Spears of light, pale gold crystal with a slight rainbow sheen, rained down on the ashen snow where Claire Aden had been. Empowered by a life-aspect weave, the child prodigy moved with astonishing speed. She had grown quite skilled at avoiding such attacks in the days they had spent practicing together, and Kiera no longer feared injuring the girl. The miniature forest of light spears remained for a time, glistening in the center of the clearing, until Kiera released the weave and the spears dissolved from within.

  "These weaves are so slow," Claire said. "Are you holding back?"

  Kiera shook her head. "They have a long wind-up. Even longer than the slowest weaves I learned at the Eight Color Monastery."

  "You should try the last one."

  A freezing wind blew through the charred remains of the glade, and in spite of the cold Kiera was sweating. But the thought of using the final tenth-aspect weave sent a shiver down her spine. "Not here," she said. "Somewhere with more room."

  "How do you know?" Claire asked.

  "You will need plenty of space to dodge," Kiera replied. The child did not contradict this assertion.

  It had been Fiona's idea to hide in the Founder's Tomb near White Chasm, which served to grant some privacy while Kiera practiced her new weaves. It did not take long for Sophia to discover the est, and from there exhaust the possible configurations of that est. Several of them were simple, capable only of creating individual points of light. Some of them were obviously intended to be used offensively, and among these Kiera estimated that the weave to create light spears was the most useful. But the final weave, only implied by one possible shape of the est, was astonishingly complex, and it required a living target.

  They made their way through the defoliated path the Fire Elemental had taken. Directly ahead the jagged granite cliffs rose to a dizzying height, obscuring the alpine glades beyond the edge of the escarpment. The Elemental was up there somewhere, dancing among those tinderbox glades, setting more fires which painted the undersides of the clouds with shimmering orange auroras. A strange existence, Kiera thought. This entire world, the Elemental Plane of Fire, had been created such that the Fire Elementals could burn it for all eternity. And this particular Elemental never traveled beyond the ghostly white barrier which delimited the end of the interstice with Kiera's own world.

  They came upon a field of smooth black stones crowned with pillows of snow, gently sloping down toward a frozen lake. Hesitantly, Kiera carefully quested forward with one foot, crushing the snow pillow on the first rock. The powder fell from the smooth curve of the stone and the treads of her boot found purchase. After a few more steps she concluded that the pillows had never thawed, and while she continued the descent with some restraint, she made no attempt to stop Claire Aden from skipping down the pillows recklessly.

  When they arrived on the surface of the frozen lake, they stood a few feet apart, facing each other.

  Kiera began pouring her power into the final weave. A dark fog enveloped them both, gray with a hint of umber. Shifting clouds drifted on the edges of that fog, gradients of pale yellow and wine red. A starry field of glowing orbs ascended around Kiera, orbiting her slowly. Next a pale teal plane appeared, shaped like a circle and centered at her heart. Flames of pure light, yellow and teal and pink and white, flickering and shifting rapidly, rising and rising from her heart. The circle expanded, centered itself about Claire Aden. Four more circles appeared, thin golden sigils shimmering with arcane commands written in some lost language, cut into quadrants by thin lines of light. The orbs began to orbit Kiera very rapidly. The world trembled.

  Claire Aden attempted to dodge at the very last second as the circles converged on her, but chains of light held her in place. A massive explosion followed, throwing up nebulae of pale rainbow fog and distorted parhelions. Kiera's heart sank.

  Mother Summer, no!

  Runes circled Claire, and the chains of light bound her arms and feet, but otherwise she did not appear harmed by the attack. Still, Kiera's heart was pounding in her chest. Claire struggled a little bit and then shrugged.

  "It doesn't hurt," the child reported.

  "What now?" Kiera asked. "I'm not sure what this weave is supposed to do."

  You must speak a command, the voice replied. Feminine, high-pitched and delicate like wind chimes. The voice of the Light Elemental in the witchstone. Kiera had not heard the Elemental since the incident on the Sister World, the one which transformed her into a Remembrancer.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "What command?"

  Dream-soul, you do not have any truthful commands for this fire-soul. It will not work.

  Kiera released the weave and the chains of light binding Claire began to disintegrate. The child trotted up to Kiera and hugged her.

  "Don't be scared," she said. "I'm not hurt at all."

  "Thank you," Kiera said.

  Suddenly Claire pulled away and pointed behind Kiera. "What's that?" she asked.

  Two dozen men in red robes marched along the snowbank overhead, hauling one of the Elder Saint's spirit-lattice spikes. Leading the pack, her black witch costume fluttering in the icy wind, was Fiona of the Morning Mist. Kiera and Claire both found themselves caught in a heaven-aspect levitation weave, slowly floating up over the snow pillows to meet the witch up on the ridge.

  "What's going on?" Kiera demanded as her boots settled into the snow.

  "A crisis," Fiona replied. "Several etherborne in a row, without any warning. Annatiki is distracted. I stole one of her spikes."

  Kiera was completely stunned. She wanted to ask about the etherborne, but the theft of the spike was so shocking that she could not formulate a truthful thing to say. The command burned into her flesh silenced her lips.

  "You stole from the Elder Saint?" Claire asked incredulously.

  "Of course," Fiona said. "The Aden clan has been planning this for a long, long time. As a matter of fact, this is all part of Aden's plan."

  "What plan? Why didn't anyone tell me? I'm an Aden too!"

  "Calm down and let me explain," Fiona began. "The first thing you need to understand is that my husband Aden wanted hope above all else. He refused to live a life of hopelessness. He scoured Lyn's library for clues, and eventually he stumbled upon the apocrypha of the Church of the Lady Ghost."

  "Apocrypha?" Kiera asked.

  "That's right. Unlike The Binding of Ashe, The Goddess of Wishes, and The Stained Glass Window, the apocrypha were not considered canon by the ancient church. Aden discovered one story that made the bold claim that Reese, one of Ingrid's contemporaries, was actually the firstborn High Daughter of the Queen of Water. Supposedly it was written by Mia, the woman we now call Mother Summer. If this is true, then it means that Ingrid is bonded to the second High Daughter. This would make sense if the Queen of Water didn't quite trust Ingrid to remain an ally after the Queen of Light was fully purified.

  "Following this line of thinking, it could make sense that Ingrid also bonded the second High Daughter of the Queen of Fire. And if that is true, then it must also be true that the first High Daughter of the Queen of Fire is still out there somewhere. Aden assumed that, more probable than not, the missing High Daughter was somewhere in the Elemental Plane of Fire, bonded to one of the people living there. If all of those assumptions are true, then it might be possible to pull this High Daughter into our world through this interstice."

  She glanced down at the child Claire Aden.

  "Which brings us to Aden's ultimate gambit, his final hope," Fiona continued. "I was tasked by my husband with the centuries-long project of managing the Aden Clan. You cannot tell by looking around this place, but there were once many homes here. We constructed an entire city made of wood. Watchers at the rim would warn of the approach of the Fire Elemental, and the civilians would escape if she got too close. We needed to rebuild the city many times. The Adens rose again and again from the ashes of our labors."

  "Why go through all the trouble?" Claire asked. "The clan already has a home in the caverns outside!"

  "Because babies conceived in this place have a chance of being fire-souls," Fiona replied. "Souls that reside in the Elemental Plane of Fire, who are reincarnated here in our world after they die. This is the secret history of the Aden Clan. It was always our purpose, and our singular purpose, to pull fire-souls into our world, like a huge sink. Eventually, we hope to capture the soul bonded to the First High Daughter of the Queen of Fire."

  "And you succeeded," Kiera guessed. "And Claire has the soul you are looking for."

  Fiona shrugged. "I am not certain. Fire-souls look different, and some of them exhibit distinctive marks which I believe are associated with an Elemental Bond. Those two boys, Seth and Quinn, were both fire-souls, and Quinn bore the additional marks. Sir Zachary is also a fire-soul, and he bears the exact same marks as Quinn. Finally, Claire has marks I have never seen before. They are much deeper and more intricate. We won't know if it's the High Daughter until she learns to summon her Elemental."

  "How can I learn?" Claire asked.

  "You have time to practice. I've seen what you can do with ethermancy. You are a prodigy. You should have no trouble figuring out the weaves protecting this spike. With Annatiki distracted outside, now is the best opportunity we can ever hope to expect. Now, I must leave and stand beside my friend through this crisis."

  "Take me with you!" Kiera said. "I want to heal her. I must heal her."

  "Which is why you need to stay here and wait for Claire to summon her Elemental. If there is any spirit-ether left in the spike, you can use it to practice the siphoning process. Claire, the House Aden expedition is preparing to enter the Founder's Tomb. If you are indeed bonded to the High Daughter, then she will be able to open a portal leading out of this interstice. The expedition will go through, but you must remain in case they need to return to our world. Do you understand?"

  The child nodded.

  "Kiera, there is one more thing."

  "Yes?" Kiera asked.

  "I want you to try to enter the portal," Fiona replied. "I suspect it is not possible. Either way, you both have your orders. We may not get a second chance. Good luck."