One week. That was how long Ryker and two thousand dragons had been gone.

It’d been two days since Maddox had flown after them and Guinevere had stopped sleeping.

She was twenty minutes into Sterling’s training, when she collapsed on the back of a dragon instead of landing on her feet as usual. Her body was cooked.

Mercifully, Sterling mindlinked mid-drill.

The green dragon she was riding landed a moment later.

Every warrior on the field watched her dismount, and the collective disappointment when they realized she wasn’t training today could have been bottled and sold as cologne. Sad Dragon. By Sterling.

"Come with me."

✦✦✦

Without a word, Sterling pointed at the top of a mountain, changed back into his dragon form, and took off before she could ask a single question.

Her wolf spoke for the first time since it’d called Drakencrest home.

Let me.

She didn’t need to be told twice and shifted mid-step. For the first time since Maddox left, her mind went quiet and she rested somewhere behind her own eyes.

It was her wolf’s voice that brought her back.

Your turn.

Boots replaced paws. The trail was gone, replaced by a vertical climb that required hands.

Snow and magma warred with each other the higher she got, and her body oscillated between violent shivers and suffocating heat with no warning between the two.

By the time she reached the top, the moon had been out for hours. A volcano opened beneath her into a massive basin, and she stayed well back from the edge.

An old man sat cross-legged on a large boulder with his eyes closed. Every inch of snow around him had melted. She had no idea if he was asleep, dead, or part of whatever this was, because Sterling had given her exactly zero instructions outside of pointing.

"Took you long enough, wolf girl. I was starting to think Sterling had finally sent me someone boring."

Guinevere froze, chest heaving.

The old man opened his eyes and jumped to his feet in one fluid motion. He pointed to the bottom of a large crater on the other side, then he launched, shifting before she could ask any questions.

Typical.

The air thinned as she descended into the volcanic shaft. The heat doubled, then tripled, and her lungs started to argue with each breath because the air had more sulfur in it than oxygen.

Around halfway, her fingers found a rock that was so hot it seared her palm. She yanked her hand back on instinct, and for one lurching second she was dangling by three fingers and a boot wedged into a crack that was already crumbling.

The lava hissed below in the basin.

She reached for the same hold again, knowing exactly what it would do to her hand, and kept climbing with her jaw locked and tears running down her face that evaporated before they reached her chin. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

If Maddox told Sterling to send me here, I won’t fail him.

Hours went by of her hands shaking and each move a negotiation between willpower and gravity.

Finally, she reached a platform of black stones. The old man from the top was sitting there, waiting and grinning.

"You could have used the stairs."

Guinevere stared at him. Her hands were blistered and bloody, her legs were trembling, and her lungs felt like they had been scrubbed with sulfur.

"Stairs."

"Oh yes. A landing halfway down with a bench to rest too." He pointed behind her, to a wide, well-lit staircase carved into the wall.

Her jaw dropped.

He burst out laughing. The sound bounced off the chamber walls, echoing in a way that made it sound like six men were laughing instead of one.

"The young ones always fall for that. Every single time." He slapped his knee. "Those are exit only, so it wouldn’t have mattered. But the faces are what keep me young. Yours is top five, easily."

Guinevere’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"You are unbelievable."

"I am Tormund Embervale, Keeper of the Flame Altar, and I am absolutely unbelievable. Three tasks. Each measure the extent of what you carry. Are you ready?"

"The climb wasn’t the task."

"Oh no."

She almost laughed. Of course it wasn’t.

He led her to the edge of the stone ring, where the black rock dropped away into a pit so deep the bottom was lost in darkness. Just black, falling forever, and somewhere far below, the faint glint of something jagged.

"First task. Jump."

She looked into the pit. Then at him.

"His flame is down there, assuming he is still alive." He wiggled his hand in a so-so gesture. "I should mention, many have died on this one. The bottom is lined with jagged obsid—"

Guinevere was over the edge before the word finished leaving his mouth.

The dark swallowed her whole. Wind tore at her hair and the walls of the pit blurred past her in streaks of black and glowing molten. The air changed temperature, colder then hotter.

Then the flame found her. It came from below and wrapped around her in a rush of gold that was warm in the way Maddox’s arms were.

The panic that had been climbing her throat was replaced by a lump. She missed him. It’d been less than two weeks and she was already attached to an extent she hadn’t realized until now.

The flame lifted her rapidly, carrying her back up the shaft into the light of the chamber, setting her down on her feet.

Tormund clapped his hands together once.

"Wonderful! Wonderful. I had a speech prepared for the part where you hesitated at the edge. You have ruined it entirely and I could not be more delighted."

"Second task!" He said it the way someone announces dessert. "The flame found you. Lovely. The question now is whether you can keep it."

He gestured to the lava lake next to them.

"You must fall backward into the lava. The flame will protect you, but it burns in the doing. If your devotion has ever wavered or if you’ve dishonored him even once, it will leave and the lava does what it does."

Guinevere looked at the lava. Then at Tormund. Then at the gold fire still wrapped around her body.

She turned her back to the lake. She closed her eyes.

"Oh, one more thing, the margin for error on this—"

She leaned back and let herself fall.

For one full second, her mind screamed that she was dying.

Her body sank slowly, the weight of it pressing in from every side, and his flame was the only thing between her and a death so immediate it would not have had time to register as pain.

The heat was so far beyond any temperature her body had a reference for that her nervous system overloaded and went white.

She held her breath, closed her eyes, and clenched her fists as the gold light pulsed against the red. For three seconds that lasted a year, she was fully submerged.

Then the flame lifted her and she surfaced gasping in fumes.

It carried her back to solid ground. As soon as it set her down, she fell on her hands and knees. Her coughs shook so violently her arms nearly gave out.

That was worse than she expected. Significantly, catastrophically worse.

Faint gold veins traced her hands, pulsing once with her heartbeat before fading. She blinked and they were gone. She was not entirely sure they had been there at all.

Tormund’s expression had lost every trace of humor.

"In the last century, I have seen twenty two women attempt that task. Sixteen of them died."

The words registered but Guinevere decided to unpack that on another day. Possibly never.

He extended a hand and helped her stand.

"Final task."

She followed him through a tunnel that opened into a massive cavern.

At the center was a large, churning ocean of colors.

"The Everflame Sea. It contains the flame of every dragon breathing. You must swim through it and find Maddox’s orb. If you lose the gold flame around you now, the other dragon fires will burn you alive."

He paused.

"When you find his orb, it will begin to merge with you."

Guinevere looked at the ocean of fire. It stretched the full width of the chamber and she couldn’t see the bottom. It would definitely swallow her completely the moment she entered.

If she let herself think about it too long, she wouldn’t be able to do it.

"Almost forgot!" He snapped his fingers. "He is tested here as well. Only if he loves you enough to die for you. If he wavers, it will abandon you mid-swim, and you become a very interesting color for about half a second."

He beamed. "How long have you been with him?"

"Ten days."

Her eyes were on the fire when she answered and she didn’t wait for a response.

She sprinted, launching herself as far into the center as she could. The fire swallowed her whole. That part she was ready for.

Then every color in the world went to war trying to enter her, and that she was not ready for.