Chapter 264: The Hearths

[REVIVALS REMAINING TODAY: 1]

Ren checked the panel at the waterline, then stepped through the arch.

Ward followed with Keep riding between his shoulders, and Snap came sideways behind them. Heat caught Ren across the face as his boots met the black shelf. Below it, Spear stood in the shallows with its spear point resting in the water.

Hearth had stayed home this time. Ren checked that Keep was settled on Ward before turning toward the shallows; if they had to withdraw again, the link would go with Ward. He had already given the orders on the other side.

The Tidefire watched him climb down. When he reached the bottom, it came out of the sea and stopped close enough that Ren almost stepped back.

Two water-fingers pressed against his shirt, over the place where the Dawnfire had burned through his chest.

Spear held them there, then looked up at his face.

Ren stood still. The fingers were warm through the cloth. He let Spear check him for as long as it needed, until it lowered its hand and glanced toward the others waiting below the shelf.

He nodded toward the sea. Spear went under, and the raft rose beneath his boots.

— • —

On the first crossing, Ren had watched the fires. This time he watched the water beneath them too.

Wind flattened the floating flames in long stretches across the sea. They rose again behind it, some slowly, some whipping upright before the next gust reached them. Heat stayed against his face, but when he crouched and dipped his fingers beside the raft, the water was cold.

He left his hand there for a moment, watching a fire bend almost flat a short distance away. Then spray struck his sleeve and he drew it back.

The Tide Hearth appeared around the island, its great blue flame bending above the platforms. Spear brought them toward the damaged outer ring, where workers were already replacing the stone.

Two platforms were scorched across their tops. The bridge between them had lost its middle, leaving a strip of open water between the broken ends. Tidefire worked on both sides while Glassfire smiths split blocks from the platform’s edge. Bright mineral veins ran through the fresh faces of the stone.

A cloudy streak spread beneath the work, grey against the black sea. Ren followed it with his eyes until it thinned among the ripples. More washed out whenever a smith lowered a newly cut block into the water.

Spear stopped beside the second platform and waited for him to climb up.

The injured guard sat near a pile of small stones, sorting them with one hand. Its water-body held its shape, and Balm was still spread across its chest. The Heartflame remained small.

Ren paused beside it. The guard looked up with a stone in its hand, watched him briefly, then placed it on the smaller of two piles and reached for another.

He could see the arm hold steady as it lifted. That had been beyond it when he’d first put Balm on the wound.

Farther along, a Tidefire kept stacking blocks as Ren passed. Another stopped with a spear in its hand, following him with its eyes until the worker beside it reached for a stone. It turned back to help, and Ren followed Spear across the platform.

He stopped at the next bridge.

A ring of golden-white light lay across the stone ahead. His hand moved toward his forearm before he saw the two Glassfire kneeling inside it.

One lifted a block through the light. Every crack in its cut face showed clearly, even through the smoke drifting over the work. The smith turned it, lowered it against the broken bridge-footing, then lifted it again to adjust the angle.

The ring stayed steady throughout.

Its holder stood at the platform’s edge, tall and narrow, with a small golden-white fire floating on the water behind it.

[HEARTFLAME: DAWNFIRE.]

[HEARTFLAME GRADE: FLAME.]

A grade below the one on the rock.

Ren lowered his hand. The smith passed another block through the ring, and the Dawnfire shifted the light toward the joint without looking away from the work.

Spear was waiting on the bridge. Ren caught up with it.

— • —

The elder stood at the Hearth’s edge. Some grit still drifted through its water, but it had cleared enough for Ren to see how little remained compared with the raid.

It watched him approach beside Spear and stayed where it was.

[CONCEPT: WORLD.]

[CONCEPT: RETURN.]

Ren glanced down at his chest, where Spear had touched him. The elder followed the movement.

Perhaps being bound to a world explained his return to them. Ren glanced at Spear, but it was watching the elder now. Neither seemed ready to move away from him, and he let the question rest.

He nodded. The elder spoke to Spear, and Spear touched Ren’s sleeve before pointing along the platforms.

There was something else it wanted him to see.

The smaller Hearth lay nearby, beyond the Tide Hearth’s outer work. Its platforms formed a separate ring, joined by low bridges that were still whole. Tidefire moved between them, and white-blue Steamfire hauled stone out of the water.

Ren stepped onto a bridge and looked toward the middle.

Nothing burned there.

Black water moved within the ring, rippling against the platform supports. He checked the nearer edges for Cinders, then the bridges and the water around the workers. There were no small flames anywhere he could see.

[HEARTHFIRE: NONE.]

[STATUS: FAILED.]

A Steamfire set down its block near him, leaving room for someone to pass. Ren moved aside and watched it return to the water for another. The stonework here was in better condition than the Tide Hearth’s, but every worker he saw was an adult.

He looked back at Spear and pointed into the empty middle, then held his hands apart, about the size of a Cinder.

Spear watched his hands. It turned toward the Tide Hearth and beckoned him back.

— • —

The elder listened while Spear spoke, then gestured toward the Cinders gathered near the great blue fire.

[CONCEPT: HEARTH. YOUNG. BORN.]

It pointed back along the route they had taken.

[CONCEPT: HEARTH. GONE.]

[CONCEPT: YOUNG. BORN. NONE.]

Ren looked at the Cinders. One had drifted away from the others, and an adult was guiding it back toward the fire.

Without a Hearth, there would be no more of them. He still didn’t know what had happened to the smaller settlement’s young, but he understood why Spear had taken him there. The adults could keep the bridges sound and replace the stone. That wasn’t enough to bring back the fire.

The elder drew his attention with a movement of its hand. It looked toward his chest again and began to speak more slowly, pausing while the translated fragments appeared.

[CONCEPT: WORLD. DYING.]

Ren waited. The elder continued, its voice low beneath the sound of the Hearth.

[CONCEPT: SOMETHING. CAME.]

[CONCEPT: TOOK. THE LIVING.]

Spear pointed back toward the failed Hearth. Ren followed the gesture, then looked at the elder as another panel appeared.

[CONCEPT: WORLD. GONE.]

The elder extended its hand toward him.

[CONCEPT: YOU. WORLD.]

Ren read the fragments again. Something had come to a dying world and taken its people. He couldn’t tell whether they had been rescued or carried off, or what had happened when the world disappeared. The elder kept watching him as though it expected him to recognize the account.

He put a hand against his chest and pointed toward the route back to the arch.

"My world can take in pieces of dead worlds," he said.

The elder followed his gesture. Ren waited, but there was no translated reply, and its attention returned to his hand when he lowered it.

Saying it aloud hadn’t got him far. He needed more than pointing if he was going to ask anything useful.

"Can you translate a word for me? Give it something it can understand?"

[OUTWARD TRANSLATION: NOT AVAILABLE.]

Ren rubbed his fingers against his palm and looked around the Hearth. A Cinder bobbed near the edge, close to the adult that had brought it back.

He pointed at the Cinder, then at Spear, then at the elder.

The elder watched the sequence and answered.

[CONCEPT: GROWTH.]

Ren shook his head. He repeated the gestures, waiting between each one, and started again when the elder looked toward the Cinder. This time he held his hand there before moving it to Spear.

The elder spoke while his finger was still raised.

[CONCEPT: TIME.]

"Yes."

He nodded and repeated the gesture that had brought the word. The elder looked at Spear, which turned toward the open sea.

Ren waited while they exchanged a few sounds. He wanted a Heartflame that carried Time, but he had no idea how to add that part without sending them back to Growth. Before he could try, the elder addressed him again.

[CONCEPT: TIME. FAST. CARRIES.]

Spear pointed out past the island.

[CONCEPT: TIME. SLOW. CROSSING.]

Its hand stayed toward the same stretch of water.

Ren glanced between the elder and Spear, trying to keep the fragments straight. Something carried things quickly; there was a crossing, and someone or something that watched. They all concerned Time, but none of those descriptions told him what he would find when he got there.

[CONCEPT: TIME. CONTINUES. WATCHES.]

Ren looked along the direction it was showing him. The fires and black water gave him nothing to pick out, but Spear had a route in mind. He pointed that way himself and looked back for confirmation.

Spear drew a finger across his outstretched hand.

[CONCEPT: EATERS. BETWEEN.]

Ren lowered his arm. He thought of the Devourfire pulling at the guard’s Heartflame, but the translation gave him nothing more specific.

Whatever the elder was directing him toward, something stood in the way.

— • —

Three Glassfire arrived over the far bridge before he could get any further.

The one between the others had a crack running through its armor from shoulder to hip. Light showed along the broken edges, and it leaned on its companions as they helped it over the last uneven stretch of stone.

Spear moved aside to let them reach the elder. Ren stepped back with it.

The injured visitor began speaking before its companions had finished lowering it onto the platform. It pointed out past the island, and one of the others added something, repeating the gesture while the elder listened.

Ren looked toward the repairs. A Glassfire smith had put down its block and was coming across the bridge toward them.

The visitors kept talking. Twice, the injured one tried to raise its arm and let it fall. Its companion pointed for it the second time, toward the water Spear had shown Ren.

Then Spear turned to him.

[INTENT: HELP.]

[CONCEPT: ROAD. CLOSED.]

Spear pointed along the same route again.