Hot Stones for a Burning Man

About this book

In Calderra, a spa-city carved down the flank of a sleeping volcano, rank is measured by how close you may stand to the hot springs. Mabry Tull stands at the very bottom: a stone-carrier in the furnace pits beneath the Ninth Basin, with palms so callused she can hold a coal, and two failed healer's examinations behind her. Then the Crown sends down a patient nobody upstairs will touch. Ser Aurel Castine, the last officer of the disbanded Ember Corps, burns from within, and in forty days the guild will sink him in the icy Sorrow Spring until the fire, and most of what he feels, goes out. Until then, someone must keep him calm. Mabry's hands are the only ones that can bear him. But the longer she holds him, the less she wants to let the cold have him.