Cinderheart looked like a nightmare cavalry mount that had escaped from Hell's stables. A massive warhorse standing seven feet tall at the shoulder, forged from living ember and muscle. Its body was deep crimson — raw and glistening like exposed sinew — while a wild mane of white smoke flowed behind it, igniting into ghostly crimson flames at the tips. A molten core burned visibly in its chest, pulsing orange-gold like a second heart.
Its hooves were wreathed in crimson spirit-fire that left no hoofprints — only scorch marks. Although those immediately disappeared on the ground of my Nave, swallowed by the marble as if the floor refused to acknowledge the damage.
The creature was intimidating through and through. Its eyes were like burning coals pulled fresh from a furnace. This horse looked perpetually furious at me specifically, like I'd personally insulted its mother.
Then it shot smoke from its nostrils, twin jets like the exhaust of an angry engine.
I gulped.
