Fireshaper
an excerpt

By the flickering light of a torch, the girl gazed upon the pictures from a lost age set in the wall in cold-cracked paint. There in the cellars, far from the surface and the warming light of the Godflame, winter’s bite went deep. Her breath made a dark cloud in the air as she wondered at what she saw rendered by a dead artist’s hand: letters in a light, elegant script that flowed from a hand unhampered by chilled flesh, scenes of open grass without the city walls, cattle feeding in the pastures, a blue sky overhead, herderfolk clad in ridiculously light garb that failed to cover their hands or faces, even in some cases their arms. Yet it did not matter. Not a trace of snow or ice appeared anywhere in the picture.

Unthinkable.

And here, the torchlight revealed other wonders. Grapes heavy on the vine. White flowers rising in clouds from the fertile land. A line of horses bearing riders emerging from the familiar walls of the city in the distance, the faces mere blobs with barely suggested features when she looked closely, but when observed from arm’s length seemed detailed and happy, a parade accompanied by a serpentine rainbow of gay banners and gold-fringed gonfalons. Above the city floated large banded shapes, spheres and cylinders painted in gaudy hues and tethered to the wall with long ropes. Master Cernyal called them “balloons.”

She rested her gloved hand reverently against the surface of the painting. The city in this picture was filled to the very gates with prosperity and industry.

And in the background, the greatest wonder of all: the sea.