a stone of ruin, from burn to chill

When Asterion sees the smoke building on the horizon like a wall of ash built by the gods, the first thing he does - the only thing he can do - is freeze. The bay’s body falls to stillness, his eyes wide round pools where only memory ripples, back and back, as even the wind holds its breath. But within his chest his heart is hammering, and his lungs are tight, and his mind is racing like the great black swarm of birds that flees the island.

He thinks of the pass through the Arma Mountains, burning; of standing in the cool surf of the coast and watching the distant firelight lick red over Aislinn’s shoulder as she explained to him why the destruction was justified, why it must be. He thinks of the fire in the desert in Ravos, the one his golden twin had run for, each of her bones begging to die, each of his begging to save her. His magic had been pitiful, then - it took everything he had to wring out a thin fall of rain, enough only to keep them alive long enough to escape.

But Asterion is not weak now.

The king is afraid. Even the bonfires of Denocte and the cheerful, snapping fires of Terrastella have not smothered his instinctual dread of fire, but bigger than that, below that, is the gnawing question: what do the gods have for them next? What punishment is coming, how many deaths does it mean? How hard will they be asked to fight only to fail again?

The tower of ash continues to climb, up and up until it hits some plateau in the atmosphere and billows out, a gnawing edge of darkness against the bright blue of the sky, and Asterion begins to run.

It doesn’t take him long to reach the coast; the bay king is never too far from the shoreline and the sea. He scrambles down the rocky pathways, a sheen of sweat like seafoam on his withers and neck, his gaze returning again and again to that building black cloud as if compelled. All the while his mind cries Cirrus, Cirrus, Cirrus, until she answers that she is safe, that she is coming.

Now that there is only the flat line of horizon between the island and the shore he stands on he can see flame now, too, or something red and molten and terrible. Here on the mainland there are birds crying out and the sound of the waves, ever constant, running up against the beach, but from that distant point across the darkening water there is only an awful silence. Those bright red rivers of color look as though the earth has split wide and is pouring out its hearts-blood, and Asterion wonders what is dying below their touch.

He sucks in a breath of air that is still clean, still wrung with salt and brine. The wind is not yet carrying that destruction to them, and if he could bring himself to pray he would ask it not to shift. But Asterion has long ago lost faith in the gods of Novus; he knows they have only themselves as saviors.

When he walks into the sea the magic is already stirring within him, parting the waves until he stands ten yards out and still dry. In his sandy wake the crabs and starfish crawl away, back into the cool water and their blissful ignorance. The king thinks of a sand dollar, tucked beneath the dark fall of his hair against the curve of his neck. He thinks of every friend and sister he has loved and all those who have been lost as the water before him begins to heave, and froth, and the magic within him begins to churn like a whirlpool. Though he doesn’t turn to look there is a new bank of clouds, now, building at his back, soft and dark and heavy with rain.

As the sky begins to darken and lightning flickers in that monstrous cloud of ash, Asterion stands ready to defend Novus with all the magic in his saltwater blood. But he knows he can only do battle with fire, and lava, and mix rain with ash. If it is magic that is coming for them - if it is another plague from the gods -

then there may be nothing any of them can do.

Asterion.