Astara Vale's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

By morning, Astara stood inside her hidden ring and faced the next wall. Ember would not come to her by hand. She had tried twice already. Twice her palms had blistered before the spark even settled. The workshop was ready. She was not. She set the obsidian crown on a low stone block at the center of the ring. Its red veins drank the air. Inside its curved spines, raw ember could rest without eating through stone. She tested it dry first, tapping the metal with a rod. The crown held its shape. The veins pulsed once, slow and patient, like a held breath. Around the cradle she fitted the portable lab she had dragged in piece by piece. Tubes, clamps, a narrow arm that could lift and tilt without her fingers near the heat. She bolted the arm to the frame and tested its swing. It moved smooth. She would never touch the ember again. The machine would. She opened her notebook, the one with shifting pages that caught her handwriting like smoke. She read her last entry aloud. Burn through grip in four seconds. Skin splits at the knuckle. She turned the page and waited, pen ready. Then she struck the ember and dropped it into the crown. The spark fell, caught, and bloomed. The obsidian held. The arm swung in and cupped the flame without flinching. Astara watched her own hands. They were steady. They were whole. She wrote one clean line on the fresh page. Ember contained. Now the real problem begins.