Hearts Of Ash

The woman’s flame snapped sideways. It struck a ridge of glass, sending molten shards skittering toward her own feet.

She flinched. The hesitation cost her.

An assassin lunged.

Julian swore and shoved his digging hook through the ash. The gem came free with a wet crack of heat. He wrapped it in his inner cloth, jammed it into his satchel, and ran.

The ash sucked at his boots. Every step sank ankle-deep, dragging him down through layers that shifted like powder over a grave. He angled toward the dead river, where the hardened banks would hold his weight.

“Left!” he shouted.

The woman’s head turned.

She was younger than he expected. Not soft - nothing about her expression was soft - but young enough that fury had not yet learned to hide fear. Her hair streamed black and copper in the hot wind. A thin gold circlet clung crookedly above one brow.

Princess Ignia.

Julian knew her face from coinage and border notices. Princess Ignia Veyl, daughter of the Fire King. The royal bride promised to Prince Boreas, the Ice Warlord from the North.

Her gaze cut toward the riverbank.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Busy!”

The nearest assassin swung at her. Ignia caught the blade on a wall of flame, but the fire buckled. The steel punched through. She twisted aside, and the edge opened her upper arm.

Blood darkened red silk.

Julian reached the bank and slid down its far side. “The river! Move!”

Ignia thrust both hands forward.

Flame exploded between them and the assassins. The blast hurled ash into the air, blinding everyone. Julian covered his face as heat slapped through his coat. The fire smelled wrong - sour, metallic, like a forge fed with wet bones.

He heard boots pounding.

Not toward him.

Toward the river.

Julian ran along the channel, keeping low. Behind him, someone shouted orders. Another voice answered with the clipped calm of a trained killer.

Ignia appeared over the bank, one hand clamped to her arm. She landed badly, stumbled, and caught herself against the glass.

Julian grabbed her wrist.

Her skin seared his palm.

He released her with a strangled curse. Pain flashed white beneath his glove, the leather smoking where her fingers had touched it.

Ignia stared at him.

For one breath, the battle disappeared between them.

Then she drew a narrow knife from her boot and pressed it beneath his jaw.

“Take me somewhere they cannot follow.”

Julian looked at the blade, then at her face. Up close, she smelled of smoke and crushed spice. A bead of sweat slid from her temple, but it vanished before reaching her cheek.

“You just burned me.”

“You grabbed me.”

“You were falling.”

“I was not.”

Behind them, an assassin shouted from the top of the bank. “Princess! Yield, and you may yet be delivered alive.”

Ignia’s knife pressed harder.

Julian felt the point break skin. A warm line slipped down his throat.

“Guide me,” she whispered.

He glanced toward the river’s narrowing channel. “You want to survive? Stop pointing that at me and listen.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Three hundred paces ahead, the river splits. The eastern cut is a dead end. The western one runs beneath the slag shelf.” He nodded toward the black ridge ahead. “There’s a fumarole tunnel under it. Too narrow for horses. Too unstable for anyone who doesn’t know where to step.”

“And you do?”

“I collect what the wasteland leaves behind. That means I know where it kills.”

A flare of fire lit her face. For the first time, he saw how badly she was shaking.

Not from fear of him.

From the flame inside her.

Ignia withdrew the knife a fraction. “Move.”

Julian did.

They ran.

He kept to the hardened edge of the channel, where the ash lay thin over glass. Ignia followed close enough that heat rolled from her in waves. It pressed against his back through his coat. Every breath tasted of cinder.

The assassins reached the river behind them.

A bolt struck the bank beside Julian’s head.

“Down,” he snapped.

He seized Ignia by the shoulder and dragged her beneath a jut of black glass. Her body slammed into his. Heat flared through his glove. The leather smoked, and a sharp breath escaped her - not pain, but surprise.

For a moment, they crouched chest to chest in the cramped hollow.

Her knife remained between them.

“You touch me again,” she said, breathless, “and I will burn the hand off.”

“Then stop making me save you from falling.”

“I don’t need saving.”

“Your arm says otherwise.”

Her gaze dropped to the blood soaking her sleeve. Her mouth tightened.

The assassins passed above them. Boots scraped glass. One paused.

Julian could hear the faint hiss of Ignia’s magic gathering beneath her skin.

He put a finger to his lips.

Her eyes flashed with irritation. Still, she went silent.

The assassin moved on.

Julian waited until the footsteps faded, then crawled from the hollow. “The tunnel is ahead.”

Ignia rose behind him. “You knew they were coming.”

“I heard them.”

“You knew this place well enough to hide.”

“I live here.”

“Humans do not live in ash.”

“Humans live wherever the Empire forgets to look.”

He started toward the split.

Ignia caught his coat. Not his skin. Her fingers curled into the fabric, careful and deliberate.

“Why help me?”

Julian looked at her hand.

She noticed. Her grip loosened, though she did not let go.

“I wanted the gems,” he said.

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

A distant shout rolled across the wasteland.

Ignia’s face hardened. “If they catch me, they will take me north.”

“Boreas?”

The name slipped out before he could stop it.

Something changed in her expression. The fire in her eyes dimmed, leaving something colder beneath.

“You know too much.”

“I can read a border notice.”

“You can read?”

“On good days.”

Her mouth almost curved. The expression vanished before it became a smile.

They reached the split. Julian pointed toward the western cut, a narrow black seam between two shelves of slag.

“Step where I step.”

Ignia looked into the darkness. “And if I don’t?”

“The ground under the ash is hollow. You’ll drop into a vent.”

“Will you?”

“I know where the vents are.”

“Convenient.”

“Useful.”

She studied him, then moved behind him.

Julian crossed first. The slag groaned beneath his boots. He placed each foot on a patch of dull stone, avoiding the glass that shone faintly blue. Ignia followed, close enough that her heat warmed his back.

At the tunnel mouth, a tremor shuddered through the ground.

Ignia stumbled.

Julian caught her elbow.

Flame burst from her skin.

The blast threw him against the rock. His shoulder struck hard enough to numb his arm. Ignia dropped to one knee, staring at her hands as fire crawled over her fingers in frantic, uneven tongues.

“Get away,” she said.

Julian pushed himself upright. “Gladly.”

The fire jumped to the hem of her cloak.

She slapped at it, but the flame raced higher. Her control fractured. A bright coil whipped across the tunnel roof, melting a line through the stone.

“Princess.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Then put yourself out.”

“I’m trying.”

Her voice cracked.

The admission stopped him.

Ignia clenched her fists. The fire thickened around her arms, bright enough to hurt his eyes. “I can’t - ” She swallowed. “It isn’t obeying.”

Julian looked past her to the tunnel. The air inside shimmered with trapped heat. Behind them, the assassins were closing in.

He pulled his water flask from his belt and threw it.

Ignia caught it by instinct. The metal scorched her palm; she hissed and dropped it. Water burst over her boots, steaming instantly.

“Think,” Julian said. “Not bigger. Smaller.”

Her stare snapped to him.

“The flame’s spreading because you’re fighting it. Feed it one place.”

“You know nothing about fire.”

“I know ash. Fire leaves it behind.”

Another bolt struck the tunnel mouth.

Ignia flinched. The flame surged.

Julian stepped toward her, keeping his burned hand tucked against his chest. “Look at me.”

“I said get away.”

“And I said look at me.”

Her eyes found his.

The fire shuddered.

“Choose one thing,” he said. “Not the assassins. Not Boreas. One thing.”

Her breathing came fast. “The tunnel.”

“Good.”

“The tunnel,” she repeated.

The flames drew inward, collapsing from a wild crown into a tight blaze around her hands. Smoke curled between them.

Julian felt the heat ease by a fraction.

Ignia stared at him as though he had done something impossible.

He pointed behind her. “Now run.”

They entered the tunnel.

It narrowed quickly, forcing Julian sideways. Ignia had to follow with one shoulder brushing the wall. Her heat turned the stone slick with condensation. Behind them, the assassins reached the mouth.

“Faster,” she said.

“You’re the one glowing.”

“I can hear them.”

“So can I.”

A blade scraped stone behind them.

Julian saw the tunnel’s end ahead: a low opening beneath the slag shelf, where the dead river emerged on the far side. Beyond it, the ash-wasteland dropped into a maze of ravines.

He could make it.

Then the ground cracked.

The shelf lurched. A slab of black glass fell between Julian and the exit.

Ignia’s fire flared. “Move!”

Julian threw himself against the slab. It burned through his glove, but he found a gap at its base and wedged his digging hook beneath it.

“Help me.”

“You think I can lift that?”

“I think you can burn it.”

Her face tightened. “If I do, the whole shelf comes down.”

“Then burn carefully.”

“I don’t do carefully.”

“Try.”

The assassins entered the tunnel.

Ignia looked past him. Three silhouettes advanced through the smoke, blades raised.

Her jaw set.

She lifted both hands.

Fire gathered - not wild this time, but dense and white-hot. It streamed into the crack beneath the slab. The glass groaned. Julian leaned his weight onto the hook, boots slipping as heat blistered his forearm through the sleeve.

The slab split.

Julian hauled it aside.

“Go!” he shouted.

Ignia hesitated.

Not at the exit.

At him.

The assassins were ten steps away.

“Julian,” she said.

He had never told her his name.

Then she seized the front of his coat and pulled him through the opening with her. Her grip did not touch his skin, but the heat of her knuckles burned through the fabric.

The shelf collapsed behind them.

Ash thundered into the tunnel. The assassins vanished beneath a roar of stone and flame.

Julian and Ignia tumbled down the far ravine. He landed on his back. She landed across him, one hand braced beside his head, her hair spilling over his face like dark fire.

For a second, neither moved.

Her breath brushed his mouth.

“Are you alive?” she asked.

“Regrettably.”

That almost-smile returned, smaller this time. It made something in his chest shift in a way the falling shelf had not.

Then Ignia pushed away.

A shout echoed from above.

The assassins had survived.

Julian sat up, coughing ash. His satchel felt lighter.

He looked down.

The clasp had torn open during the fall. His cloth-wrapped fire-gem was gone.

Above them, one assassin stood on the broken shelf, holding the gem aloft. Its red light painted his gloved fingers.

Julian’s stomach dropped.

That stone was food, shelter, another month of not dying alone.

Ignia rose beside him, flames licking weakly over her wounded arm.

“They have something you need,” she said.

“They have everything I had.”

Her gaze moved from the gem to the ravine ahead - a twisting descent toward the volcanic roads, toward the capital and whatever waited beneath the Fire King’s banners.

“Then guide me,” she said. “I will see that you are paid.”

Julian laughed once, without humor. “You’re a princess hunted by assassins. Your promises are worth less than ash.”

Her knife appeared again, bright against the dark.

“Guide me,” Ignia repeated, “or I leave you here with the men who took it.”

The fire in her voice was steadier now.

Julian looked at the gem above them. Then at the princess standing close enough to burn him.

He turned toward the ravine.

“Keep up,” he said.

Behind them, the assassins began climbing down.

End of chapter one. 5 more chapters in the full book.