Seth goes through coals

The coals were burning too uniformly and with too much heat to have been recently lit. He suspected some magic kept them eternally smoldering.

He edged forward, stopping about ten feet away from the room, where the heat became unbearable. His hair starting to singe, Seth took a few steps back to where the temperature was endurable.

(Additional text cut)

What if he cooled the coals? The room was orders of magnitude hotter than a torch. Seth closed his eyes and focused on the relentless heat. He turned his focus inward, searching for the darkness within and the associated reservoir of cold. He located the source and circled it, feeling for the coldest place from which to draw. Then he shifted his energy to project a steady flow toward the coals. The effort seemed futile against the intense heat, but as Seth poured out all the cold he could summon, he felt the temperature of nearest coals wavering.

Good, a whispery female voice spoke to his mind, startling him. Not the intended method of passage, but clever. Keep trying.

Seth redoubled his efforts, trying to fully extinguish the coals the way he had doused the torch with Ronodin. The coals seemed to yield voluntarily to his power, and soon he had cooled a wide stripe of them across the center of the room. But the coals to either side continued to radiate significant heat.

In previous attempts, Seth had siphoned cold from himself to douse fire; now he wondered if perhaps he could call upon it to protect his body from heat. Drawing more gently from his power, Seth directed the cold to encompass his body, and the chill seeped over him until he was shivering.

Keeping the coldness close, Seth raced onto the path of neutralized coals across the center of the room, kicking up ashes with each crunchy step. Intense heat encroached on the cold cocoon he had summoned, and he drew on the cold more powerfully until he dashed through the far doorway. As he staggered down a short hall beyond, the heat receded, and he disengaged from the darkness within.

Chapter 19-Crypt