Bramin hurled his weight against the iron gates. The metal screeched against its frame, refusing to yield beneath a crust of rime. “Bolted from the courtyard!” he shouted into the deadening cold. Fiala pressed her stiffening palms to her wool skirt. The ledger's frantic scribbles and that unnatural mechanical shriek could only mean Kresen had severed whatever tether kept the glasshouse standing. “The Solace-Blooms,” she whispered. Across the flagstones, the three stalks bowed beneath a coat of frost. Crimson petals turned gray along their edges, curling inward as their glow faded. Bramin kicked the lower latch. The blow reverberated up the iron bars without shifting the deadbolt. “Every transom along the west gallery?” he asked, looking up at the high clerestory windows. “Rime locks the bronze levers when the temp drops below zero,” Fiala said, drawing her knit shawl around her shoulders. Her teeth clicked together. “The frost wedges the frames shut.” She turned toward the tangled eastern wing. “The Fire-Lily bulb,” she said. “Grandmother kept it quarantined behind the salt trench because the sap catches like pitch.” Bramin looked toward the shadowed arches. “The resinous one from the ash-marsh? If that ignites dry timber, the whole hall goes up.” “The seedlings have ten minutes before their root systems split from frost,” she countered. “We won't last much longer. The bulb throws enough dry heat to thaw the central vault.” Bramin unbuttoned his thick wool courier's jacket and settled it across her shoulders. “Show me where she planted it.” They picked their way past brittle ferns that snapped like glass under their boots. Rime coated the cedar planks, forcing Fiala to keep one hand along the damp brick retaining walls. Behind a curtain of gray beard-lichen hung a single knotted stem, rooted in a lead cauldron. Its calyx was blackened and tight as a walnut. “It feeds on brimstone or direct friction,” Fiala said. “Once the dried husk catches, the sepals expand instantly. We need to clear the planter box the second it takes.” Bramin crouched and drew a flint striker and a scrap of charred linen from his belt kit. His stiff knuckles slipped on the steel, throwing a dead spark into the soil. “Let me brace the stone,” Fiala said, dropping down beside him and wrapping her fingers over his to steady the angle. Together, they rasped the steel across the flint edge. A bright orange fleck bounced into the dry bracts. The husk hissed, smoked, and flared into an amber knot of flame. “Back!” Fiala hauled on Bramin’s sleeve, pulling him behind the brick partition as the bulb split with a pop like dry cedar on a hearth. Ribbons of orange radiance unfurled from the core, bathing the brickwork in searing heat. Above them, iron crossbeams groaned as the temperature spiked. Cracks raced across the frosted overhead glazing with sharp, dry snaps. Amber radiance filled the gallery. Overhead, the crystalline crust loosened from the mullions, sliding down the curved panes in heavy, slushy sheets before spattering onto the flagstones as warm runoff. Runoff dripped into the central bed, soaking the mulch around the Solace-Blooms. As the warmth reached their roots, their stalks straightened. The three closed buds swelled, parting their outer leaves to reveal luminous crimson petals that released an aroma of rain-soaked earth and dried lavender. Fiala knelt by the border stones, her hands resting flat against the wet loam. Bramin leaned against the low wall beside her, watching the embers of the Fire-Lily settle into steady, glowing coals. An iron crash rattled the entryway as the exterior crossbar sheared away. The conservatory's front gates swung outward into the mist, framing six guardsmen in copper breastplates, halberds lowered against the red glare.

The Frozen Sanctuary