT HEAT THE DEAD.

Tessa opened the relay to the Ash Court, where the captain and Dorian were keeping the record open above them, and their reports came through.

ASH COURT COAL COUNT: THREE SEALED RESERVES FOUND UNDER LORD HASK’S STOREHOUSE.

FURNACE LINES: TWO DAMAGED, FOUR CLOSED BY COURT ORDER, THREE FUNCTIONAL WITH MANUAL VALVES.

DISTRICT HEAT CLOTH: HELD AS TRIAL SECURITY, NOT MISSING.

They all listened to the real counts, and the court’s emergency hadn’t been natural at all, because it had hidden its coal, shut off some of the furnace lines, and held back the district’s heat cloth to make the ember trial happen.

Ysa heard the counts. "It wants me to take control of something the court created."

"It wants you to become its reason for existing," Austin Veyron answered.

"I won’t accept the binding," Ysa said, and pulled her arm away from the black fire.

The shard screamed and ripped itself from her skin, leaving a red line but no crown mark, and fell to the floor of the root room, opening the buried furnace crown, larger than the court basin and hidden beneath the sanctuary, black fire flowing around it as the shard began draining the sealed coal reserves, the manual valves, and every scrap of heat in the Ash Court.

"It’s making a hunger fire that will drain all the heat from the sanctuary," Nyra said, fear in her voice. "If it finishes, it will drain every bit of coal in the Ash Court."

The floor opened wider, and Ysa stepped back from the hole, holding her wrist, while Austin Veyron could feel the shard reaching for DEVOUR from below, because the binding had failed to complete, and now the furnace crown was trying to consume all of the fire in the Ash Court.

More reports came through the relay from above, the sealed coal reserves heating up, the manual valves pulling back against the workers who had opened them, and the heat cloth beginning to catch fire in the security room.

"The court members are opening the ledgers to see where their coal is going," Dorian said through the slate. "But the furnace crown is making every heat source give to the deepest fire."

"That’s what it offered me," Ysa said. "Give it the fire, and my district would be warm."

Tessa asked the workers what they could do, and they gave her every answer they could think of.

"We can move three coal reserves if we keep the lower carts on the manual line."

"We can open four furnace pipes, but two of them need repairs first."

"We can send the heat cloth to the coldest rooms if we break into the court security room."

None of these would solve the problem on its own, but together they showed that the furnace crown wasn’t the only way to save the sanctuary.

Austin Veyron looked down at the black ring and could feel all the power it was taking from the Ash Court, and if he devoured the entire hunger, it would stop draining the heat, but he would have all of that fire inside him too.

Veyra knew what he was thinking. "Name it."

"Ending the hunger by consuming it."

"And what would it make?"

"The last fire they can ask for."

"Then smaller," Sable said, pointing to the supply lines. "Take whatever lets it consume the supply lines, and leave them with the people who need the heat."

"The furnace crown was made with a claim," Nyra said, running her hand along the black current flowing through it.

THE DEEPEST FIRE OWNS EVERY FLAME ABOVE IT.

The furnace crown didn’t just want heat, but wanted to turn every flame in the Ash Court into something it could feed on.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The deepest-fire-owns-every-flame claim. Not the coal, the furnace lines, the workers, or the sanctuary."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable answered.

Austin Veyron dropped his white root chain into the hole in the floor.

DEVOUR opened, and the claim tasted like the fire in a basement that believed it owned every fire in the rooms above it.

THE DEEPEST FIRE OWNS EVERY FLAME ABOVE IT.

He consumed basement.

The hunger slowed and stopped rushing toward the furnace crown, so that the coal reserves cooled enough for the workers to move them, the valves stopped pulling against the workers, and the heat cloth stopped burning in the security room.

The furnace crown didn’t fall apart, but opened one tooth at a time to reveal a deeper hole beneath the sanctuary, and black fire rushed down into it, carrying the shard along.

"It’s going to the first furnace bed the Ash Court was built on," Nyra said, looking down into the hole.

Ysa looked at the workers gathering at the top of the tunnel. "You’ll need someone to count what the court has left while you go down there."

"Do you choose to lead that count?" Tessa asked her.

"Yes. I’ll never become the fire, but I can help stop it from becoming a crown again."

Rin had been standing beside Veyra the whole time, and when everyone gathered around the hole, she leaned over and kissed Veyra’s forehead just above the soot, and Veyra closed her eyes for a moment and leaned into the kiss before she realized people were watching.

Sable stood next to Austin Veyron as the heat rose from the hole below them, and she tucked her face into his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her, and she didn’t pull away.

"She chose, and you let her," Elena said softly through the relay. "I know what you did. Go see what’s under the court, and then come home." He placed his hand on the slip over his heart.

The hole below them glowed black as the hunger tried to feed again and failed, while something deeper was waking up.