She felt him tense at her back as he parted thebands with ease, as if theywantedto comply with his magic. She didn’t understand why, but she couldn’t dwell on it. Not as tendrils of her own power were finally able to reach inside.
Her eyes shot open as she grabbed it—that cool, slick, thread of magic beating within the heart of the obsidian at the bottom of the fiery lake.
It was slow at first. Elyria focused on pulling—not too fast, not too hard—until she felt the earth shift. With a grunt of effort, she dislodged a long slab and drew it to the surface, the black stone shining like rippling glass as it broke through the flames.
“Ye’re doing it.” Approval radiated from Thraigg’s voice.
Elyria’s hands began to shake as she locked the first slab into place.
“Just four more, I think,” said Nox, their keen crimson eyes pinned to the first part of the makeshift bridge Elyria had just created.
“Oh, is that all?” Elyria gritted out.
Sweat dripped from her temple as she pulled up another slab. Then another. And another.
Cedric’s hand tightened around her waist, and she could’ve sworn she felt a boost of strength flow directly into her.
Which didn’t make any sense. Because as far as she knew, that was not how human magic worked.
Later.
With Thraigg guiding her and Cedric maintaining an opening in the obsidian’s shield, she drew a final slab up, overlapping its edge with the previous one until a shiny floating pathway cut across the fire.
“Well done, Ellie,” Kit said, voice soft, as Elyria placed the final piece.
Through sheer mental grit, Elyria resisted collapsing into Cedric’s arms. Wiping a hand across her exhausted, sweat-laden brow, she straightened and pulled herself out of his embrace. She then ignored the distinctly bereft feeling that came after as she faced Kit. “Your turn.”
Kit and Cyren exchanged a glance, the smallest of smiles playing on their lips.
“Thought you’d never ask,” Cyren said, his signature wink making an appearance before his gaze fell back on Gael and his expression grew serious again. With the slightest flicker of hesitation, the pair moved forward, wings folded tight, hands raised.
“Oof,” Kit said, stepping onto the bridge with a wince. Elyriawas sure the temperature must have jumped ten degrees in those few paces alone.
“On three?” Cyren asked.
Kit rolled her eyes, already swirling droplets of water in the air. “Just do it, Cy.”
Long strands of hair pulled free from the bun on his head as Cyren began to cast in parallel with her. A gust blew over Elyria’s shoulders, whipping a few pieces of her own hair around her face. While she wished the air were cooler, even just feeling it moving across her skin was a balm in this oven.
Cyren’s wind swept through the tiny droplets of moisture Kit hung in the air, stirring them into a cooling haze that spread over the bridge—a misty tunnel.
“Time to go, everyone,” Kit said, her voice strained but measured as she and Cyren started to move, their steps matching one another’s as they strode forward.
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Thraigg said, darting to his feet in a surprisingly nimble motion and striding onto the bridge.
“Gael?” Zephyr’s small voice asked. Unshockingly, the flamecaller didn’t respond, only continued staring blankly into the flames. Zephyr looked past Gael to where Nox stood and exchanged a look with the nocterrian. Each of them took one of Gael’s arms and placed it in their own, guiding her forward.
“Ready?” Cedric asked, his hand outstretched. He stood on the edge of the bridge, looking back at her with an expectant expression on his chiseled face. Elyria hadn’t noticed when he’d stepped around her, but she was now the only one remaining on the shore.
She bypassed his proffered hand, striding past him with one brow raised. “Of course. I was born ready,” she quipped, then clamped her lips together when she heard him chuckle in response.
The heat was still stifling, each step like walking through a sauna, but it was bearable. Elyria glanced at her feet, surprised at how steady the bridge was below them. She’d thought it would feel more precarious, that the bridge would be more akin to a raft floating on this sea of molten fire. But it was as if the surface lay right below the flames, like they trod a path on solid ground. Flames lapped at both edges of theobsidian slab, but that’s all they did, never creeping closer.
“Not bad,” she muttered to herself, a flicker of pride surging in her chest even as a wave of heat broke through Kit and Cyren’s vaporous tunnel.
“Not bad at all.”
She glanced up and to the right, where Cedric was looking at her with a confounding expression she didn’t know how to categorize. It wasn’t discomfort or pain, despite the still-smoldering air. In fact, the knight seemed mostly unaffected by the surging heat. If she didn’t know better, she might think that the blush of pink creeping into his cheeks had nothing to do with their surroundings at all.
