Bubbling glass spat sparks against Kaelen’s slippers as he caught the old herbalist by the shoulder.
“Get back, both of you!” Sera shouted, planting her pike butt into the stone and trying to step between them.
The heat radiating from Barnaby’s chest was staggering. The stone flagstones beneath his knees were turning translucent and soft, melting into pools of dark, slag-slick glass. Tongues of incandescent crimson flame licked through the rents in his linen shirt, swirling like petals of a blooming lotus.
“Stand down, girl,” Barnaby rasped, coughing up a mouthful of black soot before grinning through blood-stained teeth. “This isn’t a death rattle. It’s an eviction notice.”
Old Barnaby has complained about drafty windows, weak porridge, and my nap schedule every morning for three years, Kaelen thought, feeling the blistering heat against his knuckles. Now that his ribs are literally on fire, he looks happier than an ox in clover.
“Can you walk?” Kaelen asked mildly.
“Don’t need to walk far,” Barnaby grunted, leaning his weight onto Kaelen’s shoulder. “Take me into the heart-chamber behind the central pillar. Quick, before I burn a hole through your nice slippers.”
Kaelen supported the old man’s left side, steering him past the verdigris-crusted array nodes toward the heavy basalt hatch at the rear of the dais. Sera moved to follow, but Barnaby raised his soot-blackened hand.
