Page 102 of Foundling

The blue wisps winked out immediately, leaving the grotto dark.

“Attalus…”

He groaned, turning to apologize, when he realized she stared in wonder at the ground to his side. Attalus looked too and saw the strangest sight—the last of his flames eating away at the miasma, creating a larger and larger ring of glowing orange.

Eventually the fire gave out, leaving behind a spot of clean rock.

“It’s not coming back,” Leita murmured.

Attalus was at a loss for words. It can’t be…

They stared at the spot his fire had burned away, breathlessly waiting for the miasma to return.

They were left waiting.

Leita stumbled over to him, her shaking hand coming to grip his arm tightly.

“Can you burn over there?” She pointed at the pool on the far side.

“Stand behind me.” He didn’t want her to be burned.

With Leita behind him but poking her head around his arm to see, Attalus drew in a big breath—and blew it out with flames across the grotto.

Fire licked and snapped across the enclosed space, the air heating. The smell of burning hair filled the grotto as the mats of miasma began to blaze. They burned like spiderwebs, every thread and tendril leading to another until the whole mass of it was eaten away.

A single breath of fire was enough to reveal the whole of the pool, glowing blue in the center of a ring of flame.

Without more heat, the fires eventually ran out of energy, fed by so much miasma. But the pool remained clear.

Leita hurried over to it, staring down at her own reflection. “It’s so deep,” she marveled. “And there’s something…”

Attalus joined her, peering down into waters that weren’t quite…right. Ghostly forms drifted through the turquoise water, pale faces without features but long flowing hair gliding along as though borne by a tide. There were layers upon layers of the translucent forms, as though each swirled at a different height in the water column.

He couldn’t help a shudder. But it was when Leita bent toward the water, her eyes glowing blue, that he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled them both backwards.

“What’s wrong with that water?”

“I think they’re memories.” Leita stared up at him with unseeing eyes, and for a moment, Attalus began to panic. Then, with another blink, her senses seemed to return, and she lifted her chin in that stubborn way he loved. “Burn it all, azore.”

Attalus looked around the grotto. “Are you sure?” He didn’t wish to harm the faelands.

Leita nodded. “Sometimes fire is cleansing. Even the forest needs it.”

He knew that dragonfire wasn’t like ordinary flame. The same magic that allowed the shift also imbued a dragon’s internal fires. It was a gift, the elders said, to carry flames in one’s belly. A magical gift that lingered from a time before they’d forgotten how to wield magic itself.

If his dragonfire could help, if it really was so simple…

Attalus would do anything for his Queen.

But they did this on his terms.

He scooped her up under the knees and back, holding her close to his chest and beneath the shelter of his wings. They would offer protection from the heat of the flames. She peered up at him from the crook of his shoulder, her determination glowing brighter than the pool.

“Do it,” she beseeched.

Attalus let loose his flame.

Fire erupted across the whole grotto, the miasma crackling and snapping as it burned. The jewelry on his body warmed, the metal glowing in the heat as he added more and more flames to the fire. With careful backward steps, he made for the staircase on the other side, leaving fire in their wake.