“We need to get out of here,” El said. The golem was finished. They’d missed their chance to stop it.

Sol wasn’t looking at her though. No, he was looking down the hall toward the echoing footsteps that were getting closer with every second.

“Sol, we’ve got to go. If Oril is in there, we really don’t want to be here when he rounds the corner. We’ll figure some other way to stop them,” she said.

“Go,” Sol said without looking back. “I can’t let him leave here like that. He’s too dangerous.” Gauntlets of solid ice cracked on his hands as he flexed them into fists, and he took a step forward, ice likewise coating his legs up to his knees.

But, where was the rest of his armor?

“Are you strong enough to fight him?” El asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Sol said. “He is like me now. An avatar. This close to the Pyre, the source of his strength, he may be too strong. I have to try though.”

Sword-like claws reached around the corner ahead, gouging into suddenly soft metal melting under their touch. Heat like standing at the mouth of a volcano rolled ahead, igniting El’s flame armor in an effort to protect her. Even then, the skin on her face sizzled painfully, and her lungs tried to reject the superheated air.

“OH SPARKLESS (Hi pig). THERE YOU ARE (I found you),” the demonic head said as it loomed around the corner, eyes blazing like twin suns on the sides of its head. Its multi-jointed jaw undulated, then spiraled apart, flames dancing along curved teeth and up the long snout of its face. What El had thought were horns were actually massively long teeth extending up from the back of the golem’s mouth and far above its head. Flames raced along these as well, beating and bursting from the sharp ends in small explosions like the beating of a fiery heart.

“I WAS WORRIED I’D MISSED YOU (Did you think you had escaped?),” it said, fully stepping into the intersection and filling the space from wall to wall. Floor to ceiling.

Scorching wings of deep red and orange dripped fiery globules that melted straight through the floor, while flames shrouded the double-forged electrum bones like rippling flesh. The halls around it were already melting, warping and drooping, and the floor sunk beneath its feet.

Probably too much to hope the ground will simply swallow it up.

“TIME TO DIE (Say your goodbyes),” it said and raised its right claw, a roaring ball of flame swirling into its palm.

El didn’t even have time to flare her wings before the ball exploded outward, filling the hall in a blink and washing over her.

But the flames didn’t burn her to a cinder. Didn’t consume her. Didn’t even touch her.

A dome of ice, barely higher than she was tall, cocooned her and Sol, then fell to the floor in a puddle after the flames had passed.

“I SEE (Secret weapon?).” the golem’s voices said, and it stepped forward, but came to a jerking halt. “NO, NOT NOW (One more minute!),” it roared, then leaned back and breathed a cone of fire straight up.

The flames ate through the thick metal like paper, ending as abruptly as they started, and sunlight shone through the new-formed hole.

“THIS IS NOT OVER BETWEEN US (I will finish you later, pig),” the golem roared, snapping its wings out, then launched straight up like a rocket.

The shockwave of the launch blasted El and Sol backward to slide along the sizzling floor, the heat uncomfortable even through her flame armor.

“What the Blaze just happened?” El asked, sitting up and sucking in a breath. With the golem gone, the air was cooling.

“It escaped,” Sol said, somehow already standing.

“Or we did,” El whispered. “Why didn’t it finish us?”

“It’s going after the final Ember in Guld. The Pyre’s will overwhelmed Oril’s vendetta, like it overwhelmed Lhogan’s persona,” Sol said.

“So, Lhogan is…” El started.

“Gone,” Sol interrupted quickly. “The Pyre consumes all and leaves nothing behind. Its direct interference destroyed the parts of your friend it didn’t need, and fueled the parts it did. I’m sorry.”

“The parts it did?” El asked. “Was Lhogan always planning to betray me?”

“It would seem so,” Sol said. “However, it’s also possible his friendship with you became real, and his determination to see the act of betrayal through wavered, prompting the Pyre to get directly involved.”

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“Is there any chance we can save him?”

“There is not,” Sol said.

El looked at Sol; was there a “but” coming? A hope they could somehow rescue Lhogan from the Pyre? No, who was she kidding? She’d seen it in Lhogan’s eyes herself. Her friend was gone.

No, her friend was taken from her. By the Pyre.

“El, I know he meant something to you, but we don’t have time. The golem is already miles away and moving fast. It will reach Guld within hours.”

“Hours?! We’ll never catch it if it’s that fast,” El said, loss and anger warring in her chest.

“No. We will need to get ahead of it.”

“Uh, if we can’t catch it, how can we get ahead of it?” El asked.

Sol turned to her and held up the pendant around his neck. “I couldn’t get to the Ember on my own before. But with your help, I think this can take us right there. You were able to enter the In-Between on the other side of the mountains. You should be able to exit there as well.”

“I have no idea how I did that, if I even did.” El stood up and straightened her jacket. Even it was the end of the world, she couldn’t go into it uneven. That small motion brought clarity to her mind, banishing the conflicting loss and anger, and replacing it with determination.

“I can guide you. Neither of us could do this alone, but together…”

El looked at the melted hole in the ceiling. That golem was a monster. But, then again, so was the fortress protecting the final Ember. Which would come out on top? Could they risk it? Could she let things finish without being there to see it?

“Let me get my weapons.”

“No time,” Sol said, and yanked the pendant from around his neck. “Time works differently in the In-Between. What may feel like minutes to us in there will be hours out here.” With that, he flicked open the locket and tossed it on the ground in front of him, an upside-down cone of snow fluttering from floor to ceiling.

“Is that…?”

“Our doorway into the In-Between.” Sol extended his hand to El. “Please, I need your help. The world needs your help.”

“Little overdramatic, don’t you think?” El asked.

“That depends,” Sol said with the first smile El had seen on his face. “Did it work?”

“Yes,” she grumbled and took his hand.

“Thank you. We need to hurry.” Sol led her to the cone of snow emanating from the locket on the ground. When he stepped into the snow, his leg simply vanished. Then he did, and there was just a disembodied hand holding El’s, gently tugging her forward.

“Burn it,” she whispered and walked into the swirling snow.

“That wasn’t so tough, was it?” Sol asked, heavy snow falling between massive trees all around them.

“What’s up with the trees anyway? What are they?” El asked.

“No time for explanations,” Sol said. “Can you fly?”

El’s four small wings ignited to life in answer. “Can you?” she asked back.

Sol nodded, and wings of the purest ice burst out of his back.

El couldn’t help but stare as the icy wings stretched and flexed as they glittered like a million tiny diamonds.

They were beautiful.

Sol gently lifted into the air, El’s hand still in his, and she followed him up.

“This way,” he said, then led them through the trees. They picked up speed as they flew hand in hand, darting around trunks as wide as houses and through the falling snow. The small cabin El had found Sol’s journal in flashed past them on El’s right, though it vanished behind the trees a second later. El opened her mouth to ask about it, but Sol slowed and then stopped.

“We’re here,” he said.

“Already?” she asked.

“We’ve been flying for hours,” he responded, then continued before El could question it. “Do you see those two large trees directly in front of us?”

“How could I miss them?” she asked.

“The space between them is our exit. You need to lead us through, like I led us into the In-Between,” he explained.

“What if it doesn’t work?” El asked. “I mean, what if you can’t get through?”

“Then I will exit as close as I can and try to go over the mountains.”

“And me?”

“Get the Ember, if you can. Bring it back here, to the In-Between. The Pyre’s avatar should not be able to follow you. Take it to the cabin where you found my journal and drop it into the blue flames between my wife and son. That is how we will stop the Pyre from completing Himself.”

“That’s your family?” El couldn’t help but ask. But, of course it was. Who else’s would it have been?

“We don’t have…”

“Time, I know,” El finished. “Sorry.” She stepped toward the two trees. “Let’s just hope this works like you said it should.”

“I have faith in you,” Sol said from behind her, and his hand squeezed tighter around hers.

“Makes one of us,” El mumbled, and walked through the trees before she had a chance to doubt herself anymore.

Nothing happened.

She blinked.

The trees were gone, replaced by the ruins of a destroyed city. The snow was still falling though, and…

She spun around and looked at Sol’s hand in hers. At him standing behind her.

Except it wasn’t Sol anymore.

The Stormbearer in all his terrifying glory held her hand in his frost-rimed gauntlet.

El’s breath caught, and her heart forgot to beat while she waited for ice to race up her arm and entomb her body.

“It worked,” Sol’s voice echoed from inside his heavy helm. “We did it.”

El let out the breath she was holding and forced her head to nod. She couldn’t trust her voice not to squeak at the moment, so it was the best she could do.

The armored helm tilted slightly to the side, then looked down at the dark gauntlet.

“My appearance upsets you. I’m sorry. I’ll need all my power to stop… it’s coming,” he said, letting go of her hand and turning to look up and behind him.

Like a meteor, an orange ball of fire burst through the snow and over their heads.

THOOM-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM.

Cannon fire like a drumline echoed in the distance to meet it, and the sky glowed orange.

“I’ll distract the golem,” Sol said, his icy wings unfurling behind him. “Get the Ember and take it to the cabin.” Then he was gone, launched into the air so quickly the falling snow got sucked in and followed him like a vacuum.

“Me? Get the Ember? That wasn’t part of the deal!” she shouted after him. She was just supposed to get him there and watch…

El stopped.

Fly over the mountains, retrieve the Ember, and be the hero. That had been her secret dream, right?

Time to make the dream a reality.

She ignited her four small wings, tensing for the nonstop cannon fire that would come her way. When one second turned into two, then three… four… five… six seconds, she nodded to herself and lifted into the air.

“Got bigger things to worry about than little old me, huh?” she asked the distant fortress.

Now all she had to do was weave through the lethal cannon fire and the vengeful golem, infiltrate a fortress designed to keep her kind out, then get back out before any of the above caught her.

Simple.

Or something.