Chapter 66 THE SUN UNBOUND
The moment Lyra's scream was lost in the ash storm, time in the palace stood still.
But this wasn't the "time freeze" trick Atlas had done before. This was the vacuum silence before an explosion.
Atlas was alone in his stroller amidst the rubble. His crying had stopped. His silver eyes were locked on that black hole in the sky where Lyra had vanished.
First, the metal frame of the stroller glowed red. Then it melted.
"Get back!" Dorian shouted, grabbing Serra.
A shockwave radiating from Atlas vaporized the glass shards on the ground. The baby levitated. The air around him became so hot that the image began to distort. Atlas no longer looked like a baby; he was a silhouette inside a ball of white fire.
"He's burning!" Serra screamed. "Dorian, my son is burning!"
"No," Dorian said, shielding his eyes with his arm. "He's not burning. He is burning everything else. Lyra is gone. His coolant is gone. He's having a core meltdown!"
The protective shield around Atlas was expanding. Everything it touched—stone, metal, plant—turned to ash. If not stopped, within minutes he would turn the entire palace, then the entire city, into a crater.
(WALKING INTO FIRE)
"Do something!" Serra shouted.
"We can't touch him," Kael said, crawling away, his face red from the heat. "Anyone who gets close will be vaporized."
Dorian looked at his son, suspended in the air, trembling in pain and rage. He wasn't a monster. He was just a scared child whose other half had been ripped away.
Dorian took off his jacket. He ripped his shirt open. He exposed the Golden Seal on his chest.
"I'm going in," Dorian said.
"You'll die," Lukas said.
"I am a father," Dorian said. "Burning is my job."
Dorian stepped into that circle of white fire.
At the first step, his eyebrows and eyelashes were singed.
At the second step, his skin began to blister.
At the third step, the air in his lungs became so hot he couldn't breathe.
But he didn't stop. The seal on his chest began to glow, resonating with Atlas's energy. The seal tried to absorb the heat, distributing it through Dorian's body.
Atlas saw his father. There was no recognition in his eyes. Only pure, destructive power.
"GONE!" Atlas's mental voice hit Dorian's mind like a sledgehammer. "MY PART IS GONE!"
"I'm here," Dorian said through gritted teeth. His skin was peeling, healing, and peeling again. "I am here, Atlas."
Dorian took the last step and plunged his hand into that white fire.
His flesh sizzled and burned. But he grabbed Atlas's wrist.
"Look at me!" Dorian roared. "You can burn me! You can burn the world! But that won't bring her back!"
(THE HUMAN LIGHTNING ROD)
Atlas felt the contact on his wrist. He felt his father's pain.
The fire hesitated for a moment.
Dorian used that split-second gap. With his other hand, he pulled Atlas close and hugged him.
It was like hugging a volcano.
Dorian screamed in agony. The skin on his back cracked. But he didn't let go. The golden seal pressed against Atlas's chest.
Dorian pumped his own life energy, his own soul, into Atlas like a coolant fluid.
"Take it," Dorian whispered, his consciousness fading. "Take my strength. Take my calm. Don't burn, Atlas. Hold it."
Slowly, the white light faded. The heat dropped.
Atlas's body cooled. The baby rested his head on his father's burned chest and began to cry with hiccups. This crying wasn't destructive; it was human.
Dorian fell to his knees in the ash, the baby in his arms. He was smoking.
Serra ran to them. "Dorian!"
Dorian lifted his head. Half his face was burned, but it was healing rapidly. He smiled. A bitter smile.
"It's not out," Dorian said, looking at Atlas in his arms. "We just... changed its direction."
Atlas reached his hand north, toward where Valerius had gone. A thin beam of light, like a laser, shot from his fingertips.
"He became a compass," Serra said.
(JOURNEY TO RAVEN CASTLE)
While Valeria and Lukas tried to bandage Dorian's burns, Kael was prepping the weapons.
"The cars are melted," Kael said. "Helicopters can't fly; the ash will clog the engines. How do we get there?"
Dorian stood up. He was still smoking, but the fire in his eyes hadn't gone out.
"We aren't walking," Dorian said. He handed Atlas to Serra.
Dorian walked to the center of that large, scorched area in the garden.
"Valerius said he was erased from my father's history books," Dorian said. "But that wasn't the only thing my father erased. He hid Volcan's true power too."
Dorian ripped the grate off the floor with one hand. Underneath, there wasn't a sewer tunnel, but a rail system.
"What is this?" Lukas asked.
"The Underground Train," Dorian said. "Before the Void Weavers... my great-grandfathers built it. It runs on magma power. It travels through the veins of the earth."
Dorian pulled a rusty lever on the side of the tracks.
A whistle sounded from the depths of the earth. And then, a massive locomotive made of black metal with a dragon's head glided onto the tracks and into the station.
One word was inscribed on the train: "INFERNO".
"Get in," Dorian said. "We are going to get our daughter. And this time, there are no brakes."