Glimmer Havocbringer's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Glimmer sneezed the three of them to the edge of the fire. Alexandria, and the Library already burned. Smoke rolled down the shelves. Somewhere ahead, whole rooms had turned to ash. Glimmer knew he could hold a crowded story now. But he did not know how the fire moved. Reach into a section already gone, and he would grasp only ruin. "Which way is safe?" he asked. "Which shelves are still whole?" Aurora set her hearth on the floor. Flame rose inside the stone ring. "I don't know the fire's path. Neither do you." She said it flat. "Guess wrong, you pull a dead room into your mind forever." Liora crouched with her tiny mammoth. "Then we map it first," she said. "Fast." A cough came from the smoke. A blind man stepped through it. A heavy book hung from a chain at his wrist. He walked straight, though he could not see, and the flames leaned away from him. Glimmer's stomach dropped. He knew this one. Destiny, of the Endless. The book held every story ever told and every one to come. Glimmer had reached for it once and the chain had burned his hand. "You want the fire's path," Destiny said. He did not ask. "It's written here." He touched the book. "You will not have it." "I only need the order," Glimmer said. "Which shelves fall first. I'm trying to save what's in them." "Save it into yourself." Destiny's voice went flatter. "Give one story, and you ask for more. I will not open a page for you." The chain rattled as he shifted the book behind him. Glimmer stared at the smoke. Every path was a coin toss now. Then he looked at the hearth. Sparks. Fire wanting fire. "I don't need his book," Glimmer said. He pushed a small handful of sparks loose from his palm. He did not aim them at a story. He aimed them at the burning shelves ahead, one by one, quick taps. Each spark flared brighter where the wood was fresh and died fast where the wood was already ash. The live shelves lit gold. The dead ones swallowed the sparks black. A map, drawn in his own fire. "Left is gone," Glimmer said. "Center still holds. That's my road." He drew the loose sparks back to the hearth before they could land and mark a single scroll. Aurora watched them stream home. She gave one short nod. Destiny's mouth thinned. "You mapped it without me." "I did." Glimmer faced the living center of the Library. His hands were steady. He knew where to reach. But Destiny lifted the book and pressed it flat to his chest. "Then I will close the road behind you," he said. "Reach in. See if a door is still there when you turn to leave."