Nexin looked at the still-glowing armor in the melted ground, the plates gleaming like the sun. A gesture with his hand along with the enforcement of his Spark pulled all the ambient heat from the scene and sent it harmlessly into the sky. The stones of the road cooled so fast, they cracked then turned to dust, their inert structure destroyed by the temperature.

  And yet, the armor was still glowing. Nexin trained his senses more acutely on the armor—not just his eyes, but also the feeling of his Spark. Yes, he’d successfully pulled most of the heat away, but the armor itself was generating more. Within the confines of the cool plate, the Spark he’d felt before continued to get stretched apart. It was so taut and frayed, it was a miracle it hadn’t simply snapped apart, and the pressure on it had to be the cause of the fire-like glow coming from between the joints.

  The armor didn’t move, though, so what was the point of the build-up? Yes, it was building too. Faster now than it had been before. What could it be…?

  BOOOOOOOM, a titanic explosion shook the city back the way Nexin had come from, the glow lighting up the fog between him and the source. Like before, the flames stretched for the sky at the same time the ground shook.

  “Sol?” Nexin asked into the magic of his communicator. “Was that…?” His eyes snapped back to the armor in front of him, the build-up of energy inside reaching it a point it actually made his Spark shiver.

  Nexin flared his wings and shot for the sky, the street beneath him shattered from the force of his launch. A hundred feet up, two hundred… BOOOOOOM beneath him, a sun-like eruption of flame and force raced to catch him. While flame had never been a thing to scare him, something within that fire reached for him, like dark claws grasping for the warmth of his Spark. He poured on the power, climbing higher and higher, until the chasing flames finally ran out of energy.

  He looked down, and maybe it was his imagination, but the top of the cloud of flame looked terrifyingly like a pained, screaming face, before it broke apart into embers that twisted in on themselves. It was gone a moment later, but Nexin couldn’t stop staring down. The flames were completely gone, not even smolders left, and a two-hundred-foot circle around where the armor had been was left a black, barren crater in the ground.

  Some sort of self-destruction?

  “Nexin, you still alive over there?” Sol asked through the magic. “Your sister would be very upset with me if you’re dead.”

  “You’re safe from her displeasure, for now,” Nexin responded. “Did you find a suit of angry armor in the ruins back there?”

  “Yes, and I take it you dealt with the same thing. It attacked you too?”

  “Yes. Kept saying something about pain, and not much else. You get any information out of yours?”

  “Wordless screaming the whole time,” Sol responded. “Sounded like it was in pain as well. Any survivors over there?”

  Nexin lowered himself back towards the ground, though he stopped a few inches above. If anybody had survived the two explosions and the battle, they sure weren’t making themselves known. “Nobody I see,” he said. “Those first two explosions from earlier, they seemed a lot like this armor going off. Same thing?”

  “Seems that way. No survivors or even bodies over here either. Nothing to suggest what they were even doing here in the first place. Were they fighting each other?” Sol asked.

  A glance back at the warehouse that had been the source of the first explosion—and where the armor had climbed out of—and he shook his head to himself. “Maybe? Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  “No, never,” Sol said.

  “Hrm. You know, the build of the armor kind of reminds me of that ship I found out in the harbor. You said maybe it was Pilish?” Nexin asked.

  “It sounded like it, but wasn’t it severely damaged?” Sol asked.

  “Yes. I don’t think it was going anywhere, and it looked like it’d been there a long time. Maybe these guys—were there even people in the armor?—were stranded here after some… thing happened?” Nexin asked.

  “Maybe we should take another look at that…” Sol trailed off, then his voice came back sharp and shocked. “No! That can’t be.”

  “What can’t be?” Nexin asked, hackles rising at the tone of the man’s voice.

  “The Ember, the one we just placed, I can’t sense it anymore,” Sol said.

  “The magic of the bowl?” Nexin asked, turning in the air from the black crater.

  “It doesn’t do that.”

  “I’ll meet you there.” Nexin simultaneously ignited four small wings while flaring two more, launching himself into the sky to skim just above what was left of the fog. Ahead of him, sunlight glinted off Sol’s icy wings, the other man also racing in the direction of the Ember’s shrine. One flare after another—a trick he’d learned from El—sped him along, the distance between the two men growing smaller with every passing second. Still, Sol was no slouch in the speed department, and he dove below the fog line a solid five seconds before Nexin arrived.

  “Well?” Nexin asked, his feet tapping down on the stone. He needn’t have bothered, the answer was clear—the Ember’s bowl was empty. “I thought you said nothing could take the Ember out of that for a hundred years.”

  “Nothing could have—should have—been able to,” Sol said. The man took a step forward and held his hand above the bowl, a blue glow spreading from his fingers to encompass the electrum. “I… I don’t recognize this. There is some kind of interference with the bowl’s magic.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Could the Vestish travel magic remove the Ember?” Nexin asked. Whoever had taken the Ember had to have moved quickly—he and Sol weren’t gone long. A few minutes at most. “Wait, no, the armor… they were a distraction. Pilish magic?”

  Sol shook his head. “No Spark did this. Something else. I agree the armor was a distraction, though. I think we should take another look at that ship you found earlier. Can you show me where it was?”

  “Absolutely,” Nexin said, leaping into the air with Sol quick behind him. As soon as he crested the layer of fog, he took a quick second to orient himself to the massive library structure, then flew out towards the sea. The mist still sat thick over the water, hiding the waves beneath, but Nexin had found the boat by the way the fog had moved over it before. Eyes peeled, he scanned across the cloudy surface for that same movement. Then a second time. And a third.

  Nothing. All the fog looked to be moving exactly the same way.

  “Well?” Sol asked.

  “It should be somewhere down in that area,” Nexin said, pointing to a general area where he thought he’d found the ship before. “But, I don’t see what I saw before.”

  “Where it should be, huh? Sounds familiar, like the Ember,” Sol said. “But we don’t have time to search the whole bay. Stand—fly—back a bit.”

  Nexin didn’t bother questioning the other man, gliding backwards until he put fifty feet between them. Sol watched him until the man seemed comfortable with the distance between them, then raised his hand.

  Power exploded in a visible wave, the temperature plummeting in an instant. A sweep of his extended hand in front of him threw that power out in a cone that instantly stretched a mile long and wide at its furthest point. A series of near-instant cracks sounded across the bay as the mist within the cone was suddenly brittle ice, shattering under its own weight to fall to the surface of the water.

  And there, within the now-clear stretch of gentle waves sat… nothing.

  No ship.

  “You’re sure it was here?” Sol asked him, though he followed up with a second and then a third sweep of his hand. Those three simple gestures and almost the entire bay was free of fog. Free to display the blue and white of shifting water, completely bereft of any ships.

  “It was there,” Nexin said. “Definitely. It must’ve… sunk, I guess? It was damaged—far too damaged to sail. I think.”

  Sol stared down at the water from where he hovered in the air, and shook his head. “It seems far too oddly convenient for it to have picked these last few minutes to have sunk. And without a trace? No, I struggle to find that reasonable.”

  “Then it can’t have gone far,” Nexin said. “The bay only goes in one direction. If we hurry, we can cut it off before it gets out to sea.” He pointed down the coast towards where mountains on both sides cupped the fog-lined bay between them.

  “Yes, let’s go,” Sol agreed, and the pair of them sped above the surface of the fog towards the entrance of the bay.

  Nexin kept his eyes peeled for the familiar pattern that would signal a ship beneath the mist, but nothing caught his attention as they flew. “I’m going to get a better view,” he said, arching his back slightly to climb hundreds of feet further into the sky. From there, the entire bay spread out beneath him, the section of fog Sol had cleared already misting over.

  “Anything?” Sol asked.

  “Nothing. It’s like the ship was never here in the first place,” Nexin said. “But I didn’t imagine it.”

  “I believe you,” Sol said. “Keep an eye out from up there. I’ll clear the entrance to the bay, and we’ll wait for the ship to arrive.”

  “Sounds good,” Nexin replied, slowing to hover more than half a mile above the water. From there, he had a good vantage of the area below, and true to his words, Sol cleared out the space between the two mountains. The water just beyond grew noticeably choppier—like there was a demarcation line—but there weren’t any ships there either. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Neither do I,” Sol said, his voice sounding grave.

  “Burn it. Could the ship be another distraction?” Nexin asked, his head turning back towards the city where the fog was significantly thinner. “Keep us out here while they—whoever they are—transport the Ember out through the city?”

  “Similar to the bay only having one way out, the valley the city is in only has one exit by land. If somebody really is trying to leave, they’d have to pass through it. Look to the west. You should be able to see a literal circle of stone within the mountains,” Sol instructed.

  “Got it. You good here on your own?” Nexin asked as Sol swept the fog away a second time.

  “Yes. Stay in touch,” Sol said.

  “You too,” Nexin replied, giving the bay one last look before flaring his wings and rocketing towards the one path through the mountains. His eyes continued to scan the city as he passed over it, hurrying now, but not rushing. If he could spot movement—people, anything—it could be the clue they needed. But the city was as still as ever, only the columns of smoke from the earlier explosions breaking up the monotony of the foggy city.

  Whoever had taken the Ember was doing a burning good job of staying out of sight. Worse, there wasn’t even a clue as to why it’d been taken.

  Then again, something told Nexin it couldn’t be anything good, so he gave up on searching the city and instead headed directly toward the only exit. He’d wait there for whoever was coming, and he’d stop them.

  Except… nobody showed up. Not at the land exit from the tunnel, or in the bay. Nexin and Sol both waited until after the sun set, but nothing had passed either of them. No derelict, metal warship by sea, and nothing on land either.

  “Are they making us wait because they know we’re here? Or hoping we’ll give up?” Nexin asked.

  “More likely they already slipped past,” Sol said, his voice quiet with a hint of something else. Anger? Frustration? Worry? All of the above?

  “Sol, I’ve been thinking, is there some kind of… I don’t know, illusion magic?” Nexin asked. “Something that could make people invisible? Or make me see a ship that wasn’t really there?”

  Sol was silent for a moment before he finally answered. “Yes, there was a nation far to the south of Balacin, whose people lived within vast rainforests. They used that kind of magic to both hunt and keep themselves safe from the area’s natural predators.”

  “Could they…?”

  “No,” Sol said quickly. “They are… primitive isn’t the right word. Simple? They live for family and community, with very little care what happens outside their forests. Even after their Ember was stolen, their way of life didn’t change much, as they’d never had powerful Sparks to begin with. When I passed through with my storm, they had no way to get from there to here. It can’t have been them.”

  Nexin rubbed at his jaw as he thought. “Then the Pilish armor is our only clue. It seems too obvious, almost like another distraction, but I don’t see any alternative but following it. El won’t be back to pick us up for a week… assuming she’s not running into the same trouble over there.

  “If it really is the Pilish, they could already be in danger.” Nexin’s gaze immediately turned to the distant east. “How far did you say it was?”

  “Days of flight,” Sol said. “But I agree. It’s the only lead we have, so we’re forced to follow. On a more positive note, it’s unlikely the thieves worried about being followed if they left by sea. Only the Firestorm—and me—can fly.”

  Nexin nodded, even though Sol couldn’t possibly see him. “They’re in for a bit of a surprise. I know we’ve already been searching all day, but should we…?”

  “Wait until morning,” Sol said slowly. “I know you’re worried about El—don’t be, she can take care of herself, and she has her friends with her—but we won’t spot anything at night anyway. We could pass right over a ship on the water and not notice. Besides, it’s a long flight with few places to stop. We’ll need all our strength to make it at the pace we’ll be going.”

  “You’re right,” Nexin said. “But we leave at the crack of dawn.” Part of Nexin wanted to rush right out and start flying east to chase after the ship—and to make sure his sister was alright. But, Sol had a good point, it was a long way to go.

  El, stay safe until we get there.