Chapter 242: First Ember

A First Ember appeared in the crown-heart, small next to the city-sized reservoir around it, a black fire the size of a fist in the middle of the broken need ring, and yet every fire in Cinderhold was pulsing with it, while the seed mark on Austin Veyron’s wrist glowed white.

Maelor smiled. "Now we can finally begin. The first hunger and the First Ember. It was waiting for someone who knows why we have power. Accept it, combine with it, and the city will never be torn apart again."

This contract was more enticing than the others, because Austin Veyron could feel how the First Ember had been made, built on the same principle as DEVOUR, to take something, grow stronger from it, and make the world obey, and if he combined with the ember, he could defeat Maelor and keep every fire line stable, but he would be embedding his hunger in every room in Cinderhold that held a fire.

Veyra stepped in front of him. "Name it."

"The ember."

"And what would it make?"

"The crown over every fire."

"Then smaller," Sable said, holding her shard to the black fire. "Find the claim it’s using to convince you to combine."

Nyra studied the First Ember through the heart shard. "It’s connected to Austin Veyron’s real seed, but also to a reflection of him that the city’s fires picked up through the mirrors, and it wants to use that to prove he already has a place in the fire network."

Tessa spoke through the relay. "City status. We have a First Ember active. Don’t take any new fire contracts, and keep your sources high and visible. We’re separating his seed from the reflection."

"The kitchens are stable for now," Tova said from the lower ward. "The clinic wheels are fully staffed. A few vents are going dark, but people have higher source counts than offers."

"We can keep the sources separated a little longer," Velis said. "Once the heart starts feeding, it will pull heat from the wards."

Maelor lifted his portable crown flame. "Your city can’t wait for more meetings. It will lose its fires while you argue over who the best person is to act."

The First Ember sent out its mirrors, and this time they weren’t images of people but places in Cinderhold, a child trying to warm up beside a cold stove, someone running through the clinic with a sheet for burns, a person in a kitchen staring at an empty supply cart, and someone huddled around a vent that gave off no heat, and in each mirror Austin Veyron’s black mark showed at the edge of the fire.

AUSTIN VEYRON OWNS THE FIRST EMBER.

The mirrors wanted him to step in and save each of these people, and if he did, they would all be safe, but each fire would become part of him, and Austin Veyron felt DEVOUR surge through him so strongly that his hands started to shake.

"Name it," Veyra called to him through the vision.

"Saving them, now."

"And what would it make?"

"Someone they’ll owe every time they need help."

"Then smaller," Sable said, her white light cutting through the mirrors. "Don’t let it become a way to control them."

Austin Veyron looked past all the individual ways he could help people and found what was at the center of the First Ember, a claim burning beneath his mark, and he understood that he didn’t need to own the ember at all, but that his seed was being used to make the idea that he should feel natural.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The Austin-Veyron-owns-the-First-Ember claim. Not the ember itself, the city’s fires, or the people who need heat."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable answered.

He placed the white root chain into the black fire.

DEVOUR opened, and the claim tasted like someone in need reaching out to a savior who would never let go.

AUSTIN VEYRON OWNS THE FIRST EMBER.

He consumed savior.

The mirrors disappeared, but Cinderhold’s fires didn’t go out, and instead the black marks vanished from them, so that the kitchens went back to the kitchen crews, the clinic braziers went back to the clinic counts, and the home vents went back to the public sources, while the First Ember stayed floating with a broken reflection of Austin Veyron’s seed.

Maelor’s smile faltered. "No. You can’t separate the seed from the source. Hunger will always find a way to rule."

He attacked, his portable crown flame turning into a black-red spear, and Veyra caught it on her sword, the impact throwing them both across the outer chamber, while Seris pushed the crown guards away from the fire, Sable broke the last of the mirror chains, and Nyra protected Tessa on the relay as the crown-heart trembled.

Austin Veyron reached Veyra first and pulled her up by her good arm, and she came up swearing and holding her bandaged shoulder, and though she let go of his hand as soon as she could, she looked at him in a way that said she knew exactly how close that had been.

"I’m okay."

"You’re not."

"I’m fine." She let go of his hand, but squeezed it once before she did.

Nyra held the heart shard around the First Ember. "His reflection is separating, but Maelor is forcing the heart to break open at the core. If he reaches the ember, he’ll make it consume the city’s heat."

Seris found a lower-reservoir key slot beside the inner ring. "There’s a core door. It will open once the ember realizes no one owns it."

Sable placed her shard on the lock, and the First Ember flickered, for the first time unsure of what to do, while Tessa sent out the message.

CINDERHOLD FIRE IS NO LONGER CONNECTED TO AUSTIN VEYRON SEED REFLECTION. KEEP YOUR SOURCES HIGH AND VISIBLE. CORE DOOR IS OPENING.

The city above them kept its fires burning without a crown, and the core door opened onto the lowest level of the crown-heart, where all the heat lines came together to feed the city.

Maelor stepped back through the door, leaving a trail of black-red flame. "You took the crown away from me. Now watch the heart choose hunger on its own."

He drove his portable flame into the core wall, and the crown-heart began to consume itself, black fire moving down the deeper heat lines and devouring the sources instead of taking them over, so that as the heart tried to devour Cinderhold’s fires, the kitchens, clinics, and residential vents above began to fade.

"It’s devouring itself," Nyra said urgently. "If we don’t stop the core or give the heat another way out, it will devour all of Cinderhold’s heat."

The heart wasn’t devouring in one great blast, but one fire at a time, each one dimming as it was fed upon, a kitchen fire shrinking as the heart drew from it, a clinic brazier going dark and then flaring with black around the edges, and residential vents coughing smoke into the homes they were supposed to heat.

Tessa relayed to the city. "The crown-heart isn’t giving out contracts anymore. It’s devouring its own sources. Keep your source valves open, report any fire going dark, and don’t feed more fuel to a flame that has the black mark."

"Our kitchen crews are only feeding the open flames," Tova said first. "We aren’t feeding the ones turning black."

"We’ve got two braziers holding on the clinic wheels," Velis said. "We can move patients to the warmer rooms if the next one goes dark."

"Homes are gathering around their source vents," Ferrin reported. "There are no more offers of warmth, but the heart is using the cold against them."

Rin came over the relay from the rooftops, and she wasn’t joking. "I just lost two blocks under me, and they’re carrying each other to the bakery. Veyra, are you hurt? Don’t tell me you’re fine. I know you took that."

"Somewhat," Veyra said, and Austin Veyron had never heard her admit something so quickly.

"He’d better keep you upright," Rin said. "Or I’ll come down there myself."

Elena spoke next, with less urgency than Rin but no less feeling. "The Grand Meridian is keeping its fires lit so the salt road stays warm for anyone who needs to leave. Just know there’s an exit behind you, no matter what you decide to do."

Austin Veyron felt the slip over his heart, and Sable took her place on his other side and put her hand in his, her fingers cold but sure.

He could hear the city trying to fix itself, and while that wasn’t enough to make the problem small, it let the people help one another without relying on him, but when he looked at the core, there was a simple answer waiting, to go into the heart, devour the source that was devouring itself, and keep Cinderhold’s heat inside himself until this was over.

"Name it," Veyra said, looking at him.

"Devouring the collapse."

"And what would it make?"

"The city’s last furnace, whose warmth no one could refuse."

"Then smaller," Sable said, lifting her shard toward the First Ember. "Find a way to send the heat somewhere else."

Nyra traced the lines of the core with the heart shard. "We can send the heat back to the three source systems if we can make the core realize it doesn’t need to consume the city to live, but Maelor tied this to the deepest claim."

"What claim?" Tessa asked.

"Whatever tells it that it can devour what feeds it," Nyra said, pointing to the open core chamber.

The First Ember drifted toward the door as black fire consumed the white-red fire one line at a time.