Chapter 225: Furnace Heart

The team raced toward the furnace heart as the tunnel pinched around them, because the Cinder Host was folding its body over the intruders, and as the passage tightened, iron plates came down overhead while hot red light seeped through the seams in the floor. Every few steps a line in the wall spewed black fire that formed words in the air, and it was so hot that sweat evaporated off their skin before it had a chance to drip to the ground, while the grates beneath their boots glowed a faint orange and the fortress let out a deep breath from somewhere inside its walls, a sound so low and vast that it seemed to pass straight through their ribs.

THE HEART OWNS THE HEAT.

Kethra took the lead. "Varos will be near the furnace heart. The standard may be cracked, but the heart still knows its command."

From outside, they could hear Tessa over the relay. "We have four minutes. The north tread chain is still holding, the east side of the basin is low on cooling margin, and the armor is sealing around the Host."

Austin Veyron could sense the furnace heart ahead of them, and it wasn’t just a demon heart but a living source fed by tribute, and DEVOUR craved it. If he consumed it, the Cinder Host would perish and they might save the rift, but he could also become exactly what the Burned Crown was looking for, someone who controlled every fire around him.

Veyra ran next to him, her shoulder brushing his the whole way, and neither of them moved apart. "Name it."

"I want the furnace heart."

"What would that create?"

"The Cinder Host with a human face."

"Then we sever its right to rule the heat," Sable said, using her crown shard to light the path in front of them.

When they reached the furnace heart, it hung suspended over a deep pit inside an iron cage, a huge red mass held together by iron bars that pushed heat out through pipes leading to the treads and every other part of the Host. Varos stood on an iron platform above it holding the cracked standard, and behind him waited another figure in black armor, with no banner, only a crown that looked like burnt metal fused to its skull. Black flames seeped out from under its armor, its eyes burned like two furnaces, and when it shifted its weight, the iron platform let out a creak as if it remembered once being on fire.

"The war lord," Kethra said.

The figure turned slowly toward Austin Veyron, and the heat in the room climbed with the movement. "I am Maelor. The Burned Crown isn’t a ruler, it’s simply how war is. Someone has to take the fire and decide who lives."

Varos lifted the standard, and black runes appeared across the furnace cage.

THE HEART OWNS THE HEAT.

The furnace heart pulsed faster, and outside, West Rift shook.

Nyra lifted the heart shard. "There are two links on the heart, one from the tribute standard and one from the crown flame. If we only break one, Maelor will be able to consume the heart."

Kethra walked up to Varos. "You said the Tithe would give you power. What did it actually do to you?"

Varos tightened his grip on the standard. "It made me powerful."

"It made you scared to be ordinary."

Varos swung at her with the standard, and Kethra parried the blow with her sword as the cracked core let out a spark of black fire, while Veyra helped her drive Varos back from the furnace cage and Rin jumped down from the railing and clawed the standard, ripping another piece of it away. Tamsin fought the furnace soldiers pouring through the vents at the base of the platform, and Sable made her way to the furnace cage, cutting the black flames from the standard with her crown shard and leaving white light on the iron around her.

Maelor lifted his hand, and the furnace heart released a blast of heat that struck Austin Veyron full on, and DEVOUR wanted to consume the whole thing, and it would have taken the entire source out of the rift if he hadn’t seen the words burning on the heart. The heart didn’t own the heat, it only held it, and Maelor had built the claim that the heart owned the heat so that every outside fire would become tribute to him.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The heart-owns-heat claim. Not the furnace heart, the rift, or the people outside."

"Witnessed," Veyra said while she blocked Varos.

"Witnessed," Sable said.

Austin Veyron pressed the white root chain against the glowing words.

DEVOUR opened, and he could taste the claim like a fire that wanted to be worshipped.

THE HEART OWNS THE HEAT.

He consumed owns.

The furnace heart spasmed and stopped sending heat to the Black Tithe weapon platforms, and outside, the north side of the Host strained against its tread chain as Tessa’s voice came through again.

"We’re losing the Host’s armor. You have two minutes."

Elena’s voice came through right after, barely a whisper. "You have two minutes. Come back to me."

Maelor lunged at Austin Veyron, crossing the room in the blink of an eye with a blade of crown flame in his hand, and he collided with Austin Veyron hard enough to send them both flying across the platform. The war lord wasn’t only physically strong, because he also carried the certainty that someone always had to win and someone always had to become fuel.

"You’re not using your hunger wisely," Maelor said. "Consume the heart and my crown, and you’ll save the world from burning."

Austin Veyron almost believed him, because the heart was right there and so was the crown, and if he consumed them both, he could protect every exit they had.

"What do you want?" Veyra asked.

"I want this to end."

"What would it create?"

"The only ending we deserve."

"Smaller target!" Sable called out to them.

Austin Veyron saw the crown flame link burning inside Maelor.

THE CROWN DECIDES WHO HEAT SERVES.

That was the other link, not the fire and not the heart, but the idea that a crown decided who got to live from the fire.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The crown-decides-heat-service claim. Not Maelor, the furnace heart, or the people outside."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable said.

Austin Veyron slammed the root chain into Maelor’s chest.

DEVOUR opened, and he could taste the claim like a king pointing at a fire and telling one side they were worthy of its warmth.

THE CROWN DECIDES WHO HEAT SERVES.

He consumed decides.

Maelor’s crown flame broke, and the furnace heart lost its link to the Black Tithe as the standard cracked open and spat out more black flame, until Kethra knocked it out of Varos’s hands and its hunger core fell into Nyra’s shard field and went dark with a long hiss. Varos dropped to his knees on the hot iron, staring at the broken pieces of the standard beside him.

"I was powerful," he whispered.

"No," Kethra said. "You were claimed."

Rin landed next to Austin Veyron with her tails standing on end from the heat, grabbed a fistful of his scorched shirt, and pulled him toward her until they were almost nose to nose. "If you’d taken that heart, I would’ve killed you," she said, and she said it like she meant every word, though her grip on his shirt lingered a moment longer than the threat needed.

Outside, the Cinder Host began falling apart, its armor cracking, its furnace shutting down, and its treads no longer churning through the mud, but West Rift was still shaking.

"One minute," Tessa said.

Maelor reached for the furnace heart and ripped a small black-red flame from it, pressing it into his crown, and the furnace heart went dark as his body turned into black ash and flame.

"The Cinder Host was only a path for me," he said. "My crown will outlive you all."

He disappeared through a crack in the wall of the furnace room, heading east toward the main army of the Black Tithe, while the Cinder Host kept collapsing around them and the rift kept breaking apart from all the heat it had stored.

Austin Veyron looked at the furnace heart, now fading like a dying coal, and then at the exits outside the Host on Tessa’s slate, knowing the war lord was escaping east with a piece of his crown flame and that they had less than a minute to survive beneath the falling fortress, while the whole chamber groaned around them like a dying animal.