“Hey there! How are y’all? I feel like I haven’t been here in forever! So, what’s everyone working…hmm? Me? I’m doing fine, thanks for asking!”

  The first steps onto the Volcanic Wastes carried with them a strange unease. Ariel had expected heat to press against her skin, for the air to shimmer with rising waves from blackened stone, for sweat to bead along her neck and brow the instant they crossed from the bridge to solid ground. But instead, the air was cool. Not the crisp, living coolness of the forest they had left behind, but a hollow stillness that carried no warmth, no breath of life at all. It was as though the land itself had forgotten how to burn.

  She paused, boots crunching against gray ash that did not rise into the air when disturbed. Her staff glowed faintly in her grasp, as if acknowledging the strangeness before them. Fornaskr stepped up beside her; his eyes narrowed as he scanned the jagged horizon.

  “It should be hotter,” Ariel murmured. “Everything about this place says fire, but… it’s cold.”

  Fornaskr crouched, brushing his hand over the ashen ground. He held his palm up, frowning at the dust clinging to his skin. “Not even warmth. The fire here has been stolen, just as the forest’s bloom was corrupted. Whatever heart beats in this island, it falters.”

  They exchanged a look heavy with understanding. Then, wordlessly, they began forward, the wide bridge of living vines shrinking behind them as they ventured deeper into the wastes. The landscape stretched bleak and desaturated in every direction. Towers of stone jutted upward like the ribs of some long-dead beast, their edges brittle and cracked. Once-molten rivers of obsidian carved dark scars through the land, but even those veins held no glint or gleam, only dull, lifeless black. The sky above, though still bright with daylight, seemed muted here, its blues dulled to gray as though even the heavens were dimmed by corruption.

  Ariel’s eyes kept darting to the horizon, where plumes of smoke curled listlessly from volcanoes that should have roared with power. The glow she had glimpsed from the cliffside was present still, but faint—more a sickly pulse than a living flame. “Do you feel that?” she asked at last.

  Fornaskr glanced at her. “Feel what?”

  “The silence. Not just the absence of sound—the forest had quiet moments, but this… this feels like nothing. Like the air itself is hollow.”

  He nodded grimly. “It is the same emptiness I felt when the Eiranth was fading. Only here it is everywhere, in every stone and shadow.”

  Ariel shivered despite the coolness. She tightened her grip on her staff, its runes pulsing brighter with each step. “We need to find the heart of this place. Whatever it is, it’s dying. Or being smothered.”

  “And if the Acolytes linger here,” Fornaskr added, his tone low, “they will not let us pass easily.”

  They trekked across uneven ground, their boots scraping against rock that fractured like brittle glass beneath weight. At times the path narrowed into ridges that dropped away into yawning chasms, their depths filled with nothing but gray mist. Other times it widened into fields of hardened ash, cracked like old parchment, each fissure yawning wide as if gasping for breath. Conversation ebbed and flowed as they walked, each word a comfort against the oppressive silence.

  “What do you think the heart of the wastes will be?” Ariel asked. “We guessed at fire, or stone. But maybe it’s something else. Something hidden.”

  Fornaskr’s gaze swept the bleak expanse. “Perhaps a flame that never dies. Something that gave shape to this land in the beginning. If such a thing exists, it would be powerful indeed.”

  Ariel considered this, then smiled faintly. “That feels right. A flame that never dies would make sense for a place like this. But whatever it was… it isn’t what it should be anymore.” They paused at the base of a ridge, catching their breath. Ariel leaned on her staff, peering upward at the climb ahead. “Do you ever wonder what this world looked like before?”

  Fornaskr tilted his head. “Before Gloymr’s corruption?”

  “Yes. Before the colors faded. Before everything was hollowed out.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He was quiet for a long moment, then said, “I remember fire in our stories. Not only as destruction, but as warmth. It gave light in the darkness, strength to shape stone, courage to stand against the void. If the heart of this island is found, perhaps we will see that fire again.”

  Ariel nodded, hope stirring faintly in her chest. She straightened, planting her staff firmly as they began the climb. Hours passed in measured steps. The volcanic wastes stretched on endlessly, their desolation pressing into every breath. And yet, with each weary mile, Ariel felt her staff guiding her, pulling faintly like a compass toward some unseen destination. Its runes glowed brighter here than they had in the forest, the green light stark against the ashen world.

  They stopped briefly at the edge of a broken plateau, overlooking a valley below. The valley floor was cracked and uneven, strewn with jagged obsidian spires that reached skyward like blackened teeth. Ariel crouched at the edge, staring. “This whole land feels like a graveyard.”

  “Not a graveyard,” Fornaskr corrected softly. “A forge gone cold.”

  She glanced at him, her lips pressing into a line. “Then we’ll have to relight it.”

  They descended into the valley, careful of loose stone. The silence pressed heavier here, broken only by the crunch of their boots. Ariel found herself speaking just to keep the nothingness at bay. “I can’t shake this feeling,” she admitted. “Like I’ve been here before. Not this place exactly, but… the emptiness. The cold. It reminds me of when I first woke up in the forest, before I remembered who I was. That hollow ache in my chest. It feels the same.”

  Fornaskr walked quietly for a time, then said, “Perhaps that is why you were called here. To fill what is empty. To remember what has been forgotten.”

  Ariel swallowed hard, gripping her staff tighter. “Then I’ll do it. Whatever it takes.”

  Her ears caught a sound behind them. A soft, uneven step across stone. She froze, staff lifting instinctively, runes glowing as power gathered at its tip. Turning, she expected an ambush. Instead, she paused.

  A small creature limped toward them from the shadows, its fur a vivid streak of red against the ashen world. A paw dragged slightly, and one eye remained shut. Ariel let her staff drift into the air beside her, hovering obediently, and she hurried forward.

  Recognition struck. It was a red panda… and it was the same flash of red fur she had whipped at on the forest’s edge. Kneeling slowly, she extended her hand, scratching gently behind its ears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I hurt you.”

  The creature’s posture was wary, but it did not flee. She saw now the injury in its leg, the lash mark across its closed eye. Ariel slipped her pack open, pulling free Sallowthorn leaves. She chewed them until their bitter tang filled her mouth, then placed half against the injured leg and the rest upon the wound above the eye. Closing her own eyes, she pressed her hands over the poultice, and a pulse of green light spread from her palms, flashing bright.

  When she pulled her hands away, the creature tested its paw, licking once before bounding in a small circle. Then it stopped, raising its head to meet Ariel’s gaze—and opened its healed eye.

  Hazel. Violet. Ariel froze. Her heart lurched as she grasped the creature gently, pulling it closer to see again. “Why… why do your eyes match Holly’s?” she breathed.

  At the sound of the name, the red panda yipped and pounced, knocking her flat against the ground. Ariel gasped as the creature landed heavily on her belly, then squealed in laughter as its tongue covered her face in sloppy affection. “Stop! Stop it!” she cried, laughing even as she tried to push it off.

  It took a moment before she managed to roll and sit up, brushing herself down. The creature sat proudly at her side, tail flicking, as though claiming its place. Ariel exhaled and stroked its fur, but her eyes kept returning to its face. She leaned closer, caught between awe and disbelief, staring deeply into those mismatched hazel and violet eyes. Her breath hitched as she traced the lines of its fur around them, whispering to herself as though the creature might vanish if she spoke too loudly. “How… how is this possible?” She lingered there, memorizing the familiar colors, the uncanny echo of Holly that made her chest ache. Finally she sat back, still unsettled but unable to look away for too long. “You should go back to the forest,” she told it softly, though her voice trembled with hesitation. “This place is too dangerous.”

  The red panda shook its head... or at least gave the impression of refusing. It padded closer, insistent. Ariel frowned, then glanced at Fornaskr. He only shrugged, an amused light in his eyes. “This was the one I told you of. The creature that never appeared unless hungry. It seems there is more to it than I knew. And if it bonds itself to She Who Commands the Forest, perhaps that is no small thing.”

  Ariel looked long into those mismatched eyes, the weight of recognition heavy upon her. At last she sighed. “Then stay close. But keep out of danger, understand?”

  The creature chirped, as though in agreement. With the new companion padding along beside them, Ariel and Fornaskr continued their path through the valley until the ground broke open ahead. The valley floor led them to a wide fissure, its walls scorched black though no heat rose from within. They peered down, and Ariel thought she glimpsed faint red glimmers deep below—like embers gasping against suffocation.

  She shivered. “The heart has to be close. I can feel it.”

  Fornaskr nodded, his hand tightening on the strap of his pack. “Then let us follow where your staff leads. And may the fire remember how to burn.”