Free Dear Muse (Those Whom the Gods Wish to Destroy Book 1) by Shawn Mackey

liquid beads. These droplets rained onto the ground, gradually forming into small bodies of water. They eventually evaporated because of the fire below, leaving behind residue of the top boundary. The bottom boundary grew thicker from the additional material of its opposite.
    The warm smoke continued to cling to the top boundary as the air collected more dust from below, creating a firestorm. The conflagration caused the muddy soil to copiously drip, softening the top layer into loose mud. The entire ceiling, unable to hold the icy liquid, collapsed and passed through the firestorm, extinguishing it and further defrosting the water. The steamy mixture smashed into the ground. The titanic waves and violent winds formed a calamitous tempest, isolating the giant cloud of smoke in the former location of the top portion.
    The water finally stilled to a steady tide with chunks of the mud floating on the surface. Many of these clung together and solidified into large masses of land. When they dried out, the air once again collected dust from their surfaces and carried the particles to the above smoke cloud. As the land masses were brought together to form a cohesive continent, the dust storm continued to feed the smoke, while also forming a cyclone in the middle. The winds formed the particles into a solid ball, hoisted into the black cloud and igniting a spherical inferno. The cyclone carrying this ball of flame separated from the air, which collected more dust to feed the fire. This process cleared away the smoke, until the ball burned out, causing the black cloud to condense again. It eventually burned the charred ball, feeding the cyclone and continuing the cycle.
    While the air fed dust to the fire, it aided the tide in beating against the land mass, soaking the rocky cliffs. The constant friction caused pieces to break off and float. The smaller rocks were broken by the tide, as well as their smaller counterparts, until the tiniest bits are pulverized into dust. This dust mingled with the water and solidified, leaving a layer of mud on the surface. This mud couldn’t solidify due to the tide, and instead thinned and spread out into a filmy crust. The crust was carried by the tide, where it is tossed onto the larger masses of rock, and gradually dried into dirt.
    The dirt, like the water, was pushed by the perpetual burning storm above, yet unable to join with the floating mote of dust because it was too heavy to rise. The dirt swirled around, forming tiny clods that smashed into each other, reformed, smashed, and reformed. Through countless destructions and creations, the dirt became looser and looser. It also ceased to push the tide, yet residual dirt was still tossed back onto rocks and reformed.
    The cycle calmed, then ceased altogether. The firestorm above continued to stir, while the middle layer was utterly still. The earth layer below the water vibrated, either as a result of the clashing clods of dirt above or somehow accommodating its absence, and shook the lowermost portion of the spherical dome. This rattled the fire as well, heating up the earth and boiling the waters. The lower layer liquefied and mingled with the water, extinguishing the lowermost fire. This boiling mixture bubbled. With the popping of each massive bubble, molten residue was cast onto the rocks. Since the middle portion of the spherical dome was lowered, dust took longer to fuel the firestorm, which made the cycles of smoke and air much longer, reaching two perfectly balanced periods of night and day.
    The waters ceased bubbling, and once again the tide beat against the rocks, where the liquid earth formed on the shores and solidified into molten ooze. This ooze dripped along the land and collected the residue from the burst bubbles. Once it accumulated every last drop, it loosened into a watery substance and absorbed by the rocks, leaving the impression of a muddy lake. As the surrounding dust was swept up by the air, the mud started to slowly