The heat hit him like walking into a wall he couldn't see.
Ten meters down the quarry slope and the air went from warm to something else. Thick. The kind of thick where breathing takes effort and every inhale tastes like you're chewing on something. Sulfur and hot rock and underneath that a sweetness that shouldn't be there, like burnt sugar, and Hart's body didn't know what to do with the combination so it just kept breathing and hoped for the best.
The orange cracks in the rock were wider down here. Brighter. He could feel heat coming up through his boots. Not unbearable. Close though. Like standing on pavement in summer except the summer was happening underground and the pavement was volcanic rock that glowed.
His back was a problem. The wound had opened again during the descent and the bandage was wet with more than just rain now. Blood and sweat and whatever the salve was doing under there. Every step jarred his shoulder blade and the jarring sent a line of hot pain from his spine to his ribs that he was getting really tired of.
The Grid pulsed.
Bond II: 0.0km.
Compatibility scan: Active.
Result: 89.1%.
Proceed when contact established.
89.1 percent. Lower than Sable's 97.3. Hart filed that away. Different Primals, different numbers. He didn't know what the numbers meant in practice but lower probably meant harder.
The laughter came again.
Closer now. Not echoing off the walls anymore. Coming from ahead and below, somewhere in the deepest part of the bowl where the cracks were widest and the glow was brightest. The sound moved like the fire did. In waves.
Sable spoke from his shadow. Quiet. Tense in a way he hadn't heard from her before.
"She's playing."
"Playing what."
"With you. She can see you. She's watching you stumble down her quarry with blood on your back and she thinks it's funny."
Great. The ancient fire fox thought his pain was entertainment. That tracked with what Sable had said about Ember testing him. This was the test. Or part of it. Walk into the fire and see if you're interesting enough to keep.
Hart kept going down.
The quarry floor was flat. Mostly. Black rock scored with glowing lines that pulsed when he stepped near them. Like the ground was reacting to his weight. Or to the Essence in his body. Or to Sable in his shadow. Something down here was alive and paying attention and Hart's boots were on top of it.
A crack in the rock ten meters ahead was wider than the others. Wide enough that light poured out of it like liquid, orange and gold and something hotter underneath, white at the edges. The air above it shimmered. Hart could feel the heat on his face from here. His eyes watered.
"There," Sable said.
The crack erupted.
Not an explosion. More like the earth exhaling. Fire came up through the crack in a column that was taller than Hart and wider than his arms could reach and the heat slammed into him and he stumbled back three steps and his healing wound screamed and the world went orange.
Inside the fire, something moved.
Nine tails. He counted them because his brain did that thing again where it provided unhelpful observations during moments of extreme danger. Nine tails made of flame, each one a different shade. Orange. Gold. White. Red so dark it was almost black. They fanned out behind a shape that was. A fox. A fox the size of a large dog, not horse-sized like Sable, but compact and low and made entirely of fire that burned without consuming anything.
Eyes like molten amber. Literally molten. The color shifted and swirled the way heated metal does when it's liquid.
The fox sat in the column of fire and looked at Hart and the nine tails waved behind it like flags in a wind that only existed for them.
Then it grinned. Foxes shouldn't be able to grin. This one could.
"Listen," the fox said. The voice was nothing like Sable's. Sable spoke like a whisper from the bottom of a well. This voice was loud and fast and had edges to it, like a person talking through a mouthful of sparks. "Listen, you're bleeding. Did you know you're bleeding? You walked into my quarry bleeding. That's either very brave or very stupid and I haven't decided which."
Hart stood there. The fire was three meters away and the heat was making his torn jacket smoke at the edges and his eyes were streaming and the fox that was apparently named Ember was talking at a speed that his brain couldn't quite match.
"What," Hart said. Because that had worked so well with Sable.
"I said you're bleeding and you're in my quarry and you're either brave or stupid. Keep up." The fox's head tilted. The amber eyes tracked him with an intensity that made Sable's mercury stare look relaxed. "You smell like shadow. Like her." A tail flicked toward Hart's feet. Toward Sable. "You bonded the quiet one first. Bold choice. Boring choice. But bold."
Sable's shadow went tight against Hart's boots. He could feel the temperature drop around his ankles even with the fire three meters away. Sable did not appreciate being called boring.
"I'm Hart," he said. Because somebody should probably introduce themselves.
"I know who you are." Ember stood up in the fire. All nine tails spread wide. The column of flame flared brighter and Hart had to look away for a second. "The Grid told me. Or something like the Grid. I've been hearing it for days. Counting down. Very annoying. Does it always count down?"
"Yeah," Hart said. "It does that."
"Rude."
The fox jumped.
Not at Hart. Past him. Over his head. The fire trailed behind her like a comet tail and Hart ducked on instinct and the heat singed the top of his hair and she landed on a rock shelf four meters behind him and sat there, nine tails swishing, watching him with those liquid eyes.
"You came all this way," Ember said. Her voice shifted. Still fast. But something under the speed that hadn't been there before. "With a torn back. Through the Greymarch. Six hours? More?"
"About four."
"Four hours through beast territory with an open wound." Her head tilted the other way. "Why."
Because the Grid said the window was non-renewable. Because Sable said he needed to be stronger. Because the things coming from the Greymarch were Silver and he had one bond and an involuntary skill and 48 hours.
He didn't say any of that.
"Because you were here," Hart said.
Ember stared at him. The grin was gone. The amber eyes were still and for the first time since he'd entered the quarry the fire wasn't moving. Everything just. Stopped. For one second.
Then the ground shook.
Not the fire. The actual ground. The quarry floor cracked and the cracks spread fast, faster than Hart could track, and the rock under Ember's shelf gave way.
She fell.
The shelf collapsed into a hole that opened up where solid rock had been two seconds ago. Volcanic vents. Old ones. The kind that look stable for a hundred years and then decide they're done being stable while you're standing on them.
Ember went down with the rock. Her fire flared bright and then got swallowed by the dark of the hole and Hart heard her make a sound that wasn't a laugh. A yelp. Short. Cut off.
Hart ran.
His back screamed. He ignored it. The hole was five meters across and he couldn't see the bottom. Just dark and dust and somewhere down there the fading orange glow of a fire fox that had been sitting on top of a geological mistake.
Sable erupted from his shadow. Beast form. The wolf landed beside him at the edge of the hole. Mercury eyes looking down.
"She's caught," Sable said. Flat but fast which was as close to worried as Sable got. "Rock collapsed around her. Her fire is keeping the debris from crushing her but the vents are unstable. If more collapses she can't hold."
"She's a Primal. She's ancient. She should be fine."
"She's been sealed for a thousand years. She's awake but she's not at full strength. None of us are." Sable looked at him. "The sealing took things from us. She's weaker than she should be."
Hart looked at the hole. At the darkness. His back was bleeding. His Essence Core was still stabilizing. Shadow Phase was involuntary and he couldn't control it and even if he could it didn't help with falling rocks.
"I'm going in," he said.
"That is inadvisable."
"Yeah."
He went in.
The hole wasn't vertical. It angled down at maybe forty-five degrees over collapsed rock and debris and the air got hotter the further he went. His hands found holds in the rubble. His palms were still scabbed from the Oak and the scabs cracked open on sharp rock and that was fine. Everything was fine. He was climbing down into a collapsing volcanic vent to rescue a fire fox he'd met ninety seconds ago and his hands were bleeding and his back was bleeding and he was fine.
The glow came back. Orange. Flickering. Weaker than it should have been.
Ember was fifteen meters down. Wedged between two slabs of collapsed stone. Her fire was burning but dim. Barely holding the rock above her from closing. Nine tails pressed flat against her body. Amber eyes wide.
She saw him.
"You're here," she said. The speed was gone from her voice. Quiet. Small. Fox-sized instead of Primal-sized. "Why are you here. I didn't ask you to. I was testing you. You were supposed to stand at the edge and prove something interesting about yourself from a safe distance. Not climb into the hole."
"Yeah well." Hart's hands were on the rock above her. The stone was hot. His fingers blistered on contact and he pulled them back and used his jacket sleeves as gloves and pushed. The rock shifted. Barely. "I'm not very good at tests."
"Obviously."
He pushed harder. Sable was above him. He could feel her, a cold weight against the heat, her shadow reaching down through the debris like dark water flowing into cracks.
"Sable," Hart said. "The slab on the left."
The shadow moved. He could feel it more than see it. Sable's presence pouring into the gaps between the rocks, pressurizing, lifting from underneath. The slab on the left shifted. Moved. Created a gap wide enough for a fox to squeeze through.
Ember looked at the gap. Looked at Hart. Her fire was almost out. Just embers now. The name was suddenly very literal.
"I don't need rescuing," she said.
"You kind of do."
"I really don't."
"The rock is going to close in about ten seconds and I'd like to not be under it when that happens so if you could maybe. Move."
Ember moved.
She squeezed through the gap and Hart grabbed her. Not a decision. His arms closed around a fox made of dying fire and the heat should have burned him but it didn't. Warm. Like holding something that had been sitting in the sun. Not burning. Just warm.
He climbed. One arm around a fox, one hand on the rock.
The tunnel behind them collapsed in a sound that was too big and too close. Dust and debris blasted past them. His shoulder blade tore open completely and he couldn't feel his left arm and Sable's shadow was pulling them upward through the last of the rubble and then they were out.
On the quarry floor. On their backs. Dust settling. The hole behind them was gone. Filled with rock that used to be a tunnel.
Hart lay on the ground holding a fox. His back was wrong. Not just bleeding. Something had torn. The bandage was gone, left behind in the debris, and the wound was open air and dust and blood.
Ember was in his arms. Still. Her fire was out. She was just a fox now. Copper-red fur, real fur, nine tails curled around her body, amber eyes looking up at him from a face that was too expressive for an animal.
"You're an idiot," she said.
"Probably."
"You could have died."
"Also probably."
She stared at him. Then the fox was gone.
The woman kneeling in the dust where the fox had been was. Hart's brain went offline again.
Copper-red hair that caught the quarry light like heated metal. Amber-gold eyes that still had that liquid quality, shifting in the light. Bronze skin.
And on top of her head, poking through the hair, two pointed ears covered in fine copper fur.
Fox ears.
They twitched when she looked at him. Then she slapped her hands over them and shoved them down flat against her hair and her face did something between embarrassment and fury.
"Don't look at those," she said.
"Okay."
"I mean it. They just. Do that. When I'm. Shut up."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face said something." Her hands were still clamped over the ears. Her voice was fast again. "Listen. You shouldn't have done that. The tunnel. That was stupid. I was fine. I would have gotten out. Eventually. Probably."
"Probably," Hart said. The word was doing a lot of work today.
The Grid pulsed. Bright. Insistent.
Bond II -- Ember
Classification: Inferno Kitsune (Primal)
Compatibility: 89.1%
Bond Status: Awaiting Warden confirmation.
Skill Pending: Fire Sense (Tier I)
He looked at the screen. Looked at Ember. She was still on her knees in the dust with her hands over her ears and copper hair falling across her face.
Nothing like Sable. Sable was shadow and silence. Ember was fire and noise and embarrassment about ears she couldn't control.
Different. Completely different.
"Yes," Hart said.
The bond formed. Different from Sable's. Sable's had been a hum in his blood. Ember's was heat. Not burning. Just. Present. Like something warm had settled in his chest next to where Sable's cold weight already lived and the two temperatures existed side by side without canceling each other out. That shouldn't have been possible. Cold and warm in the same space. But it was.
The Grid settled.
Bond II -- Ember -- Confirmed
Bond Level: 1/5
Bond Resonance: 41.8%
Skill Absorbed: Fire Sense (Tier I)
Dual Bond Synergy: +12% Essence Recovery -- Active
41.8 percent resonance. Sable had started at 67.1. Ember was lower. A lot lower. Hart didn't know what that meant but he could guess. Trust. Ember didn't trust him yet. She'd been rescued by him and she was embarrassed about it and her ears wouldn't stay down and her resonance was 41.8 because being saved by a stranger wasn't the same as choosing to be bonded.
Sable's shadow pooled beside Ember. The wolf's head rose from the ground. Silver eyes looking at amber.
Ember's ears popped up through her fingers.
"Sable," Ember said.
"Ember."
One word each. A thousand years in the space between them.
"You look the same," Ember said. Her voice was doing a thing. Trying to be casual. Failing. "Still all shadow and silence. Still got the stare."
"You look smaller," Sable said.
Ember's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"I just got trapped under a MOUNTAIN, Sable. I'm having a day."
"Clearly."
Hart sat in the dust between a shadow wolf and a fire fox who were having their first conversation in a thousand years.
His back was torn open and his hands were bleeding and the Greymarch clock was ticking somewhere behind them and he was pretty sure his left arm wasn't working right.
But the Grid said Dual Bond Synergy and the warm thing in his chest sat next to the cold thing and neither one was leaving and somewhere in the middle of that his body decided to do something his brain didn't authorize.
He laughed.
Short. Rough. Not a good laugh. The kind that comes out of a person who hasn't slept properly in five days and is bleeding in a volcanic quarry between two ancient beings who are bickering like they'd never been apart.
Ember stared at him. Sable stared at him.
"What," Ember said.
"Nothing." Hart wiped blood off his hands onto his ruined jacket. The jacket that had been torn by beast claws four days ago and was now also singed and covered in quarry dust. "We should go. Graveston has about 47 hours before something bigger hits the wall and I need to be there."
Ember's ears went flat. Not from embarrassment this time.
"How big."
"Silver. Maybe higher. That's what Sable says."
Ember looked at Sable. Sable looked at Ember. Something passed between them. Old. Hart couldn't read it.
"Fine," Ember said. She stood. Copper hair. Bronze skin. Fox ears stubbornly upright now. "Fine. Let's go then. But I'm not going into your shadow. That's her thing. I'll walk."
"You can't walk as. Like that. People will see."
"I'll be a fox. A regular fox. Regular size. Nobody looks twice at a fox."
"You have nine tails."
Ember looked over her shoulder at the tails. They were there. Nine of them. Very much visible.
"I can do seven," she said. "Maybe six on a good day."
"Regular foxes have one."
"Listen." The word again. Her word. She used it the way Damon used Obviously. "Listen, I'll figure it out on the walk. It's four hours right? Four hours is plenty of time to learn how to hide seven tails."
Sable dissolved into Hart's shadow without comment. Which was comment enough.
Hart stood up. His back was a problem that was going to need more than a bandage. His hands were burned and bleeding. His left arm was doing something that wasn't fully functional.
But he had two bonds now. Two Primals. Cold and warm in the same chest. A shadow that guarded and a fire that laughed.
He started climbing out of the quarry. Behind him, Ember shifted to fox form. Small. Compact. Trotting beside him with. He counted.
Four tails.
Close enough.