Blaze waited silently, hidden in the trees outside Foruk’s Falls with her squad, her eyes focused on the city’s gate. Her chest burned with fire.
Princess Sapphire had taken one squad with her toward the crack at the base of the mountain. Bort and Tort had led the other into the siege tunnel.
A familiar raven fluttered down from the sky and landed on Blaze’s shoulder. “Hello Rav,” she said. She ruffled his head feathers. He would know where they were keeping Dreck. “We’ll help him, Rav. I promise,” she said. She found that she meant it.
Get into the city. Find Dreck. Stop the dark jotnar. Defeat Cernonos.
The dwarves’ and Crook-Eye Orcs’ slow, methodical breathing sent puffs of steam into the frigid air.
A hail of arrows shot skyward from inside the city. A moment later, and a second hail flew from the opposite direction near the place where the mountain met the city wall. The dwarf archers had begun the attack. The city erupted in the shouts and clangs of battle.
“Now!” cried Blaze. She charged forward, her hands glowing fire, the squad of dwarves and Crook-Eye Orcs trailing behind her. This time, just like back in the tunnel, the scene did not turn red. It was white. As she ran, she looked down at her burning hands. The red flame was tipped in a silver-white glow.
She shot out two columns of flame, blasting the Rimefrost Orc guards that stood atop the tiny wooden gate and knocking them back off the wall.
She shot a second concussive fireball straight at the wooden gate. It was only wide enough for a single dwarf to pass through at a time, but the wood was thick and studded with metal spikes.
It broke easily anyway, splintering into tiny shards as soon as her fireball hit it.
Blaze shot through the narrow opening. “Fire Wave!” she said, blasting out a wave of protective red and silver fire as soon as she cleared the gate.
The pressure from the Fire Wave knocked over several Rimefrost Orcs who were advancing on the gate.
On the other side of the wall was the city park and behind that, the magnificent, enormous, blue icicle that was the frozen waterfall. At its base was a large open area. That was where the jotnar would be.
And the danger.
Several orc encampments with bonfires littered the city park. There must have been at least a hundred Rimefrost Orcs just in the park, with gnolls and kobolds mixed in between.
Rav flew ahead, dodging and weaving until he landed on the barred windowsill of a distant tower on the other side of the river. He turned and cawed at Blaze.
Dreck. That’s where they’re holding Dreck.
Blaze ran across the square, blasting Rimefrost Orcs as she went. Behind her, the sounds of battle raged as sword clanged against ax, and dwarves, orcs, gnolls, and kobolds clashed.
She blasted one kobold, then a gnoll, then another. Each successive fireball was more silvery-white than the last as it shot from her palms, until she rolled, unleashing a Fire Wave of pure white flame at a line of attacking Rimefrost Orcs.
Blaze shed her white fur coat—it was too easy to spot against the backdrop of painted stone houses behind her. Plus, she needed to be free, to move without restriction. She was not cold, not now.
She surged forward, all the while twisting and turning, fireballs blasting into Rimefrost Orcs, knocking them out of the battle. She was a whirlwind of motion and flame, the strange, new white fire filling her core and clearing her vision.
Blaze would never have been able to concentrate on so many enemies at once with red fire. Too much of that came from raw anger. But the white fire cleared her head and opened her senses until she was able to feel the whole scene before her and around her: the position of each orc, the swing of each ax, the rhythm of the battle.
She knocked back wave after wave of advancing Rimefrost Orcs, dispatching them with grace and precision.
Dreck. Must get Dreck.
She charged the tower.
Forty paces away. Then Thirty. Then twenty.
The ground shook beneath her. Boom. Boom. Two dull impacts, one tremor after another, then a third. Footsteps.
A shadow passed over the city park and stretched to the frozen river beneath the falls. For a moment, the battle seemed to stop.
Blaze looked up mid-stride. The ice-blue form of the dark jotnar towered above her, skin laced with red runes, Iron Collar clamped about its neck, eyes glowing ember.
She changed direction, pivoting off her right foot and darting hard left. She needed to be ready.
Her army behind her had broken into several squads, each made up of a shield-bearing dwarf, a few dwarf spearmen, and some orcs with battle axes. The other squads with the archers would be out in front, somewhere to her right and left, hidden from view.
“Fire Cloud!” she said, casting three fireballs up at the jotnar’s head, each one more for show than actual damage. She just needed to distract it. She needed to buy them a little time.
“Form up!” cried the nearest shield-bearing dwarf.
The dark jotnar wound its arm back like it was about to throw, then hurled a blast of freezing ice particles at Blaze. She dodged, and the dark jotnar hurled another ice blast, this time aimed at the squad right behind her. Blaze felt the sting of stray ice crystals on her face and watched as the blast froze a swath of the city solid. Good thing she wasn’t in the center of the concentrated blast. That one would have been deadly.
But their little army had been expecting exactly that. As soon as the dark jotnar had hurled its first blast of ice, the squads each formed into a tight single file line with the shield-bearing dwarf in front.
Blaze summoned the fire from the core of Crystalia, drawing it deep from the Goddess’s essence. She channeled her heat—without flame—into the first dwarf’s metal shield. It was harder at this distance, but she did it, forcing the metal to suck in the heat like a magnet.
The shield superheated, glowing orange as the pocket of air closest to it shimmered.
The next blast from the jotnar slammed into the dwarf’s shield. But the dwarf was ready with his heels dug in. The superheated metal shield melted the core of the ice column and the pocket of hot air split the blast to either side of the dwarf like a boulder in a river.
The edges of the ice blast—now warmed by the shield—frosted over the dwarves’ and orcs’ arms harmlessly, so that they looked like they’d been dusted with a light snow.
“Huzzah!” cried the dwarves. The Crook-Eye Orcs grunted in triumph. They had survived an attack.
Fortunately, Blaze had instructed each shield-bearing dwarf to wrap their gloved hands in thick leather hides.
And her plan was working. Blaze forced heat into the other squads’ shields. Better to be prepared.
Then she charged forward, dodging ice blast after ice blast from the jotnar.
The dwarves and Crook-Eye Orcs broke each one with their superheated shields, their squads taking cover safely behind.
By now, Bort’s and Tort’s squads had converged with their dwarf archers into the city square. Axes out, their soldiers joined the fray.
An orc raised a short sword, winding up to bring it down on Bort’s head. “Fire Shot!” Blaze shot it with a column of flame, knocking him sideways.
She looked up to see Dreck gripping the bars in the window of the tower across the river where Rav had landed. So he was there. She felt relief wash over her.
The jotnar roared, the red runes pulsing on its skin, and brought its foot smashing down mere inches from Blaze’s back.
She rolled and dodged. Can’t let myself get distracted, she thought, bringing her mind back from the breadth of the battle and focusing on the moment.
She thrust both fists upward, shooting a concentrated white fire blast into the jotnar’s chest.
The blast dug in, carving a bright red scar across its blue skin. It roared, releasing a soundwave that shook the city walls and trees.
The wave knocked Blaze to her knees, and she stumbled, then leapt to her feet, still trembling from the sound.
The dark jotnar stretched its arms out to either side and shot ice from its hands until two huge icicles formed on each arm. They were as enormous as jagged mountain peaks. The jotnar bent low and swung its left arm-spike outward like a claw, sweeping across the battlefield and cutting a swath through dwarf, kobold, gnoll, and Rimefrost and Crook-Eye Orc alike.
Soldiers on either side littered the battlefield, crying out in pain.
Horrified, Blaze dove between the jotnar’s feet and came out on the other side behind it. What had she done? Those were her dwarves. Those were her Crook-Eye Orcs. She hadn’t meant any harm to come to them.
But there was nothing she could do for them at that moment. She had to focus. Must save Dreck. That was something she could do.
She leapt out over the river, blasting the ground behind her with a column of flame. The fire boosted her up and over the frozen water, many times as high as she could normally jump. She landed on the opposite bank as the dark jotnar turned.
Good. She’d distracted it.
It locked its eyes on her and roared again. It swung its arm-spike down at her, narrowly missing her head and smashing into the tower where Dreck was prisoner.
“Blaze!” Dreck cried from the window as the tower’s foundation shattered. The tower wobbled dangerously.
Blaze wasted no time. She pressed both palms into the ground, then, with a blast of white fire, shot herself straight up into the air like a rock from a catapult. She felt her stomach lurch, then cut off the flame and slowed, hanging in midair for a split second in front of Dreck’s window.
She caught the sides of the sill with both hands and landed nimbly on the ledge. Then, igniting the side of her hand in glowing plasma, Blaze sliced through the iron bars.
Dreck smiled his horrible smile. “I knew you would come.”
Blaze smiled back, on the verge of tears. “I knew you would be here.”
“Blaze funny,” Dreck said.
“We have to get out of here,” Blaze said. She grabbed Dreck’s hand, but it didn’t budge. He held her firm in his grip.
What?
Was it a trick?
She looked into his eyes and saw her glowing white eyes, much like she had in Princess Sapphire’s. Never in history had an Ember Mage channeled white fire.
White was beyond the heat of the Crystalia’s core—it was the fire of the stars.
The light of the Goddess.
This was what Dreck had taught her to do. He could not be her enemy. He never was.
Blaze stopped struggling.
Dreck reached into his robe and drew out his hand. His fist opened slowly.
The setting sun sent dazzling sparkles off a glittering, heart-shaped object.
“The locket!” cried Blaze. She never thought she would see King Jasper’s gift again.
Dreck held it out and lifted it over Blaze’s neck.
“But how—when?” Blaze asked. Dreck had left her at the hot springs. He had left her alone and then come back. It made sense. “You got my locket back from the goblins, didn’t you?”
Dreck nodded.
“Blaze treat Dreck like enemy. Dreck do like princess,” Dreck said. “Treat Blaze like friend.”
“And we are,” Blaze said. She confessed it. She would do anything for Dreck. She grasped both of his shoulders.
Unbidden, the locket opened just a crack. It shone with a dazzling white light, begging Blaze to open it.
Wait, she thought. Not yet.
The tower wobbled dangerously once more. Time to act. With a surge of strength powered by the fire within, she pulled Dreck from the window and leapt downward. She blasted a column of white flame from one palm and slowed their descent before she hit the ground. Dreck tumbled away into the snow and Blaze skidded nimbly, still on her feet.
The tower collapsed, smashing into the ground in a billow of dust and rubble behind them.
“Come on, Dreck. We’re going to free the jotnar,” said Blaze. Dreck nodded, leaping to his feet.
The sounds of battle across the river drew Blaze’s attention back to the fray. Where was Princess Sapphire? Of course. She would strike at the crux. She would go after Cernonos.
Blaze scanned the battlefield. Now that the tower was gone Blaze could see them clearly at the foot of the enormous frozen falls. There she was: Princess Sapphire locked in combat with Cernonos.
The princess’s sword slashed like a moving lightning bolt, driving Cernonos backward, giving him no chance to conjure fire or snare her in his vine-like fingers.
The jotnar turned its head, drawn by Blaze’s gaze toward the master who had given it the collar. It raised its arm.
“Princess Sapphire, look out!” Blaze cried.
The dark jotnar hurled its right arm-spike free from its hand, straight at the princess like an enormous javelin.
Princess Sapphire leapt forward with impossible speed, her blue-tinged armor blurring as she rolled away.
The giant icicle spear buried itself deep in the base of frozen Foruk’s Falls, cracking the ice.
Princess Sapphire flipped to her feet, only to dodge a swipe from Cernonos’s horns. The jotnar hurled its remaining arm-spike at her, forcing her to dodge yet again.
The edge of the icicle scraped the back of her armor, hurling her forward and behind a wall of ice where she was cut off from Blaze’s view. The princess was tiring. She couldn’t face both enemies alone. Blaze had to do something fast.
“Dreck, go!” Blaze called. Motioning up toward the dark jotnar.
They had to get to the Iron Collar.
“Dreck! Go now,” cried Blaze. The jotnar lifted its foot to turn and Dreck raced forward.
But the jotnar was quicker than it looked. It shot a blast of ice toward Dreck, freezing him in place where he stood.
A spear whipped past Blaze, hissing as it passed her ear. She turned to see a line of gnolls advancing on her, with two hulking Rimefrost Orcs not far behind them. They drew back their spears. They had caught up to her.
Stupid, Blaze. That lapse of concentration had almost cost her. She’d have to pay better attention to the entire battlefield again. For the first time since breaking through the gate, the thrill of battle broke, and fear took hold of Blaze’s heart. She couldn’t fight them all. There were just too many. Cernonos. The dark jotnar. An army of enemies. She couldn’t save the princess.
The jotnar turned and trudged toward Dreck’s frozen body. One step would be enough to smash him to bits.
Then she would be alone. She could not succeed alone. Then she reached into the space between all of them: Dreck, the dwarves, the Crook-Eye Orcs. It was filled with the essence of the Goddess. The light of the stars.
The secret magic.
Loyalty. Sacrifice. Hope. Love.
A burst of flame filled her. The locket sprang open and a flash of white fire wrapped Blaze in a tornado of light and heat. The metal locket unfolded, unlocking and telescoping out across her chest like an impossible puzzle, until it was twice, then three, then ten times its mass. It covered her chest in a series of interlocking red and silvery-white plates, like the scales of a dragon, then grew out across her arms and legs, until finally, gauntlets covered both hands. A helmet with flame-wings flipped over her head and locked itself into place, a visor clamping down to protect her eyes.
Blaze looked down in awe at the metal alloy covering her body. It shimmered red and silvery-white and glowed with power and strength. This felt good.
She was the White Ember Mage.
She turned as a hail of spears, hatchets, and daggers from the gnolls at her back flew straight at her. There were too many to dodge. They were going to strike her heart.
But before they could reach her, a cloud of glowing white fire surrounding her armor incinerated the weapons. They fell to the ground as white ash.
This felt really good.
Blaze pivoted, then raced forward toward Dreck as the entire enemy army turned their firepower on her—the armored White Ember Mage.
Another hail of spears and daggers flew at her. Her armor pulsed unbidden, releasing a wave of white fire and melting the weapons in midair. She spun, even as she ran toward Dreck, her momentum carrying her forward, while she threw her arms back. The scaled plates on her forearms snapped open, and jets of silver-white flame shot from beneath them, knocking the entire wave of enemy orcs and gnolls off their feet.
By all of Crystalia, how had she not used this armor before? This was very, very cool.
But the dark jotnar had reached its quarry. It lifted its foot over Dreck and brought it smashing down.
“NO!” Blaze shouted. It came out as more of a command than a cry of desperation, and she surged forward, her armor carrying her at the speed of flame.
In a blur, she reached Dreck, raised both gauntlets high and caught the foot of the jotnar at the arch.
Impossible, yet there she was, holding up the foot of the massive dark jotnar, one thousand times her weight. It pressed her into the ground, the mass of a mountain bearing down on her. She struggled, each limb and joint straining against the incredible force. The ball of the foot pressed into Dreck’s frozen skull. If it went much further, it would crush him.
No. Dreck is my friend.
Blaze summoned all her strength and the armor began to pulse silver-white. Waves of red flashed out across its surface.
She heaved the foot backward and the jotnar stumbled.
She had a mere moment to act. Blaze leapt, the strength of her fire-armor carrying her high into the air. She landed on the jotnar’s chest with both feet, smashing it backward. It fell, and as it fell, it shot ribbons of ice like roots into the ground for support.
They weren’t enough. Blaze’s impact broke the ice supports, and the dark jotnar crashed against the riverbank, shattering the river ice.
In two bounding steps, she reached the Iron Collar and took hold of it with both hands. The red rune lines writhed and pulsed like angry worms. The collar had mocked her fire. Now she would give it everything she had.
She flooded the metal with heat. Slowly, the cold iron took on a white glow, then yellow, then orange.
The dark jotnar roared, convulsing in pain. It twisted, nearly throwing Blaze from its chest. She held on as tightly as she could, whipping around violently as the jotnar writhed.
The red runes began to flash more quickly now. The more heat Blaze poured in, the faster they pulsed.
The Iron Collar was melting!
Blaze screamed as she tried to pull the collar apart. The metal stretched like molten glass.
White fire poured out of her gauntlets, encasing the iron in a glowing white field of flame.
With a crack, Blaze snapped the Iron Collar in two. The glowing red runes winked out. She flung the two softened half-circles of metal away from the jotnar’s neck, into the freezing river.
Then she flipped backward off the jotnar’s chest and landed on her feet on the riverbank. The jotnar closed its eyes and fell back onto the ground, as if it were asleep. It struck with such force, she had to brace herself where she stood.
She had done it. The jotnar was free.
The lump of ice surrounding Dreck cracked and broke. Blaze had not realized how close she’d landed to him. The heat from her armor was melting the ice. “Dreck?” she said, desperation in her voice.
She turned to free him, but his arm smashed through the ice before she could take a step. In another instant, he’d broken his torso and arms free.
Sopping wet and shivering, Dreck spread his arms. “Hug?” he said.
Blaze’s armor flared. “Certainly. But not yet,” said Blaze. She couldn’t risk burning him. She’d save a big hug for him after this was all through.
Blaze looked toward the falls, where Princess Sapphire now faced Cernonos alone.
His arms had become mighty black swords. They swept through the ice, slashing with such force at Princess Sapphire that they cut huge chunks of the falls away.
Princess Sapphire dodged and parried, her sword shining blue as she swung it in ever tightening arcs.
Blaze rushed forward with an armor-powered sprint. She can’t outfight him, Blaze realized. She readied a final blast.
Cernonos swung down with both black sword-arms.
For a moment Princess Sapphire flickered, and Blaze thought she saw several different versions of the princess reflect across facets of the frozen falls. In an instant the reflection was gone, and Princess Sapphire stood, cornered in a semicircle of a dozen great icicles.
Cernonos struck, stabbing his black sword-arms into the place where Princess Sapphire stood.
“Princess Sapphire!” Blaze cried. Her heart filled with dread. Had she really just seen that? Had the princess really just—Blaze couldn’t finish the thought.
Her armor surged forward, closing the last few yards to the falls.
She let out an enormous white blast of heat, a column of flame larger in diameter than she was tall, like an enormous tunnel of fire. It struck the base of the frozen falls, cutting right through the ice, emptying out all the flame and heat ever stored inside her. Blazed forced herself into the flame, as if she was the fire and the fire was her.
The ice hissed, releasing a billowing cloud of steam so thick, Cernonos disappeared from view.
The falls trembled, then shook as its foundation cracked and gave way. Then, slowly, as if in painful slow motion, the huge frozen column of ice fell, crashing down on the place where Cernonos stood.
The impact blew the steam away in a gust of pressurized air. Sheets of river ice surged outward in waves.
The demon Cernonos was buried in a tomb of ice.
And on one of the flat chunks of ice, riding it in a poised crouch as it surged forward, was Princess Sapphire, her armor tinged in blue, and her blue hair flowing out behind her.
She skidded to a stop only two steps away from Blaze and dismounted. “Thank you very much for your flame, dear White Ember Mage,” she said, bowing to Blaze. “It could not have come at a better time.” Then Princess Sapphire pinched her own chin, as if a thought had struck her. “Unless of course, you’d come several minutes earlier.”
Blaze smirked, then chuckled. “You’re quite welcome then, Princess.” Then she remembered what she saw. “But Cernonos struck you with his blades. How are you here?”
“When there’s a fight you can’t win, you change the fight,” said Princess Sapphire. She held an empty, round potion bottle in one hand. “I was all out of concealment potion of course, but not out of reflecting potion.” She tossed the glass bottle over her shoulder. It shattered when it hit the ground. “That wasn’t me. It was just a reflection of me,” she said.
So that’s what Blaze had seen flicker in the ice. Princess Sapphire never ceased to amaze.
The princess looked down at Blaze’s armor. “New suit? I like it.”
Blaze glanced down. The shimmer of flame across the metal scales had begun to fade, probably drained by her last great burst of fire.
Still, her suit was impressive. Blaze pressed the metal locket on her chest and the armor began to click and fold into itself, like a hundred dominos, until the entire suit had retracted into a single heart-shaped locket again.
“Keep that,” said Princess Sapphire, pointing to the locket. “It might come in handy someday.”
She didn’t have to tell Blaze twice.
The fallen ice which had once been Foruk’s Falls flashed red, then gave way to blackness.
The demon Cernonos was gone.
In the city park, the Rimefrost Orcs, gnolls, and kobolds were beating a hasty retreat as the dwarves and Crook-Eye Orcs chased the last of them out of the city.
Behind Blaze, the jotnar, red lines now gone from its skin, sighed softly in its sleep.
Dreck wrapped his arms around Blaze from behind in a giant big-brother bear hug. “Hug now!” he said. Blaze didn’t object. She wriggled around, then hugged him right back. It felt good.
“We won,” said Princess Sapphire. She flashed a grin.
“I couldn’t have done it alone,” Blaze said.
“Same goes for me,” said the princess, with a smile. “But don’t you dare tell my father I said that.”
Dreck and Blaze laughed. Suddenly, Blaze felt the tension of battle break. They had won. They had defeated Cernonos. And here they were. Alive.
“Of course, there will be the Freyr to deal with,” said Princess Sapphire.
Blaze looked at her. She wasn’t sure what she meant by that.
“You’ve destroyed his waterfall,” said Princess Sapphire. “They’ll have to rename the town.”
“To Foruk Fell?” asked Dreck.
Blaze groaned. Dreck gave a roar of a laugh, and they turned toward the city gates. It was time to recall the exiles of Foruk’s Falls.
It was time to celebrate.