Scorio fed more Coal into the flames, watching the tongues of fire leap higher and higher. His reservoir had always been inordinately deep, but following the evolution of his Heart, it had become truly massive. Given his ability to renew it constantly, he’d never had the need to burn his way through his reserves, and even he felt surprised at how much Coal was available to him.
Nox, he thought, trying to fling his thoughts out into the world. Nox, can you sense me?
“How are you burning so much mana?” came the woman’s voice, now tinged with awe.
Scorio opened the floodgates and allowed all of his remaining Coal to fuel his fire. Black flames rose up in a conflagration, wicked hot and forming an inferno of darkness. He felt dusty and used by the crude quality, but again, in a way so familiar it felt wonderful.
“You’re just a Flame Vault?” The woman sounded incredulous. “You should have run dry by now. How by the ten hells…?”
The fire grew to a final pyre and then, when the last drop of Coal was gone, guttered out.
He had perhaps a third of his reservoir remaining in Copper, but that he would shepherd, and after all, Copper meant nothing to him.
His shoulder felt better even as his foolish hope collapsed in on itself and died.
“Incredible,” he thought the woman whispered, but perhaps it was his imagination.
Time passed. A cycle, perhaps two. There was no way to tell, but Scorio felt calmer now. He’d done all he could. He didn’t dwell on the past, on his mistakes, the injustices. His mind was clear.
Soon Praximar and Ydrielle would return, and then one way or another he’d exact his vengeance.
Scorio had fallen into a half-dozing trance when he felt his prism tremble. Immediately he scanned its corpus with his senses—was it coming apart? Had his burning Coal weakened…? No. Its integrity was perfect as before.
Then…?
Again the ground shivered. The sensation faded, came back, and grew stronger. Small shocks caused the prism to shudder. Scorio couldn’t even look around to see what was going on. Had Naomi escaped? Had Leonis and Lianshi decided to come rescue him…?
But the rumble was coming from below.
Could it be…?
Whatever was happening continued to grow in strength, until suddenly the floor of the cell broke apart. Large chunks of stone and paving blocks were knocked aside as a massive gray form shouldered its way into the cell, its body surrounded by a burning nimbus of Coal that turned the stone to slag.
Nox the Imperial Ghost Toad shook himself, sending the last chunks of rock flying, then turned about with shuffling, waddling adjustments to consider Scorio where he hung suspended in his prism.
“Favorite friend Scorio,” croaked the toad.
“Who’s that?” The hidden woman’s voice was sharp. “Who’s there?”
Nox quirked his horned head to one side, his broad mouth thinning as he shifted about on the loose rubble, but then he turned back to Scorio. “That not imperial jelly. This not a comfortable burrow. Nox help.”
Scorio wanted to sing, to laugh, to cry in overwhelming relief. Instead, he simply watched as Nox flung his great tongue forth so that the sticky bolus of flesh at the end splatted against the prism. Coal fire burned along the tongue’s length, corrosive and potent, and immediately the prism’s hermetic seal began to melt.
Nox had changed, Scorio realized: he was bigger and now sported large plates of what looked like obsidian along his back. No, not stone: petrified Coal mana. The peaks above his empty eyes rose more prominently, and he radiated a powerful presence that he’d not possessed before.
His friend had grown in power since he’d last seen him two years ago.
The seal around the prism broke. Nox then yanked his tongue and Scorio into his mouth, swallowing him whole. One moment Scorio was standing erect, frozen and staring at his friend, the next all was huge closing lips, muscular gray flesh, and then darkness once more.
He was in Nox’s mouth.
Coal mana congealed to an extreme pressed in all around the weakened prism which dissolved like salt in warm water.
A moment later Scorio was spat forth. He fell to the ground, freed of the prism and covered in thick, gluey ropes of spit that adhered him to the ground. Instinctively Scorio began drawing ambient mana into his Heart even as he rose to his feet, shoulders heaving, eyes wide.
“Nox, you beautiful beast, you can’t imagine how happy I am to see you.”
Nox shifted about, quirking his massive head from side to side. “We leave? This bad place.”
“Hello?” The woman’s voice was strained with barely controlled emotion. “Scorio? What’s going on? Hello?”
Scorio sharpened his dark vision and saw that the walls were decrepit and rough, the ancient blocks massive but their mortar having effectively turned to sand. “Who’s there?” A wild hope. “Druanna?”
“Yes, yes, it’s me—are you free? What’s going on?”
“One second.” Scorio backed away across the cell as best he could, took a deep breath, then flared his Heart as he charged and slammed his shoulder into the wall. Huge blocks shifted, dust sifted down from above, then Scorio stepped back and kicked in the center block that had nearly given way.
It tumbled in and started a landslide, blocks falling and rolling and cracking apart. Scorio stepped back, momentarily nervous that the whole ceiling would come down, but then the elements stabilized and he could see through the pall of dust into the next room.
Druanna stood there in ragged robes, her form emaciated, a metal helm bolted about her head, a narrow slit cut open before her mouth. Scorio stepped through the ragged hole into her cell. “Want me to get that off you?”
“Oh yes,” she breathed.
“Hold still.” Scorio palmed the brutally thick helm with one hand and then pressed a glowing talon against the metal strap that wrapped under her jaw. The metal immediately began to glow and run. Carefully, eyes narrowed, Scorio allowed the searing heat of his talon to cut through, until at last he flicked his finger away and the strap was broken.
Druanna tore it away, bending the steel strap, and tore the helm off. She must have been wearing it for years: her skin was badly chafed, callused even across her cheeks, her eyes blind and staring, her hair matted and rotted about her scalp.
“Oh,” she gasped, running her hands over her face, then up to her hair, tears brimming in her eyes. “Oh.”
“You all right?” It was a stupid question, but Scorio didn’t know what else to say.
“Yes, by the ten hells, yes.” Druanna blinked away her tears and came into herself. Scorio saw her pull her identity back as if donning a long-discarded robe. She squared her shoulders, straightened her back, and raised her chin. Her strength of will and power shone through her frail form and she turned at last to consider him. “Who are you?”
“Scorio, Red Lister, Flame Vault. We met once out in the Farmlands. You were on patrol, my friends and I were being escorted by Evelyn from Manticore.”
“Manticore,” hissed Druanna.
“My thoughts exactly. Why aren’t you dead?”
“Praximar thinks I’ll swear fealty to him and his House if he keeps me down here long enough.” She laughed huskily. “He craves my power. Well. It’s time to show him just what I can do.”
The air around them was suffused with thin Coal, but Scorio could sense his own siphon suddenly dwarfed by Druanna’s own inhalation. It was as if a vortex had opened beside him, endlessly famished and demanding. Coal drained rapidly into Druanna’s Pyre Lady Heart and in moments the environs were barren of all mana.
“Favorite friend Scorio,” croaked Nox. “Footsteps.”
Scorio shared a meaningful glance with Druanna and together they stepped back into his cell.
Murmurs came through the steel door. Praximar and Ydrielle? The bar slid back, the door opened, and six guards were there, lanterns raised, blades in hand.