I breathe a long exhale, but focusing on my breath does little to help. I can smell it, the char in the air. Even a week later, Danfalla reeks of fire as we sail over it on our way out. Dovik stands at the fore of the ship, staring down into the ruin and wreckage beneath us as we glide past. Despite the dark, some people still stare up at the sky, tracking the shadow of my vessel with their eyes. I try not to think of it, and I fail.

The location Corinth gave me is more vague than I would like, but we find each other without much issue. He is there, standing on a hill precisely thirteen miles outside the city, glowing like an ember in the night. He blurs, moving like a falling star in reverse as he soars into the sky to abruptly stop in front of the rim of the ship. His fine shoes make a small tapping sound as he steps onto the disc. He eyes Dovik, receiving a bow from the younger man.

"Are you ready?" Corinth asks me.

"I've made myself ready," I say. "Dovik decided to come."

"I saw that." Corinth turns to him. "Did she tell you where she is going?"

"A fabled country of enchanters followed by an undersea hell," he summarizes.

"It's just the entrance that is underwater," he says. "Have you ever been to a second-rank continent?"

"No." Dovik considers for a moment. "Faeth can't be second-rank, can it?"

"It is. In fact, it is their number-obsessed goddess that invented most of the commonly used ranking systems."

"And here I am without my father's wallet."

Why must it always be my job to do this? "What's a second-rank continent?" I ask, mocking my own voice. The joke fails to land, given the looks the two men turn my way.

"A way of categorizing the relative manasphere density of a continental region. Second rank is the second highest, second most dense," Dovik explains, still looking at me a bit strangely.

I shouldn't make jokes. I'm not funny.

"Didn't they teach you this in church?" Corinth asks, folding his arms.

"My big brother said he was going to show me a school, but then he got caught up in small talk. He loves small talk."

"Yeah, yeah." Corinth walks toward the throne, touching the arm with two fingers. An orange moves from his fingers, delving into the surface of the metal and spreading through a network of vein-like linkages in an instant. "Ship seems fine."

"You're a shipwright now?"

"No," he says, holding out his hand and drawing runes in the air above his palm. "It just didn't explode or start to crash. It's a good sign." The rune begins to expand in the air in front of him as he adds more and more lines ot the singular network of flames. The complexity continues to evolve as it pushes out along the sides, becoming a three-dimensional work of spellcraft. "I can't get us all the way to Faeth; I don't have an anchor point on the continent. This spell will take us most of the way, cutting weeks off the trip. Faeth is almost on the other side of the world this time of year."

"What do you mean by that?" I ask.

"Didn't you know, it's…Eh, you'll see."

Before I can ask anything further, the spellcraft above his hand begins to burn brighter than any star. The world turns white, I feel a tugging sensation in my gut, and then I don't feel anything.

"I need to ask you why you have a connection to one of the Thrones now. I need to ask you why you have been touched by Exeter."

I stare blankly at Corinch a moment before the question registers with me. It isn't as if I have forgotten; I don't think that I will ever be able to forget the feeling of being in Exeter's presence, of feeling my strange, golden body in that realm, or the final indignity of being squashed like a bug beneath his heel. That final moment, pleading for my life, for help, just to be smashed flat. A part of me hoped that it had been a dream, another hallucination. Of course, it can't have been.

"How can you tell?" I ask.

He exhales through his nose, a hint of annoyance that I would even ask. "Tell me, Charlene. Tell me now." His gaze is harder than I have ever seen it.

The thought that he might be trying to intimidate me comes to my mind, but I don't see any real hostility in his eyes, only concern. My fingers are twisting through a dark curl of crimson locks when I look down. It has been this way since I emerged from the coffin, stained the color of blood. No amount of washing has made it change back. When I learned of the others who had a similar change, I spent three hours in the bath, trying to scrub the color away.

I'm not unique. They began to find them the morning after we managed to survive the Remade and his servants. Beneath that red sky, many others went through the same change as I did. They had hundreds, elves, humans, and everything in between by the end of that first day. Their hair, whether black or flaxen blonde, had taken on the same luster as mine, bloody red. The only thing was, all of those people are dead. I'm the only one still breathing.

My fingers rub the locks of dark red between them, just my newest scar. When I turn to look at Corinth, my eyes don't water as I recount the story. I spare no detail, no minute point, and give him everything. His face is pensive, staring down at space, when I have finished.

"He said that?" Corinth asks. "Exeter said that about me?"

I nod. "He did. Is it true?"

Corinth chews on the memory a moment, thinking. "That's right. The important part is that he spoke of me at all. That is…interesting."

"Tell me about it," I say.

He shakes his head. "Before that, tell me about the Throne. Describe the man you saw as well as you can."

"If I tell you that, you tell me your story."

He waves his hand. "I'm going to have to. Describe this person to me again. You are certain that he wasn't sitting on the throne."

I describe the man once more for him. I give him all the names and titles that he had thrown at me. I even describe the strange half-dream I had before seeing him for the first time. Can one dream inside the divine realm? Isn't that where souls are? Now that I think about it, I don't really have any idea where all of that happened. Something to ask my brother later.

Corinth clicks his tongue. "If you're sure he never sat upon it. Sometimes it is hard to notice, but if you're sure, then I don't know who that was. There's just so much of it that doesn't make sense. How could you even approach a throne without finding a seed? Even for the lost thrones, it should be impossible, especially then."

"What does any of that mean? What is a seed? What are the thrones really, and what are the lost ones? What did Monarch of Fire mean?"

His eyes focus when I say that name. "You heard that, did you?"

"Corinth, I just met a god. I saw Exeter, I saw his indifference. He looked at me like I was a spec of dust, and I felt it. I felt so small. I can't understand this feeling. It's like nothing matters in front of that; that anything I do will be more than a smear that will wash away in front of something as monumental as him. It makes me angry, Corinth. I hate it. So, if these Thrones have something to do with things like him, tell me. I need to know."

He pauses another moment. "I'm glad I put this barrier up," he says. Corinth holds up his hand to forestall my immediate words. "I was in the third rank before I came face to face with Exeter. I had just won a tournament and was claiming the prize: a tome named The Mage's Ascent. The tournament was spectacular. A series of tunnels that one had to go through time and time again with more elaborate traps and monsters added to each new generation of tunnels. Some of the most genius dungeon designs that I have ever seen. I met a friend…"

"I would love to hear about that some other time."

"Right. The tome was secretly an artifact called a Seed of Supplication that only functioned once the riddles inside were solved. It was a prize that I never expected to receive, but one that I coveted. To simplify, Seeds of Supplication allow for someone to beseech a Heavenly Throne, artifacts of unimaginable power that reside near this planet on the divine realm. Most of those considered deities across the world hold at least one throne in their power, but that doesn't mean they hold sole control. The Hundred Heavenly Thrones each harbor dominion over the prime concepts; you can think of them as the limiting conduits of the divine channel through Idris."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"This surely means something to somebody."

He grunts, visibly searching the air for a way to explain this to an uncultured farm girl like me. "The Thrones hold the power of the prime affixes of magic, and they are sentient artifacts. If you angered one enough that it turned its back on you, say, the Throne of Morning Glory, you might lose total access to your fire affix."

"Access? You make it sound like they are loaning me affixes."

"No," he says. "But also, it is a bit like that. They are loaned, they are allowed. Even those who sit upon the thrones do not have full dominion over the power of the thrones. The thrones themselves create Seeds of Supplication, allowing those who gain them to approach the throne. If the throne finds the supplicant to be a better fit, chaos on a grand scale breaks out, and either the supplicant or the one upon the throne already is destroyed. There is a pact that keeps the supplicants safe until the throne decides they are worthy. Usually, the thrones decide that someone is promising, declaring them to be a scion of the throne and granting them a small measure of the throne's power.

"I deciphered the book, I was beckoned by the Throne of Magic, and I met Exeter. I fell to my knees before the god, I supplicated myself, and he sneered. Somehow, he stopped my bond to the Throne of Magic; I still don't know how. I always wondered if he was the one who corrupted the magic that returned me to the mortal realm, because when I arrived back, I found myself in Lastor."

"Lastor?" I know my eyes are wide by the look he gives me. That was supposed to be the worst of the Three Hells, an abyss of galing winds and raging fire. It was the realm of devils and dark gods.

"Yes. The Hells aren't what they taught in church. They are unclaimed and wild lands, places on this world made into jagged scars by incredible devastation, where the magic in the air is bent and wrong. Time there moves strangely, and in Lastor, a day there is as a month there. I made the fifth rank in a decade. It's true in a way, but I spent eighty years in Lastor. I thought myself so brilliant, a genius among my peers, but there I was just a bug. I became a lion in Lastor; it was that or die." He shakes his head. "Anyway. Lastor was created when twelve gods went to war. Ten of the gods died, and the powers unleashed in their final moments scared the land. Of those ten, three of their thrones remain unclaimed today, making up a part of the lost thrones. Two years ago, it was four thrones unclaimed."

"So, you're a god?"

He smiles, but there is no mirth in it. "Fortunately for us all, it takes more than sitting on a throne to claim godhood. I found a seed that led me to the Throne of Fire, and I found it without someone upon it. Even then, the throne did not allow me to claim it because I lacked the requirements. It did give me the power to escape Laster, and since then, I have claimed the title Monarch of Fire. I do not sit on the throne itself; I can't control it like the gods do, but it does lend me a good stretch of its domain. But that is what I cannot understand the most about your story. You claim that you were able to approach the Throne of Magic before being blocked the same as I was. Only, afterward, you were able to approach another throne: the Throne of War, another of the lost thrones. You didn't have a seed for even one of the thrones, let alone two. Crossing the third threshold in an attribute, connecting your soul directly to the material pathways of the body, and redrawing your own mana channels are all incredible feats, and one might warrant a direct invitation from a throne, but I can't imagine a lost throne taking notice without a seed."

We both lapse into silence for a moment while he thinks. It takes him muttering to himself for several moments before something strikes me.

"It felt as if my crown had some connection to the thrones, both the Throne of War and the Throne of Magic."

He blinks at me. "What crown?"

"The one I'm…" I reach up, touching my head, and realizing that I don't feel the crown there. Right, the new ability that left me naked. Opening a window with a thought, I reach into the shadowy representation of me wearing all of my equipment, and pull the crown into reality. "This crown," I say.

He squints at me, looking between my hand and my face. "I still don't sense anything. Are you saying that you are holding something?"

We go back and forth on this for a while, mainly because I think he is trying to make fun of me. It turns out that Corinth can't sense the crown at all, not even when I lay it in his hands. He casts all sorts of spells, one after another, trying to detect the magical object, but getting nothing.

"I have no idea what this is," he tells me.

I pick the crown up off the roof next to him, where he dropped it a few minutes ago, while he tries to hand me back empty air. "That doesn't put me much at ease."

"It shouldn't. If I am somehow blocked from perceiving it, and if it has a connection to not just one, but two thrones, then it is an incredibly dangerous item. Obfuscation like this should be almost impossible to pierce, but just in case, you should keep that hidden as best as you can."

"Should I get rid of it?" I ask after already placing it back into my hidden armory.

"Absolutely not. If that item is acting as your tether to the Throne of War, getting rid of it might be disastrous. You have to keep it with you. From what you described to me and from what I can see of your connection to the higher plane, your bond to the Throne of War is wrong. You told me that the throne granted you two abilities already, but that shouldn't have happened that way. There is damage in your link to the divine realm. It is a very bad thing, Charlene."

"How bad?"

"A part of reaching the third rank is solidifying your soul's connection to the material realm. Doing that would likely be lethal with the damage I see. If left as it is, your bond to the divine realm might fray and snap; you would lose access to magic."

There it is, the other shoe dropping. I knew that it had to be too good to be true. If I deserved the power that came to me merely because I suffered, then thousands would have what I have. The tonic is poisoned, and I'm going to lose everything.

"How long?"

"A decade, maybe two," he says.

I hit him in the shoulder as hard as I can, and he lets me. "Jerk. You really scared me."

"It is a serious issue, Charlene," he says. "I'm not kidding."

"It's an issue," I agree. "But you made it sound like I'm going to die tomorrow." I grow quiet, what Corinth said about seeds earlier, making something stand out. "These Seeds of Supplication, can they only be books?"

"No, they can be anything. Often, they are items that are within the core concept of a throne," he says.

I nod at him. "Because, I think I saw one, one for the Throne of War." I tell him again about the vision that I had after touching the throne, of the great spear. Somehow, I know with a certainty that it is a seed, that it is what should have brought me before the throne. Surprisingly, I find Corinth agreeing at once with my idea. "If I managed to get that seed, would it help fix the damage?"

"Potentially," he grimaces. "I think I have heard of the battlefield you described. There is another place where the gods slaughtered one another, likely where the Throne of War now resides."

"Where?"

"Tabbris, one of the three hells."

Corinth goes on to describe the place, claiming that it is the most stable of the commonly known "lost planes" as he calls them. He even claims that the Vivantee Empire holds a permanent gateway to the Hell of Tabbris, a land that exists deep, deep beneath the earth. Apparently, the underwater empire sends its elites there to train in the stupidly dangerous environment as some sort of coming-of-age ritual. Many die, but those who return are forever stronger for it. The idea of this underwater empire being the strongest military force in the world makes more sense to me if I factor in that their elite ruling class has all been to hell and back.

I ask Corinth to take me there. I ask Corinth for many things, to help Jess, the first among them. He claims that he is incapable of healing soul damage, but that he might know someone capable, and that he will look for them when he can. About taking me to Tabbris, he flatly refuses, claiming that I am nowhere near strong enough to survive. If I can't go to Tabbris, I can't find this spear. Without the spear, I can't repair my link to the divine, whatever that means. Without that, Corinth claims I will be incapable of reaching the third rank. I don't have a decade to do that; I only have less than two years to do that now.

I ask him to go get the spear for me, but he claims that he can't. Corinth says that passing a test of some kind is required to reach the spear. I will have to do it myself; his helping even a little might make the throne remove the seed. He says that he won't even be willing to enter Tabbris for fear that he might be viewed as helping by the Throne of War.

It is when I ask him to help me fix my eye that he hits on an idea. "You said that eye was from Faeth?" he asks.

"That is what I was told."

He nods. "If I were to recommend a way to repair that, it would be to have an enchanter in Faeth take a look at it. You claimed to want to learn enchanting, yes? There is no better place to learn than in Faeth; they are the greatest enchanters in the world."

I can't lie, the idea sounds appealing. Over the last months, I have begun to really enjoy enchanting. The idea of learning from such people is better than I can really hope for.

I shake my head. "There is no time. I have a deadline that I need to reach. Perhaps after everything has been settled. I do need to repair my eye, though."

"You might have more time than you think," he says. "I told you that time moves differently in the Hells. I have never been to Tabbris, but I have been told that it is similar to Lastor. Time spent there will be faster than time spent here. I propose this to you. Spend some time away from the fighting, learn enchanting, and grow your power in that way. From everything you have told me, you have been fighting nonstop since you gained your essentia. That isn't good for you. I'm willing to bet that if you changed your focus to the craft of magic, you would find yourself growing more. The academy in Faeth will open its doors to a new semester soon. Spend two or three semesters there, growing stronger gradually, in a more purposeful way. If you can show me true strength then, I will take you to Tabbris."

It worries me that he thinks I am not strong enough to go to Tabbris now. I feel stronger than ever before; I feel that if I call upon the empowering magic of the Throne of War, I can take on a third-rank magician. Maybe that is hubris, maybe it is a false confidence granted to me by the throne's power. If he is right, about Tabbris being that dangerous, even for me as I am, then I am willing to take his word for it.

That thing, that monster that called itself the Thirty Seventh, it was so far above all of us that we couldn't even scratch it. Corinth says that he doesn't know what it was, that he just sensed the magic of a malevolent rank-four monster and acted immediately. In the end, I called for help twice, and my brothers answered each time. Not sure how to feel about that. If I want to think about how much stronger some monsters are than me, I have a new benchmark. I can't even begin to understand how terrifying the creatures in a place called hell will be. Still, there is some light in the future I can see. I have always wanted to learn real enchantment.

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